What Makes a Good Candidate Experience

We as an organization , we get to bog down at finding the candidate , putting the processes in place and not enough time , and focusing and giving them that great candidate experience . So I think that is a small arm of branding that is an important piece of organization really need to pay attention to .

That that first step , that first step in building that foundation with that candidate , is crucial , because if you don't build it right , that candidate may make up their mind about jumping ship to come to you before you even thinking about making an offer to them .

And so the main thing for me with all of this is you have to be conscious of that going in , you have to commit to being conscious of it , and if you are and you do that , then odds are it's going to be a great experience . If you're not , well , probably the opposite .

So that's to me why it's so important , because if you're not thinking about it , it's easy to quickly forget about the candidates who aren't at the top of your list , and that's a common complaint about recruiters .

We all know that that they're not as communicative as candidates would like , they're not responsive , and it's always the candidates who aren't at the top of the list , right , it's easy to like the most attractive candidate in the room , right , we know that that's who gets the attention , but that's not how your reputation is going to be built .

That is not what's going to leave a great , lasting impression . So you've got to think about all of this in advance .

That's right , that's what you have , and you got to make sure your marketing campaigns has the right tools to tell the story to other people you want them to know about your organization . Do not skip on the people who don't get the job . They're going to talk about you .

Yeah , it does review and say it was okay , it was just as I expected . Yeah , it's not filled with a lot of marginal reviews . Right , it's fives or ones for the most part , which is it's human nature . So , but we can control it , right , that's the good news . Um , like , like so many things in life , you can control what you pay attention to .

So let's start at the top . What are the things that make a good candidate experience ? Let's list them out , or do you want to clear ?

And as soon as they apply for the job , you got to start telling your story clear and frequent communication of what the candidate is going to respect . The more they know about your interview process , the less likely they're going to ghost you , because they know what to expect . Right , and there's a little attachment to it .

If they see you as just a number , is easy to drop that number off and go to the next interview .

We encounter every type of process that exists , from one phone interview , you know , in an offer , to multiple interviews and panels , and very complex , drawn out processes . We like the former better than the latter , for the record , everyone does , but the most important thing is to know , and if we don't know , then we can't prepare the candidate for it .

So that is something that staffing companies learn very quickly , but I don't know that organizations always think about that , and even though they should , you have to prepare the candidate from all the way to the finish line , right , and so then there's no need to apologize , there's no confusion , and so that setting the tone right from the start is huge .

One interview , two interviews , three interviews Pete , I once went through five interviews . It was annoying , it wasted my time and I would have been upset if I didn't get that job . But I know three other candidates went through five interviews and they didn't get the job Right .

So try to avoid those long interview processes . Every situation is different . That's a topic for a different podcast and probably one that we should do to talk about that in detail . But let's just keep this concise and say the shorter your interview process , the better the candidate experience is going to be . Right , that's . I don't think anyone would dispute that .

But we know that organizations don't think about that as much as they should .

So , yes , let's keep it concise , because , although you don't want your time wasted , that street has a two-way street they don't want their time wasted as well , especially the top caliber people . The top caliber people are not going to have the patience for a loose process . Why ? Because they know they have an option to go somewhere else .

Way better that the process is tightened up . Yeah , so it's also how concise , how well oiled your process is is going to attract the type of candidate you want to employ .

I was just playing pickleball last night , if you can believe that . My newfound hobby , pickleballs , your newfound hobby , yeah , and one of the guys I was playing with happened to just make an offer to a candidate today or yesterday and said that the candidate asked for 60 days before they could start .

And it was such an interesting conversation because I thought , wow , boy , that's a great way to have things fall apart at the end . So they've been through all of this and now the candidate springs this . So I'll tell you there's an expectation that the candidates need to be consistent with delivering that information up front .

But you want to build these reputations or these relationships as you go . So no one's surprised , right ? I mean , that is that's something .

From an employer's perspective , that's 60 days without a position there where they're losing money . So if you're thinking about this from a candidate perspective , thinking that's not unreasonable , it is kind of unreasonable because we as an organization we are losing money for every minute that position is not there making money .

And to ask for eight weeks of time , that's just eight weeks of unproductivity that the organization is just may not tolerate . I'm sorry I don't have any organization that'll say yes to that .

So if you go into the interview as a candidate , I think you should assume Now I'm going to , I'm going to change that you should don't try not to assume anything on either side . And in Once again , being in staffing , we know what questions need to be asked , because our goal is to make a match and a connection that is going to last .

