Candidate Experience: 4-Step Guide to Master It in 2023

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Heard of the great resignation? With a record, 4.5 million American workers quitting their jobs for reasons other than retirement in March 2022, a huge change has befallen hiring practices all over the world.

Seeing how employees have been empowered and have more companies to choose from than ever before (largely because of the shift to the remote model of work) their expectations also rose.

That’s why it’s so important to improve your candidate experience and we can show you exactly how to do it.

Follow our simple guide for success.

1. Make the Whole Process Easy

If your application process is lengthy and difficult, you’ll have a hard time attracting and engaging potential candidates.

Every step, from the first contact to the onboarding process needs to be easy and as enjoyable as possible.

Start by creating a great job description that clearly communicates the roles and responsibilities your candidates should possess.

Did you know that research conducted by Glassdoor found that 61% of candidates have discovered that the job position they applied for didn’t match the job posting? These types of situations waste both time and money for candidates as well as you.

That’s why you need to create job postings that get the work done. Make them short, but informative.

Once the job posting is done, rethink your hiring process. Do the candidates really need to re-write their resumes in your application forms?

It will ruin the candidate experience and slow down the entire process.

Rethink every step of the hiring process and look at ways you can speed it up and make it easier for both you and the candidates.

2. Personalise Your Communication

Personalise your emails to set your brand apart from the competition.

Your candidates are probably applying to other jobs as well and if other companies provide a better customer experience, you’ll have trouble engaging them.

That’s why you should personalise your communications. Put the candidates' names in the subject line of your emails. Refer to things they mentioned in their cover letters when constructing the emails.

Those little things go a long way.

3. Automate the Process When You Can

Speed up your recruitment and onboarding process by automating parts of it. You can use an automated skills test to screen candidates. If you invested a lot of time and money in the early stages of your hiring process, improve the candidate experience further by automating the agreement process as well.

With a well-crafted job offer proposal, you can easily explain the terms and conditions, as well as have your candidates sign the contract without the need for creating a separate document.

All you need to do is pick the right proposal software, that comes with pre-written proposal templates you can easily customise. Also, make sure the tool allows you to digitally sign documents and accept payments to further speed up your process.

With the digital signature option, your candidates can securely accept your job offer by typing in their names. The typed-in names get turned into legally binding signatures that are accepted worldwide.

This type of document saves you time since you will no longer have to create contracts from scratch. Also, there is no need for printing, scanning, or mailing your documents via snail mail.

4. Ask for Feedback

The best way you can analyse your candidate's experience is by asking for feedback. That way, you’ll know exactly which parts of the process you need to invest more effort into.

Start by creating a simple poll that is quick and easy for your candidates to fill out. As much as you’d like to receive positive feedback, leave room for negative one as well.

It’s important that you reach out to both candidates that moved forward with the recruitment process as well as ones that didn’t. That’s the only way you’ll get valuable input.

Make sure to ask your candidates to rate:

• The overall experience
• The people involved in the hiring process
• The level of communication

You should also ask for advice on things you could improve.

Once you get the results, use them to shape certain parts of your process in order to better the candidate experience.

Key Takeaways

Bettering the candidate experience can be done by following our 4-step guide that will work for companies in all industries.

Throughout this entire process, it’s important to put yourself in your candidate’s shoes. Think about how much effort you’re asking them to put in and whether your process can be simplified and shortened.

Your hiring process is a part of your branding. Make sure it reflects you positively.

Author Bio

Vanja Maganjić is an experienced writer with a unique passion for creating content that helps brands connect with their customers. She believes in brands that stand up to the man and thinks that storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. Her long-term goal is to become the cool auntie that gives out family-sized Kit Kats on Halloween.