Candidate Experience: 5 Steps to do it Right and Win Top-Tier Talent

No doubt, an employer-driven market caters to businesses' bottom line but also leads to a tendency to hire quickly. 

Bad hires, frustrated staff and higher turnover rates inevitably follow. In such a situation, you must evaluate how to gain a competitive talent acquisition advantage. 

A great candidate experience can make a difference and bring on board more job seekers. Besides, it sways your top-choice candidates towards accepting your job offers over others.  After all, candidate experience is not just a catchphrase.

Rather, it has become a complete domain of the talent acquisition umbrella. And using an applicant tracking system can make it easier for you. Let’s see how!

But, first, let's say…

Hello, “candidate experience”

Candidate experience is a string of interactions that a job seeker perceives about a company throughout the hiring process. From the job description to scheduling interviews to follow-up communications, each step acts as an opportunity to create stronger candidate relationships.

An ATS helps you uplift candidate experience and improve your reputation as an employer.

Let’s see how applicants steer the hiring process from researching to applying for interviewing to onboarding and how you can create a great candidate experience for them.

Create an easy and helpful job posting

17% of applicants drop out from the recruitment process because of differences in job posting and interviews.

Your job posting is a first impression that helps you ensure your job search ends with success. Well-written job posts let candidates know whether the opportunity is a good step for their career.

This way, when you speak to them, they already have a strong impression of your organisation and role, opening the door for a more productive interaction.

To do this:

• Utilise your applicant tracking system's analytical capabilities to extract insights about your talent pool as you create job descriptions. 
• Use your ATS collaboration features to rapidly and easily arrange drafts by teammates so you identify room for improvement. 
• Store templates in your ATS to save your team’s efforts and time, ensuring the job descriptions are interesting and easy to understand. 

Make sure stakeholders are on the same page

46% of candidates consider that their time was disrespected while interviewing.

The last thing you want to do is converse with a potential candidate just for the decision-maker to change their mind. That doesn't give candidates a positive experience but just wastes their time.  

• Share access to your ATS with hiring managers and other teammates to uphold transparency in the recruiting process. Plus, it empowers them to raise any concerns quickly. 
• Take your talent pool data to the table when discussing the right candidate profile. This will help you earn hiring manager credibility, improve your hiring strategy, and give clear expectations from day one. 
• Record ROI (return on investment) using your ATS.

Streamline the process involved for everyone

58% of candidates reject a job offer because of poor candidate experience.

The primary reason for a candidate dropping out is the long hiring process.

In layman’s terms, a never-ending hiring process often leaves candidates irked, especially if they think their time was wasted. But, with an ATS, you can skip the line and minimise friction. 

• Motivate interviewers and shareholders to upload their feedback and scorecards to the applicant tracking system after analysing and interviewing, minimising the time invested in finding the feedback.  
• Check if your ATS provides integrations with other assessment tools that eventually help you make a more informed decision - and simultaneously offer candidates the chance to show their skills. 
• Integrate your email with your ATS to save time and effort scheduling interviews with minimal clicks. 

Keep candidates engrossed and up-to-date

There is no denying candidates who don’t hear back from your organisation promptly are likely to lose interest. A recent report from WPengine found that 11% of candidates drop out from the recruiting process because they were kept waiting after applying. 

So, leverage your applicant tracking system to acknowledge every resume and thank applicants for applying. This way, you can show applicants you respect and appreciate their time and effort, leaving them with an amazing impression of your organisation even if they are not hired! 

Here’s how to do it: 

• Participate with your team in a unified platform, accelerating the decision-making process to make quicker follow-ups.
• Automate voluminous administrative work to put your time and efforts into the things that matter most, like nurturing the relationship, checking with candidates, etc. 
• Keep an eye on the candidates in the process and set reminders to follow up after every step. 

A complex ATS

48% of candidates drop out because of the complex applicant tracking system.

Unquestionably, an applicant tracking system helps you and recruiters stay organised, but they also bring challenges to deliver excellent candidate experience.

Indeed, one of the biggest complaints ERE.net received from graduates applying for a job is filling out lengthy forms, which is even more prominent when applying to numerous employers, with each organisation using a different system.

Often, the average time a candidate takes to fill out an application form is 40 minutes. So, any time more than that, candidates drop out. To get quick tips on how your ATS will attract the best talent, we suggest reading some of the following blogs:

• ATS: A Complete Guide for Recruiters in 2023
• How Can an ATS Help Recruiters Conduct Collaborative Hiring

Finally… “Rome wasn't built in a day”

The same holds for creating and nurturing a positive candidate experience. After all, little things make a BIG difference, including everything from consideration and thoughtfulness to paying attention to detailing.

To ensure equality from the start, going above and beyond all the stats, numbers, and facts lays a firm foundation for why candidate experience should be a priority for you and your company.

Are you curious to understand where your candidate experience stands in the crowd? Seize the window of opportunity with experts today!