Every staffing company should operate that way , so we know the pitfalls , and time of the thing stretching out is one of those . So of course , we encourage our clients to shorten their interview process and be concise with it , but the main thing is again to know same thing with the candidates Do you have vacations planned ?

Are there any reasons that you won't be available for the foreseeable future or through that interview process ? Because if we've already done our job on the front end , we know how long it's going to take , we know what the plan is , we match that with the candidate and sometimes often in fact you could have the best candidate on the market potentially .

But if they're not aligned with the availability for interviews and the timing , it's not going to work . So the more you know up front , the better .

I could talk all day about that because it's such a critical part of the recruiting process , but for this purpose , be concise , communicate it and get everyone on the same page , Alright so now for improving the candidate experience in the recruitment process .

If you're going down an Isle of Public , app at a public , so you want to buy macaroni and cheese , but you see the box of macaroni and cheese , all you have is listed as ingredients Some of the words you're not going to understand , right , you're not going to buy it .

But if you see the picture of a nice bowl of creamy gold and mac and cheese , you're going to buy that . Right , the ingredients . It's your job description . The picture is your ad that you put out there . You've got to make that ad enticing and you got to make that ad something that compels the candidate to apply , tell a story behind it and make the process

easy . Pete , I cannot tell you , when I was interviewing back in the day , how many times I was asked to submit a resume and then I had to turn back around , spend 40 minutes filling all the information over again . Right , I stopped . I'm like I'm not going to put up with this and go somewhere else .

Would you want to be , you know , accountable for filling out all that information more than once ? No , of course not . No one likes that . We all know what it feels like to have entered 10 things on a phone and then have the rep pick up live and ask you for the same information , right when you call your bank or a good one , right ?

Yeah , it's the worst right . So don't do that with candidates . Make it easy for them , make it easy to apply , communicate early and often in the process , and give them your attention along the way .

So that's the next thing that I think we should talk about , because Candidates are going to decide whether to take a job not just based on compensation or what the work is or the title .

They're going to decide based on how they feel about the opportunity , and if they don't feel that they're important , they're not going to move forward , and so you have to give them your attention and focus throughout this process and let them know that they're valuable Folks .

Let them know why this is a good idea , right ? So same thing here . If you , as an organization , are not constantly communicating with the candidates , somebody else will . And when somebody else will , then they leave . And then you're wondering why they didn't finish the process ?

Because of lack of communication , lack of engagement , and the more engaged a candidate is in the process , the more likely they're going to see it through the end . Absolutely , that's a fact .

There's nothing worse for me in in as a staffing professional than having to terminate a candidate who doesn't deserve it . Right and and for budget changes or organizational shifts , whatever it might be . It's an inherent part of the job . We all know that's what we signed up for . I've been doing this for a long time and guess what ? It never gets easier .

Never , it never gets easier . You have to do it . But it's awful . But do it because the sooner you do it , the better it is for everyone . You'll feel better as an individual who had to make that call , but you'll leave the right impression . Bad news early is good news , absolutely it always is from you .

It's the information they need to hear , even though it's what they don't want to hear . We're not a good fit for the this organization . If you're never going to be , tell someone why . Right , do them a favor , help them improve .

There are things that happen in an interview that will prevent a candidate from ever getting hired by an organization , or at least while those individuals are still there . I mean I we don't need to go into specific examples right now , but it happens , right , people don't always perform well in an interview . It's okay , good , thank you , wonderful .

If you don't want to be left wondering . If you don't have to either , and because if you don't know why you burned any chance of ever being successful with that company , you can't improve for the next one . Now , that's tough . It is not for everyone to do and not every situation is appropriate to do it in .

But , where possible , give candidates feedback , do it as quickly as you can if they're not going to be your selection , and then move on , because as the interviewer you may end up somewhere else one day . You may be in it . It is a round world . I could give lots of examples .

But let me say this above I got an above and beyond for that , because one of the things I like to do with my clients when I'm helping them out with this is look , give them feedback , but send them some kind of a consolation price right Flowers , edible arrangements , something . Put that in your budget .

Think about what that does to the psyche of the person who didn't get the job . Think about how motivated that person is gonna be for the next opportunity they get , because they're gonna tell everybody look at how they treated me and I didn't get the job . Could you imagine if I got it ? What story does that say about you ? So think about

that . And before people say that costs a lot of money marketing dollars , papa , that's all . It is right Not shut up to marketing dollars , because you want as many people out there who didn't get the job to talk as positive as possible about the experience .

But if you call them and something I wanted to add , Pete , as soon as you give them a call , because , remember , the person doesn't know they didn't get the job . So when they get that call from you , right , Saying hey , they're gonna think , oh my God , I got it . Communicate early in the conversation . Hey , we selected somebody else .

