What is candidate experience?
What is candidate experience?
This business buzzword is one of the most important factors when attracting top talent to your organization. Candidate experience is a term used to define how a candidate feels about your company once they’ve experienced your hiring process. These good or bad feelings influence a candidate’s decision to apply and/or accept an offer from your company. From the company’s perspective, it requires a mindset shift that focuses on respecting a candidate’s time and expectations for the role at hand.
the most common complaint about application processes
Can you guess what the most common complaint candidates have about the general job application process? Getting “ghosted,” or companies failing to respond to a candidate’s application, happens way too often. In fact, according to Career Builder’s 2012 nationwide U.S. candidate survey, 75% of candidates never hear back from a company after sending in an application. This communicates to the candidate that their application is not a high enough priority to respond to, burning a bridge before its even built. Although responding to every candidate’s application is the easiest way to solve this complaint, creating a positive candidate experience requires more involvement than that.
Why you should care.
So- why is the candidate experience important to maintain? It is imperative that your reputation as an employer stands out, especially for the candidates who did not get the job offer. Let’s say you have a pool of four strong candidates to hire from for Position A. If Position B opens up a few months later, you’d want those who were not chosen for Position A to consider this new role if applicable. Creating a positive candidate experience for all applicants can save your organization time and money in future hires.
The value is more often easily seen from a client perspective, yet the candidates are the ones experiencing the process firsthand. Decision Associates takes pride in the strategy we’ve developed to guarantee success for our client’s executive recruitment projects. One of the key elements of our process is ensuring consistent communication and updates are sent to the candidate so they always know where they stand, as it relates to the opportunity. We frequently hear from candidates, even those who are rejected for the role, how much they appreciate our timely and genuine communication.
This summer, we are excited to be sharing experiences from candidates who have been successfully hired through Decision Associates’ executive recruitment process. We are proud to have been an instrumental part in making the connection between our clients and these candidates so both can continue to thrive. Keep an eye out for these testimonials every Wednesday!
Learn more about our executive recruitment services: https://www.decisionassociates.net/client-services/executive-recruitment/