The hiring process can be stressful for both companies and job applicants. You can get better hiring results and boost your candidate experience by optimizing your job description, practicing great communication, letting candidates know what to expect, testing out your own application, showcasing company values, and having tight job titles.
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For candidates, job searching is a bit like hiking through a forest. Some twists and turns are expected, but, if there are too many obstacles in the way, they are just as likely to bail early and go home.
“Candidate experience” refers to a job applicant’s experiences moving through a hiring process––and it has a big impact on the overall success of any job search. According to research from meeting scheduling company Chronofy, 72% of job seekers say the smoothness of an interview process affects their final decision on whether to take a job or not.
If your application is too confusing, long, cumbersome, missing vital information, or if your communication is too poor, top candidates are likely to pass you by. On the flip side, improving your candidate experience can help grant you more, higher quality applicants and, hopefully, a top-notch hire.
Given this, using candidate experience best practices is just as essential as running pre-employment screening with a service like ShareAble for Hires®. And, like with screening, the return on your efforts can be quite high.
After all, boosting your candidate experience is a great way to help improve your hiring process overall. Thankfully, there are plenty of opportunities to upgrade throughout the process.
This article covers what you need to know about revamping your candidate’s job application experience, including the top ten candidate experience best practices.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- What ‘Candidate Experience’ Means
- Top 10 Best Practices for Candidate Experience
- Fill out your own application.
- Make sure job titles are correct and easily searchable.
- Keep job descriptions short and easy to read.
- Include information about hiring steps and hiring timeline on the posting
- Consider what information you really need from candidates.
- Communicate well and keep candidates informed.
- Be aware of your messages, stay positive and empathetic.
- Highlight company culture in job description.
- Include info candidates want to know, including the salary.
- Let people know what to expect.
- Help Get Talent in the Door Faster with ShareAble for Hires
What ‘Candidate Experience’ Means
According to LinkedIn, “candidate experience” is the collective interaction a job applicant has with a prospective employer during the recruitment process. It includes items such as:
- Quality and clarity of your job description
- Ease and annoyances of completing an application
- Automated and human-generated communication with the applicant
- Online, in-person, and phone interviews
- Skills assessments
- Reference checks
- Scheduling management
- Pre-employment screening and background checks
If you manage all of these hiring aspects well, job applicants typically have a positive candidate experience. This can help build your reputation, streamline your hiring process, and make you more attractive to applicants.
On the reverse, companies who do these tasks poorly typically provide a worse candidate experience. These bad experiences may damage your reputation, cause good candidates to walk away mid-application, and cause you to completely miss out on potentially wonderful applicants.
Why does a positive candidate experience really matter
The statistics about candidate experience don’t look great. Respected data site AppCast reports several telling findings from a recent job search analysis, including:
- 60% of job applicants had a “poor” candidate experience
- 78% of job seeker considered their candidate experience to reflect or predict how a company values its people
- 60% of online job seekers abandon online applications before completion because of the length or complexity
These grim figures mean that, in general, most candidates aren’t having a very good time with most job applications. It’s true that job searches aren’t exactly a picnic. However, if your process is too involved or poorly put together, candidates will likely skip your small business and find work with employers who have faster, smoother, more positive hiring experiences.
Pro Tip: Job applications aren’t the only place where speed matters. The Appcast article mentioned above states that most applicants only stay available for 10 days before getting hired. Make the most of your time with same day, online background checks.
Top 10 Best Practices for Candidate Experience
So, how can you help your candidates have a better application experience and come away with a positive view of your company, regardless of the outcome
Based on aggregated ShareAble for Hires research, these are the top ten things small business owners can do to provide a better candidate experience for job applicants.
Here are some things you can do to create a smoother, better experience for your candidates.
1. Fill out your own application.
Are your applicants asked to upload their resume, and then fill out their resume field by field on the next page? Fill out your own application to see what your candidates experience first-hand.
This exercise can be an incredible learning tool. It can help you catch redundancies and get a feel for how cumbersome your application actually is.
2. Make sure job titles are correct and easily searchable.
It might seem fun to list “Uppermost Software Guru” as your job title instead of “Senior Backend developer.” Unfortunately, your top candidates will probably never see your posting.