And here's an important part the decision has already been made . I would like to give you some feedback . But , folks , if you don't say the decision has already been made , the candidate is gonna start thinking about wait , I missed this , I missed that . I still have a shot . They don't . This is not to negotiate .

This is just solely to give you feedback and ask them first . If they say , yeah , go for it , Then send that survey . You will get more accurate responses if you prime that survey with that conversation .

They want to be heard and I expect and believe that in many cases , if they had an opportunity to vent directly to an organization , they would take that versus being public with it , especially if the organization cared enough to take that feedback to heart and do something about it .

Now I know as a staff and company owner that there are times that our candidates have a lesson , ideal interaction with one of our recruiters . Just the law of numbers dictate that , right . Yeah , that's true .

We put as many protections in place and training and our process to avoid that at all costs , right , but we're talking thousands of candidates a month that we interact with . So perception is reality .

So whether they should have a bad impression or not is irrelevant , but we know that happens and every once in a while I'll get a message from someone and I genuinely appreciate it . Now we get lots of . We get a lot more positive reviews significantly than we do negative ones , thank goodness , right , but I value the negative ones just as much .

If someone comes to us and says I don't appreciate the way this happened , I didn't like this Now , maybe something that we had no control over with our clients . But guess what I still want to know , because I take that feedback to our clients and that's usually how it happens . Again , thank goodness it's not a complaint with us . I didn't get feedback .

I was waiting , I had to wait too long and because in almost every case I'll tell you , what people have an issue with is when no one is communicating with them . That's right . It's never feedback like recruiter A was rude to me or disingenuous or whatever it might be . It's always I didn't hear . I was left hanging .

And if you look at the complaint on recruiters as a whole , that's it right . They don't get back to me .

So if you go in the opposite direction and you approach a candidate who wasn't selected and said , not only am I getting back to you , but I want to know what we could have done better on your behalf , they're going to appreciate it in a way that will set you apart from everyone else . I like that .

I'm sure that they still would like to improve and get better .

That will , that will add , and you can see that some questions there will recommend what you should put in your survey . So , ricky , let's , let's , let's , let's not Belabor this too much . But what else do you have , anything else for wrap up that you think could build a positive candidate experience ? What would you ? What ?

Forget the idea of people should be happy that they're interviewing . That doesn't exist anymore . People have options and if you want to attract your top tier candidates , you have to build the process in a way that attracts a top tier candidate and what they would or would not support .

So all I'm saying is put your mind in the person you're trying to attract and build the process surrounding that . That's never , ever going to steer you wrong . Just do your own .

There's the high level recruiting , where you need to find one candidate who's very in a very niche role , so you're not going to be speaking and interacting with with too many people in that situation .

But then there's the opposite , where you may hire for a class of 20 plus people in a training where your candidate pool could be massive and you may have thousands of candidates . So take advantage of technology if you need to .

I mean , that is a big change from from when I started in the dark ages , ricky , where we didn't have automated tools , but now they're . They're prevalent , they're not overly expensive . So if you were in high volume recruiting , take advantage of that , because , look it's , I get it because I live it . You can't hold everyone's hand the way you want to .

You can't have personal interactions with thousands of candidates if you have a small recruiting team . It's not realistic . So shame on you if you don't take advantage of technology to reach out directly , because , as we've , I think , established very well , at this point the worst thing you can do is not communicate and so give , give people that .

And then the last thing I want to say is measure yourself , hold yourself accountable , make sure that you leverage technology and tools for that as well . Are you , have you responded to everyone ? How quickly are you responding to everyone ? Those are things that you should . You should measure and then manage to it , and and not cut any corns .

And if , as a recruiter , I can tell you that there is absolutely nothing better than to say well , I'm going to fill this job quickly and easily because I already have candidates in mind from the last time . And that is up to you and your actions .

If you treat all of your candidates the right way , coming in , you'll , you'll be able to build that pipeline in that , in that , in that base to draw from the next time . And if you don't , well , recruiting is going to be a constant uphill battle for you .

You're always starting from scratch because you haven't built relationships along the way and everyone knows that no one . If I think of my candidate interactions over the years , as we say it already , most are not going to get hired , most applicants aren't going to get hired . Most candidates you call and recruit and source aren't going to get hired .

But you can have a lot of good relationships at last if you just treat them the right way and plan for it , that's right , it's .

I'm speaking there and I'm going to speak about this , this very thing how to revamp your candidate experience to attract the best and the brightest in the future and keep them in the future . Right , perfect . This is what we're talking about right now . That's perfect .