Candidate experience best practices can leave job applicants with a great impression of your company–even if you don’t end up hiring them. Why is this important? Because how you treat candidates directly impacts your company’s reputation, which plays a big role in your ability to attract top talent.
Think of it from a job seeker’s point of view. Would you rather apply to a company that you’ve heard is aloof and inaccessible during the interview process? Or would you prefer one that is notorious for making candidates feel like VIPs? Most logical people would choose the second option in a heartbeat. The difference between the two companies is their candidate experience.
We’ll define candidate experience, explain why it’s a critical component of your employer brand, and share seven candidate experience best practices to help you create a hiring process that leaves applicants with great feelings about you as an employer.
What is a Candidate Experience?
“Candidate experience” defines how job seekers feel about your company after the interview process. Candidates who feel good about their interaction with your recruiters will be more likely to accept an offer, apply to other vacancies in the future, and refer others. A negative experience, on the other hand, can damage your employer brand and increase the challenge of hiring quality talent.
One of the main problems with having a negative candidate experience is that candidates rarely keep it to themselves. They’re highly likely to share the experience with family and friends and, worse, post about it online on sites like Glassdoor. This can influence other candidates who were considering your company to look elsewhere.
Candidate experience also contributes to referrals, which most employers depend on to make quality hires. Sixty-seven percent of North American candidates said they were extremely likely to refer others to a company based on their experience as a candidate. When the company provides an excellent experience, that number jumps to 79%.
Just as negative reviews can impact whether or not consumers spend money with businesses, unflattering remarks from job candidates can significantly impede companies’ employer brands and their ability to attract the best talent. Unpleasant candidate experiences can also hurt a firm’s bottom line.
Unfortunately, the latest numbers indicate that candidate experience is an area more companies could focus on. According to the latest Candidate Experience Benchmark Report from The Talent Board, candidate resentment is rising globally. If that metric sounds ominous, it’s because it is; candidate resentment measures how negatively job seekers rate their candidate experiences. In North America, the resentment rate is historically high at 12%, which indicates that improving candidate experience should be highly important to firms.
Related: How to Elevate Your Employer Branding to Attract Top Talent
Why Does a Candidate Experience Matter?
Having a positive candidate experience sounds great on paper and even better as part of a slide deck on HR strategy, but you might be wondering, does it really make that much of an impact in the real world? To answer this question, you needn’t look any further than Glassdoor, where it’s a free-for-all of candidate experience horror stories.
Here are some choice excerpts from one thread asking users to share their worst-ever interview experience:
“Two interviewers stepped away from the interview on multiple occasions to take client calls (after market hours) and told me everyone at the firm was a workaholic and to not expect to go home before 7-8 pm.”
“Had an interview where the guy couldn’t remember my name. Then couldn’t pronounce it, then called me the name of another person who had come in to talk to him during my interview.”
“Sent me to wrong office location for the final round interview. I was an out of state candidate and the coordinator provided the address for a new location – I was interviewing on a Friday, everyone was moving to this new location the next week. Showed up, not a soul was there.”
The commenters on this thread weren’t afraid to name names; Amex, McKinsey, and Google were among the major employers mentioned, sometimes more than once. And that’s not the worst part. Would-be applicants were also in the comments saying they’d changed their minds about applying or, in some cases, had withdrawn their applications based on the stories!
Looking for a great candidate?
Connect with our recruiters today.
The Importance of a Positive Applicant Experience
Maintain a strong talent pool
The quotes above are just anecdotal examples, and candidate experience isn’t limited to the job interview. However, they’re a perfect illustration of why candidate experience can have a very tangible impact on your ability to recruit top talent. One person’s negative experience can have shockwaves that extend far beyond their personal circle, creating a hurdle you’ll need to overcome when hiring. A positive candidate experience, on the other hand, makes people want to partake in your hiring process, increasing your talent pool.
Protect your reputation
Before the age of smartphones, tablets, review sites, and social media, job seekers could only reach a small audience of family members and friends after a bad candidate experience. Today, each unpleasant experience can be splashed across multiple social media platforms. Users can add multiple negative reviews, making it easy to see the harm that can be done to your company’s reputation when you fail to focus on providing a positive experience.
Promote simplicity
Since the talent market is hyper-competitive, job seekers have abundant flexibility in the opportunities they pursue. Organizations that have a streamlined application and interview process have a better chance of captivating the interest of exceptional talent, who are busy people likely to favor simplicity.
Hire faster
As we mentioned earlier, candidate experience is about more than just a seamless interview. It’s about an applicant’s entire series of interactions with your company. When those interactions flow smoothly from one to the next, the hiring process moves along more efficiently, allowing you to hire faster. Speed is always an asset in the race to win top talent.
Improve acceptance rate
It seems obvious, but it’s surprising how many companies fail to see the correlation between candidate experience and offer acceptance rate. According to Career Plug’s 2024 Candidate Experience Report, 52% of people said they’d declined a job offer because of a negative experience during the hiring process. If the experience is a fantastic one, though, saying yes to an offer will be a no-brainer.
