Hiring great candidates comes with many challenges your recruitment team encounters. Your candidate experience plays a significant role in bringing in that top talent to your organization; however, many times, applicants fall off if the process is slow, unwelcoming, or unengaging. Here are three ways to improve your candidate experience to hire rock star talent for your organization.

Keep the Hiring Processes Moving

From the time a candidate hits submit on their application, there should be a quick response or confirmation that their resume was received. From there, if your hiring team feels the candidate would be a good fit, there shouldn’t be a delay in getting an interview scheduled. After the interview process – which, if prolonged, your hiring manager should remain in contact with the candidate – a job offer should be made promptly.

When hiring managers drag their feet through the recruiting process, everyone involved is negatively affected. Great candidates will drop off if they don’t feel like they are progressing in the process. The company will lose out on hiring top talent. Companies must cut out the delays that hamper the hiring process or risk losing candidates to the competition.

It’s essential to make the distinction between keeping the hiring process moving and rushing to hire. Hiring candidates as fast as possible without proper vetting can lead to more problems in the end as you’ll see higher turnover and decreased employee engagement. So while you need to go through the proper vetting process, it’s vital to ensure your hiring manager stays in contact with your top candidates, so they don’t move on to other opportunities.

Source Diverse Talent

With many companies focused on diversity and inclusion goals, hiring managers should include these goals in their recruitment strategies. Bringing in a more diverse group of candidates can help you identify gaps in the hiring process where certain groups of people might feel excluded or unwelcome. This can be anything from how the job descriptions are written to how a minority, female, or LGBTQ+ person feels during an interview. By sourcing a diverse talent pool and identifying any gaps that might exist in your recruiting process, you can start to remedy them and improve your overall candidate experience.

Make the Hiring Process Engaging

As organizations continue to integrate technology more deeply into their screening and hiring processes, it’s important to remember that this non-human touch can only take the hiring strategy so far. Technology has been a significant asset in the hiring process; while it has many benefits, organizations need to balance efficiency, engagement, and personalization. If a candidate feels like they’ve never had a human connection in the hiring process, they may be turned off. Relying solely or mostly on technology to move candidates through the hiring process, you run the risk of candidates feeling more like a commodity and less of a potential value add to the organization.

Instead of relying on technology to find the perfect candidate, hiring managers should use it to free up their time on sourcing so they can engage more deeply with the applicants seeking a position at their company.

Having a stellar candidate experience is crucial to a successful hiring strategy. Taking care of your applicants will keep top talent in the pipeline and lead to more strategic hires for your organization. Start improving your candidate experience by keeping the process moving; there shouldn’t be long gaps between the application, communication, and interview(s) with the candidate. You’ll also want to source diverse talent to get different perspectives on areas you can do better in. And finally, make the hiring process engaging and human – no one wants to feel like a machine picked their resume.

About EG Workforce Solutions

We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work, or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.

But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding, and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.