Though the labor market has cooled, many companies are still struggling to attract and retain the talent they need. Job seekers in many industries continue to have plenty of choices when it comes to where they want to work.
A great candidate experience can help you engage more job seekers and sway your top-choice candidates toward accepting your job offer over another.
What is candidate experience?
Candidate experience is how a job seeker perceives a company’s brand throughout the hiring process — from the job description to the interview process to follow-up communications. Each step provides an opportunity to build stronger candidate relationships and show job seekers why they should want to work at your company.
A positive candidate experience can help you convert your top-choice candidates into employees, while a poor candidate experience can cause them to drop out of your hiring process altogether.
So let’s take a closer look at how candidates navigate the recruitment process — from researching and applying to interviewing and onboarding — and what you can do to create a positive experience for them.
Make it easy for candidates to learn about your company
Before applying for jobs, candidates are researching your company to find information about your company culture, history, and achievements. Make it easy for candidates to learn about your company so they can determine if it’s the right fit for them.
Put your career site to work
Your most effective employer branding tool is right at your fingertips: your career site. It’s one of the first places candidates go for information, so make sure it’s easy to navigate and contains up-to-date information.
Share a little about what makes your company unique, why your team members like working there, and the benefits of joining your team.
Use social media to shine a spotlight on your company
Professional social networks are a reliable way to provide candidates with real-time updates on company news and information. You can also post recent or upcoming events to give candidates a better idea of your company culture. And since many job seekers use social media to research prospective employers, creating a careers hashtag can help boost your engagement with them.
Write clear and enticing job descriptions
Writing an effective job description is a key to attracting the right candidates and converting them into job applicants. Start your job post with a hook — information that lets the right candidates feel like it’s a good match from the start.
Be clear on who you’re looking for
It may be tempting to use a creative job title but using industry-standard language provides greater clarity. Avoid titles such as rock star developer, data ninja, or digital marketing guru, as they may be confusing or off-putting. Most candidates search for roles that match their skills and experience, so try to use specific terms that will resonate with them.
Get job insights from current employees
Schedule brief interviews with your current team members to gain a deeper understanding of what it feels like to work in the role or on the team on a daily basis. Use these insights to fine-tune your job description to reflect current skills, team culture, and experience needs. This will make your job description more compelling while helping a potential candidate imagine themselves in the position.
Give candidates the information they care about most
Your job description should focus on the role, not the company. Use the first few lines to pull the candidate in by sharing a bit about what makes the role interesting, exciting, or impactful. Then share additional information about the day-to-day details of the job, salary range, benefits, qualifications, and whether the role is remote, hybrid, or onsite.
Define what success looks like: Spell out specific, measurable performance goals to help give candidates clarity and more accurate insight into the role. Knowing what would be expected of them helps them decide if the role would be a good fit for them.
It’s also a good idea to include a description of the job’s major function, how it impacts larger company objectives, and why it’s important — not just to the company but to society as a whole. You want candidates to feel excited about the role and feel good about the company.
Use inclusive language in job descriptions
Job descriptions play a critical role in attracting talent and often serve as a candidate’s first glimpse into your company. It’s important to use inclusive language that will help you attract a diverse talent pool. For example, using masculine-coded words such as strong, competitive, and assertive in your job description can drive women away.
Many companies also include diversity statements on their job descriptions that encourage people from diverse backgrounds to apply. Keep in mind that diversity statements with an empathetic voice and tone are received much more positively than statements that sound generic and boilerplate.
Make the application process easy and accessible
Skilled talent is always in high demand, and candidates may simply walk away if you provide a bad candidate experience during your job application process.
Walk yourself through an application from start to finish and survey candidates to uncover ways to improve your conversion rate.
Ask only for the information you need
Candidates have many choices when it comes to where they want to work and the best candidates know they don’t need to waste their time on a tedious job application process.
Keep your application minimal by asking only for the candidate’s name, email address, phone number, and resume, with the option to add a cover letter.
Make your job application process mobile friendly
Many candidates look for job opportunities on their mobile devices and may prefer to apply that way too. But typing a lot of information into a mobile job application is difficult and time-consuming. Make it easy for applicants to submit their resume by providing an option to link to their LinkedIn profile or portfolio.
Create a fair, engaging interview process
Candidates are evaluating your company as much as you’re evaluating them. Build an interview process that boosts candidate engagement while helping you identify the most qualified candidate for each role.
Communicate clearly and often
Clear, consistent communication with your candidates helps build positive relationships and maintains candidate engagement throughout your recruitment process. Follow up promptly after your initial interview to maintain interest and include a timeline for next steps. And if you need to push back the timeline for any reason, send a quick note to let your candidates know.
