4 ways to ameliorate candidate experience
All candidates, irrespective of whether you will end up hiring them of not, are important and worthy of a good experience with your company. If you create a bad impression of candidate experience, then that experience will be shared to everyone they know making good talents stay away from your company without you even knowing it.
On the other end, if you offer an exceptional candidate experience, you will have an edge over most other companies. There are certain things candidate deserve to have and know. You should provide them with those details not just to create an impression but because they deserve it and it is the decent thing to do.
Make sure you are following the below features to ensure good candidate experience.
Email candidates regularly
From the time the apply till the end of the interview process, keep them updated. Sending them emails about any information is not a very tough task and simple expecting candidates to guess or leave them hanging is highly unprofessional and honestly not fair to them.
Informing them after each process or round will help them keep their expectations at bay. Anyone who applies for a job will want updates about their performance or decisions taken by the company. From the day they apply, they will be checking their email for a response. Give them the response they deserve. Even if they aren’t fit for the job they applied for, they still have the right to know, irrespective of how awkward the informing them part is. Furthermore, they might just be fit for some other position that might be vacant in the future, but a bad candidate experience will keep them away from applying again.
Always provide feedback
When you have decided who to hire, the rest of the candidates still should receive and email from you. This email should not just inform them of the unfortunate news but should also carry constructive criticism in the form of useful feedback. The candidates have taken time and chosen your company to apply. Show respect to this decision and provide a brief feedback about their performance in the interview rounds. The feedback should carry both positives and negatives. Talk about what was impressive and what was lacking. When talking about the negatives, don’t stress on their personality, rather talk about skills they lacked for the particular job. This will give them a chance to learn and also make them be more confident to apply for another position in the same company.
Ask “How did we do?”
As much as the candidates need your feedback, you need their too. Sure, they might not be experts in the field, but from whatever short experience they had from your company, they could give you useful, honest feedback that can help you improve your recruitment process. Provide a short feedback form for the candidates to write in where they can mention both positives and negatives about the recruitment process. This will help you decide what to pursue and what to eliminate.
Give candidates a chance to meet the team
Irrespective of you using an RPO agency or company to help you with the recruitment process, candidates still should get the opportunity of meeting the hiring managers and team members and even engage with them. This is one of the best ways to experience the company culture and finding out if you will fit in. The experience will become more casual and less nerve-breaking. If the candidate is confused between two companies, the mere fact that they fit into the company culture can be the deciding factor for them to choose your company.