As recruiters, it is important to create a positive candidate experience for all job seekers. A positive candidate experience not only contributes to your employer brand and attracting top talent, but it also makes the process of hiring more efficient and meaningful.
It all starts with the way you interact with potential candidates, and it goes all the way through to how you handle their application and onboarding, there are many steps recruiters can take to ensure that candidates have a great experience and these have been my key learnings so far.
Lead with empathy, understanding and communicate effectively
We’ve all been there, and we’ve all dealt with the stress of finding a new role.
Job searching isn’t always a positive experience for candidates. With the ever-changing job market, it can be difficult to know what you should be doing in order to make yourself stand out from the competition and especially given that you only have a brief window of time to showcase yourself.
Your 8 touchpoints is a practise that relates to both your client relationships and candidate journey. As technology continues to advance, it enables us to communicate effectively and keep candidates informed during the different stages. While automation is great for certain tasks, recruitment is a people business and candidates expect a level of human interaction – and so they should.
Making candidates feel empowered, respected and valued during the hiring process, for me is the most critical part of the process. The interviewing process can be stressful for many candidates and it is our role to make them feel comfortable and confident through our communication, preparation and feedback.
Always be sincere and professional, listen and be personal, provide constructive feedback and always encourage them to stay in touch regardless of the outcome.
Personalise your interactions
Take the time to understand their motivations and what they are looking for in their next role. Always be genuine in your interactions with them. This means being honest about job openings, requirements, expectations, and company culture.
People-led recruitment is the key to creating a positive candidate experience, as it allows us to focus on the human aspect of the hiring process, which is very much aligned to the sectors we at Be Recruitment service around person-centred care which is not just about providing people with what they want or providing information, it is about:
Being mindful of people’s desires, values, family situations, social circumstances and lifestyles;
Seeing the person as an individual, and working together to achieve the desired outcome;
Being compassionate, thinking about things from the person’s point of view and being respectful
This helps us take into account the individual needs and preferences of each candidate, as well as their overall career goals and how we can support them in achieving those.
Being supportive, genuine and making them feel valued is the way to stand out!
It can be tough, reaching out and building deep relationships with candidates while balancing the fact that we are also engaging with hundreds of potential other candidates and doing all of this on a tight timeline across multiple roles. In addition to this, in today’s candidate led market the options can be countless.
Given the highly personal nature of Health & Social care, we often have the opportunity to make strong and meaningful connections. I am genuinely amazed by people who have a passion to work in a field that is accomplished by helping those in need and it is rewarding to be able to help make a positive difference their careers and for this reason I have a vested interest in making the experience a positive one.
Positive candidate experience is worth its weight in gold and taking the time to really understand our candidates and communicating effectively has a direct impact not just on our brand but the organisations we represent!