Communication is equally important for candidates who won’t be advancing in your recruiting process. Even if a given candidate wasn’t right for your role, they may be qualified and open for a different role down the line. Following up with a phone call or a considerate, personalized email — especially one with constructive feedback — speaks volumes about your company and creates a better candidate experience. If your company allows it, be sure to let candidates know where they excelled and provide them with tips to help them succeed next time. They’ll appreciate that you took the time to get back to them and will gain value from the experience.
Provide detailed interview instructions
Set your candidates up for a successful interview experience by making sure they know what to expect. Send them the date, time, and location of the interview, along with a list of who they’ll be meeting with. Some companies are even beginning to share interview questions ahead of time so candidates are evaluated on their responses rather than on their interviewing abilities.
For in-person interviews, you might also include details around where to park, which public transportation stops are nearest to your office, and how to get into your building. Providing this information helps your candidates know what to expect so they’ll be more relaxed when they arrive for the interview.
Make sure to provide this same level of detail for virtual job interviews. Let the candidate know what software you’ll be using to conduct the interview and anything they should know beforehand to set up an account and log in. Some job seekers are still new to virtual interviews and providing some tips can help the interviews go more smoothly. For example, you might provide suggestions around leveraging lighting, using headphones, and setting up virtual background images. This will help ensure a smooth remote candidate experience.
Use structured interviews
The goal of an interview should be to learn more about a candidate’s professional capabilities and gauge whether they’d be a culture-add to your team. A structured interview can help you do this in a fair, consistent manner for each candidate.
Craft a set of questions you’ll ask each candidate for a given role to suss out their skills, personality, and qualifications. (Note: You can use LinkedIn’s Interview Question Generator to generate behavioral interview questions to screen for skills that can be difficult to assess.) Doing so will make it easier to compare candidates and objectively select the best one for your team.
Try to respect your candidate’s time by keeping interviews to a minimum. A recruiting process that has too many interviews or takes too long is more likely to provide a poor candidate experience.
Train your interviewers
Your talent acquisition team may be well-versed in providing a good candidate experience, but your interviewers probably aren’t. Train your hiring managers and other interviewers on candidate experience best practices so they leave a positive impression on job seekers. This includes arriving on time to interviews, staying present during the conversation, and leaving time for candidate questions.
Ask for candidate feedback at every touchpoint
The best way to craft a better candidate experience is to learn what you’re doing right and what you could do better. That’s why getting feedback from every candidate — not just the ones you hire — is crucial.
Use a candidate experience survey to gather feedback at every step during the interview process to pinpoint where things are working and identify areas for improvement.
Welcome new hires with a smooth onboarding experience
Onboarding is the first impression new hires get when they join your company. This isn’t just an opportunity to get them up to speed on your processes, it’s your chance to welcome them and make sure they feel comfortable, confident, and excited to join your team.
It’s also the ideal time to build early employee engagement. Seven in 10 employees who have exceptional onboarding experiences say they have “the best possible job.” These employees are also 2.6x as likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace and far more likely to stay.
Bridge the transition between the candidate experience and employee experience
Send an email welcoming your new hire to the team as soon as an offer letter is signed. Outline next steps, including any employee preboarding activities your new team member should complete, and what they can expect during their first week. This is also an ideal time to ask your new hire if they have any questions or if you can provide any workplace accommodations.
Many companies also give their new hires a shout-out on social media to publicly welcome them and allow other team members to connect with their new colleague. This is a great way to announce a new hire’s arrival and make them feel like they’re part of the team.
Integrate new hires into your team
Use the employee onboarding period to help your new hire build relationships with their new colleagues. Add them to group chats, set up one-on-one meetings with coworkers, and assign a buddy to answer any questions that come up. You might even plan an in-person or virtual team building event to help integrate your new hire into the team.
Revisit virtual onboarding
The transition to remote work happened unexpectedly for many organizations and talent teams had to quickly adapt to onboarding employees remotely.
It may be time to revisit your virtual onboarding process to ensure a seamless experience for your remote hires. This means making sure they have all of the equipment they need, dial-in information for first-day meetings, and the right tools to connect with colleagues.
Final thoughts: Do sweat the small stuff for an engaging candidate experience
When it comes to crafting a positive candidate experience, the little things can make a big difference. These include thoughtfulness, consideration, and attention to detail. Going above and beyond a candidate’s expectations at every stage of the hiring process will ensure an exceptional candidate experience and a positive impression of your company.
