Companies, regardless of their sizes, are in a fierce competition more than ever to attract, acquire and retain the best suitable candidates. In this digital age, job search has moved from newspapers, job boards to the Internet.
Candidates nowadays are more selective in finding their ideal jobs. With just a few mouse clicks, they can easily find information about the position, the hiring company, the company culture, the working environment, etc. As such, in order to attract high-quality talents, your organisation needs to create a positive candidate experience.
As mentioned in our previous blog, a candidate with a positive experience can help endorse your brand to their immediate circles, or reapply in the future. On the other hand, a negative experience will denote a message that your organisation might have been treating other employees poorly too. Such negative impression can turn sour like the candidates boycotting your brand.
Millennials and even Gen Z, who will be dominating the workforce shortly, tend to conduct heavy internet research prior to making any decision. Thus, their candidate journey can be fairly complicated.
Read more: 3 best tactics for recruiting Millennials
Imagine the entire candidate journey is a funnel with three distinct stages:
Source: www.jibe.com
Organisations should customise the messages they’re trying to convey according to each stage of the candidate journey. The message should be informative and give values to the candidates, something that they are looking forward to receiving.
Read more: 3 evolving aspects of leadership & management in the digital age
The messages your organisation trying to convey across all recruiting channels should spark the candidate’s interests. Take into account all questions you would consider when you’re looking for a job yourself:
Read more: The waiter rule and how to reveal a job candidate's true self
Furthermore, utilise the technology currently available at your organisation to communicate with the candidates as frequently as possible. For example, a simple auto-reply to notify the candidates that their resume has reached the designated person in charge of recruiting. Communicating with the candidates, particularly those that have made it into the interview process and beyond, is critical in generating a positive candidate experience.
It doesn’t matter whether the candidates already pass your evaluation or not, recruiting is “selling” the job and the company. If you’re not communicating pre and post-apply, you are losing the pitch. Remember that your goal is creating a good impression - a positive candidate experience.