Great candidate engagement for every single applicant should be a high priority during the recruitment process, and here's why:
☆ A great candidate experience ensures that a new employee comes in with enthusiasm to work, learn, and grow in your company.
☆ A star candidate who may have not been selected for a particular role but experienced positive engagement will want to try again to be a part of the company by applying for subsequent opportunities.
☆ A rejected candidate who still had a good experience will spread positive impressions of your company to their peers.
All of these outcomes influence how your company is viewed by potential candidates, customers, and the corporate world at large.
Bad experiences tend to linger, but unique and thoughtful experiences can too. Here are some creative ideas that can help you make an impression with your candidates.
First, get the basics right:
Create clear job descriptions that help potential candidates easily understand the roles and responsibilities.
Keep the application process concise and straightforward.
Establish consistent communication throughout the recruitment process.
Personalize responses as much as you can. Generic outreach can make candidates feel unimportant.
Value candidates' time. Respond promptly to their queries, show appreciation for their time and effort, and give constructive feedback.
Keep your recruitment process transparent to gain your candidates' trust.
Recruit quickly. You will easily lose a candidate's interest with slow responses and processes.
Extra effort is never too extra
Get your story out, everywhere
Storytelling is extremely helpful in making your candidates understand and remember your company. Create a story around your brand, your vision, and your mission, and get it across in all candidate touchpoints, including the website and email. Learn email marketing tactics and use prompts that will help candidates research the organization and job role.
Impress from the very beginning
Your job description does not have to be a simple title with a bunch of requirements attached to it. Make your job postings interesting to read and interact with, and try new marketing tactics like influencer marketing and targeted ads to improve reach.
Make it competitive
Everybody loves a good game. Introduce group activities and opportunities to stand out into your interview process. On top of keeping things interesting, it can help both you and your candidates better understand where they stand compared to other candidates. Moreover, it can also give candidates an opportunity to interact and network with potential co-workers, candidates, and peers.
Make their recruitment experience count
While recruitment is hectic for the recruiters, it is also a very stressful and time-consuming experience for the candidates. It can make a lot of difference when their recruitment experience is about more than just landing a job offer.
Creating job fairs and recruitment events for your candidates can help them get acquainted with thought leaders in their industry, making their recruitment experience more valuable and give them a better purpose. Most importantly, make sure that all candidates leave your recruitment process with enough feedback to improve themselves.
Get your employees involved
Nobody can speak for your company better than your employees. It is crucial that they are a part of your recruitment process. This can be as simple as creating content in collaboration with them, or creating an atmosphere where they can interact with candidates.
Don't keep your candidates guessing
Transparency is key to building trust with your candidates. Give them as much information as you can about the recruitment process. Prepare a set of FAQs ahead of time and ensure that candidates have easy access to all the answers they need with a chatbot.
Give them a detailed overview of what the recruitment process entails, including the steps, how they will be evaluated, and estimated timelines. Always let them know when they can expect to have an update from you.
While all of these tasks seem like a big time commitment, they are very easily automated.
Go mobile!
In today's smartphone-driven world, it is a setback when you don't have a recruitment process that works on mobile. Ensure that your career page and application forms have a responsive design.
While emails are the most preferred mode for formal communication, many candidates find text or WhatsApp messages to be more convenient for quickly reading and responding. Consider using them for less formal steps in your recruitment process.
Create excitement
Whether you are offering a candidate a job or simply moving them to the next step in the process, ensure that you communicate positive outcomes with enthusiasm. Congratulate your candidate, use an upbeat tone in your emails, and even consider using creatives or GIFs in messages that you want to feel fun for your candidates to read.
Make networking a priority
In order to really engage with candidates, you need to speak their language. It does not help when recruiters simply string together a bunch of requirements that they have memorized for the job role. Network with professionals in the roles for which you're recruiting, understand what the job is like from their perspective, and learn how to strike up an interesting, informed conversation with your candidates.
Reject responsibly
When there is only one position available, it is obvious that not all candidates make the cut. But there will be more than one star candidate that could be a great addition to your company, and you need them in your talent pipeline. You want your rejected candidates to know that you will get in touch for future opportunities, and continue to value your relationship with them even after the recruitment process is over.
Besides, all candidates deserve appreciation for their efforts in your recruitment process. Ensure that you give constructive feedback about their individual performance. Don't just send an automated rejection email, or worse, not tell candidates that they are rejected at all.
Improve consistently
If you don't measure and compare, you will not know which candidate engagement strategy is working for you. Make it an important practice to collect data and feedback so you can analyze your recruitment process and make consistent improvements.
Building better candidate experience
Prioritizing great candidate engagement throughout the recruitment process is imperative for fostering enthusiasm, building lasting relationships, and enhancing your company's reputation. By focusing on clear communication, personalization, and transparency, coupled with innovative approaches such as storytelling and employee involvement, organizations can create memorable experiences that resonate with candidates.
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