Consider sticking to clear, recognizable job titles that reflect what a candidate might enter in a search field. Thankfully, you can still show off your laid-back vibe in the job description.
3. Keep job descriptions short and easy to read.
Appcast says aim for 200-500 words max for job descriptions. You can also break information up into bullet points and sections with descriptive headers, to make it easier for candidates to easily scan and see if they are a match.
Pro Tip: See all tips on how to write a great job description to help give your candidates an even better experience.
4. Include information about the hiring timeline and hiring steps.
Along with number 10, candidates are happier if they know what to expect timing-wise. After all, you wouldn’t want to discover there are sixteen rounds of interviews after interview five, right?
Let candidates know the expected timeline is so they can plan around things like interviews and skills assessments more easily.
5. Consider what information you really need from candidates.
Write-in application questions can help weed out rapid-fire appliers and give you some candidate insight. However, too many questions can become frustrating. Additionally, these days, you also run the risk of reading hundreds of similar responses generated by language learning models like ChatGPT.
If you ask questions on your application, know why you’re asking the questions, and what answers cause disqualification or advancement. Try to limit these questions, ask things that would be difficult to generate on ChatGPT, and avoid questions that could be easily answered by resume details.
6. Communicate well and keep candidates informed.
Candidate experience company Talent Boards states that, in 2022, about 34% of job seekers hadn’t heard back about job applications after 2 months, and only 7% ever received a rejection notice. To boost goodwill, it’s important to stay in contact––even if that contact is saying “No, thanks for applying.”
Many services can now automate these emails to help you keep the workload lower. Even if you reject candidates, they will have a more favorable view of your brand than if you never replied.
Pro Tip: Providing excellent communication and managing expectations are just as important when setting up quality onboarding as they are in the hiring process.
7. Be aware of your messages. Stay positive and empathetic.
You might be sorting through 500 near-identical applications. But, for candidates, each application can carry a heavy emotional weight––including major disappointment if they really wanted to work with you.
Be aware of your messaging and keep a kind, supportive attitude in your communication. While you can certainly use email templates and auto-emails, try to add a personal, human touch. Thank applicants for applying and wish them luck in their search.
8. Highlight company culture in job description.
Your job description should reflect your organization’s brand, personality, and values. It’s a good opportunity to highlight any selling points, perks candidates want, initiatives, or other aspects your candidates should know about.
9. Include technical info candidates want to know, including the salary.
With more salary transparency laws popping up, it’s becoming more common for employers to be transparent about pay on job descriptions. However, even if you live somewhere without a formal law, there could still be several reasons why it’s beneficial to include salary information on a job posting.
Try telling candidates key information about things like salary, benefits, hours, and team dynamics up front. They need this information to help decide if the job would be a good fit for them.
10. Let people know what to expect throughout the process.
Whether with interviews, assessments, reference checks, or any other interview step, the goal should never be to ambush the candidate. Give job applicants at least a general idea of what to expect, so that they are prepared and can show you their best skills.
You don’t have to give away your interview questions, but saying “We’ll chat for thirty minutes. I’ll ask you questions and give you an opportunity to ask questions, too,” can go a long way to make a candidate feel valued and at ease.
Pro Tip: Once you know how to provide a positive candidate experience, it’s also helpful to know where to find and recruit good candidates for your open position.
When all is said and done, an excellent candidate experience doesn’t mean much if your top job applicant ends up being an ill-fitting hire. Help slash through the rough and reveal infromation about your candidate with ultra-fast, affordable pre-employment screening through ShareAble for Hires.
Your candidate was so charming during the interview, but are they as golden as they seem Criminal records reports zip through millions of crime records searching for a potential match for your job applicant. Meanwhile, identity verification helps you confirm your candidate is really who they say they are.
If your open position requires handling money, sensitive private data, or proprietary information, a credit check for employment can help you learn more about their financial history. Knowing more about what you’re dealing with can help you make more confident hiring decisions.
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You get near-instant reports only a few minutes after your job applicant consents to the screening. Each report is backed by TransUnion, a major credit agency with over 40 years of data expertise, so you can feel more confident that the information is reliable.
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When it comes to hiring new employees, don’t get lost in the weeds. Clear a path towards success with snappy, affordable pre-employment screening with ShareAble for Hires.
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