Improve retention
The impact of your candidate experience doesn’t end once a hire is made. It will color a new hire’s impression of their initial days on the job, influence their satisfaction in their first few months, and can contribute to the decision to leave prematurely. By creating a winning candidate experience, you’ll start the relationship on a high note and make it easier to retain employees long-term.
Related: What Makes a Great Candidate Experience
Candidate Experience Best Practices to Enhance Your Hiring Process
Create clear job descriptions
A big factor that candidates say creates an unpleasant experience is when they expect the job to be one thing but find out that it’s actually something else. Misalignment about job roles can result from genuine misunderstanding, but far more commonly, it results from sloppy, generic, or outdated job descriptions.
Write clear, accurate, and detailed job descriptions that focus on actual requirements and job duties over jargony PR-speak (“we work hard and play hard!”) and that don’t really say anything meaningful about the role.
Be mobile-first
There are more mobile phones than people worldwide, and mobile browsing has surpassed desktop and tablet use as the most popular way to access the internet. If you want to get in front of in-demand candidates, your company’s careers page and the entire application process must be simple, mobile-friendly, and easily accessible.
Enterprise companies may want to consider developing a branded mobile app to streamline the mobile application process. Your ATS may also have features that cater to on-the-go candidates, like one-click mobile applications.
Related: What is Mobile Recruiting and How to Use It Effectively
Make applications short and user-friendly
Job seekers expect and even demand a simple and easy-to-understand application. A lengthy job application can differ between maintaining interest in your company and choosing another organization that meets their technology expectations.
Instead of providing an application that requires filling in details in every space, a better option is an autofill application from their LinkedIn profile and the ability to attach a resume.
Maintain prompt communication through the hiring process
One of the top reasons candidates withdraw from an application process with a company is disrespect for their time. Usually, this means the company leaves candidates hanging. In a cutthroat talent market, neither candidates nor employers can afford to have their time wasted in this manner.
Do not send a generic applicant rejection letter. Personalize it and send it from an actual human’s email address. Interview invites are also more appealing when they are delivered from a personal email (john@yourcompany.com) instead of careers@yourcompany.com.
Acknowledge a job seeker’s thank-you and follow-up emails after phone screens and in-person interviews. This shows that you are organized and courteous and that you appreciate and respect your prospects.
Be transparent about compensation
In the Career Plug survey we mentioned earlier, the number one way candidates said companies could improve their hiring process was to be more upfront about pay and benefits (lack of transparency in this area was also a leading factor for candidates dropping out of a hiring process). Given that 38% of job seekers expect to know the compensation from an initial job post, wage transparency is a huge opportunity for employers to set themselves apart from the pack in exceeding candidates’ expectations.
Provide a positive interview experience
As evidenced by the Glassdoor quotes we shared earlier, the interview plays a huge role in a candidate’s impression of your organization, and most of that comes down to the interviewer. Train interviewers to be courteous and respectful. Strategize thoughtful questions that demonstrate knowledge of an interviewee’s experience and background. Ensure a two-way conversation where candidates can ask candid questions and get a feel for the company culture. Show up on time.
We have many resources on our blog to help improve your interview process. Here are a few highlights to check out:
- 13 Common Interviewer Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- How to Be a Good Interviewer: 8 Strategies
- Interviewer Training: The Secrets to Successful Interviewing
Gather candidate feedback
Requesting feedback demonstrates that your company is genuinely interested in improving the candidate experience. It can enhance your employer brand because job seekers feel like you are listening. The feedback might also help you improve your hiring process and contribute to creating and maintaining a great candidate experience.
Chances are, prospects provide feedback on social media and places you cannot monitor, such as conversations with family, friends, and colleagues. Seeking their input can build goodwill. Not every candidate will want to provide feedback, but response rates will likely be higher if the request is optional, it is easy to complete, and you assure candidates that it’s fully anonymous.
Tailor your feedback requests based on the stage of the candidate’s journey. In the early stages of the hiring process, consider implementing a simple rating system via a feedback form, pop-up on your website, or an emailed link. An in-depth survey is more appropriate for new hires and late-stage candidates.
Bad candidate experiences and under-developed recruiting strategies generally result in high turnover and low morale. Great candidate experiences not only bolster your employer brand and make your company an ideal destination for job seekers, but they can also turn even rejected candidates into advocates for your company because they feel respected.
Understanding the value of a candidate’s journey through the entire hiring process and treating job seekers with the same consideration as customers are habits of successful companies.
Related: Sample Candidate Experience Survey Questions
Need Help With Your Hiring Process?
We are an experienced and innovative leader in helping companies like yours find skilled and qualified team members for your vacant positions.
We offer staffing solutions for businesses of all sizes – from startups to SMBs and large corporations throughout the United States. Our knowledge and passion for what we do, and our flexible terms and conditions, set us apart in the world of headhunting and recruiting.
We welcome the opportunity to connect if you need help identifying the right candidates for your vacancies! We’re on standby to help you transform your workforce and find the ideal candidate today!
