Improving the Candidate Experience

Table of Contents

Do you respond to every candidate who applies to your company?
Do you respond to the candidates who are interviewed but not selected by your company?
Do you seek interview feedback from all the candidates interviewed at your company?

All of the above questions precisely fall under the category of “Communicating with applicants”and they play a critical role in the recruitment process. And if you answered “no” to any of the above questions, you are definitely losing on your employer brand. Because these are the candidates who are going to talk about you to everyone including your next potential hire, maybe.

I heard a webinar by Mr. Sachin Gupta, co-founder and CEO at HackerEarth and was impressed by his views on the same. It has definitely inspired my thinking.

He says, the journey of the potential employee begins when he is still a candidate. What they feel during the journey of the interview and recruiting process is critical, not only from the perspective of the person who gets hired but more critical from the perspective of the candidate, who doesn’t end up getting hired. Because these are the folks who will go out there, talk to their friends and tell them about these awesome interview experience at your company, where she was interviewed but didn’t get through. These people become your word of mouth and become the potential source of your next hire. So providing a superior candidate experience plays a pivotal role in creating a positive employer brand.

So, few things which we have started as a part of candidate follow-up activities at Digicorp include:

1. Replying to the candidates who will not be called for an interview

Nobody wants to put in a resume and then not know for 3 weeks as to what is happening with their candidature. It actually is annoying to be in this wait state, waiting endlessly for the recruiter to respond.

To overcome this, we at Digicorp have started replying to all the candidates, whose profiles do not match our current set of openings. This is what we tell them:

Dear Ms. A,

Thank you for showing your interest in joining us.

Well, unfortunately, we do not have an opening currently that matches your profile.

Still, I have saved your CV for our future reference.

Thanks for getting in touch and wish you all the best for your future endeavors.

In case if we have an opening but the candidate is overqualified or underqualified for the job-in-question, we say,

Dear Mr. A,

Thank you for showing your interest in joining us.

Well, unfortunately your profile is not matching our requirements, we need a Quality Analyst carrying at least one year of experience in automation testing.

Still, I have saved your CV for our future reference.

Thanks for getting in touch and wish you all the best for your future endeavors.

This simple gesture has done wonders for us. It has not only helped us win hearts of the candidates but has also helped us create our organizational brand. The candidates who receive our replies have started referring their friends/relatives who match our openings, so in turn they have become our referrals.

2. Notifying candidates who are interviewed but not selected

We have also made our candidate follow-up process pretty simple to close the loop graciously. The minute we know the candidate is rejected or on hold, the candidate knows. We try to be fully transparent and alert candidates of our decision with a good explanation of why he is rejected, if possible. Also we seek candidate’s feedback on the overall interview experience at Digicorp in a separate email.

In a nutshell, employer brand has a significant impact on the ability to hire. Employer branding is a long-term game. It is not going to help you to close your positions for this or the next month but it ensures that you’ve a smooth inflow of inbound candidates for your next set of openings.

So, what are the strategies you are using for making your “Employer Brand” and leaving a positive candidate experience?