The Candidate Experience-How Confident are You?

What The Candidate Experience Means to Me

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the candidates for our positions. I do what I can to provide a transparent, high-touch process (click here to listen to me talk more about our hiring process and recruiting philosophy), but sometimes it just gets tough to make sure everyone is in the loop at all steps of the game. I also wonder at times just what the candidates really want from me as their main point of contact during the interview/offer process.

The potential solution

So, with that in mind, I’m considering putting together a short, two question survey to send to all candidates we interviewed after the final selection has been made. It would ask these questions:

  1. On a scale of 1-5 what did you think of our recruiting process with regard to ease of scheduling interviews, timely communication, follow up, etc.?
  2. What could we have done to make the experience better for you?

If you recall, it’s very close to the set of questions suggested by the author of 101 Strategies for Recruiting Success. As with all surveys, we are sure to get some varying responses. I’d expect everything from “you should have picked me” to “I would have liked phone updates more than emails.” But the end result, I’m hoping, would be an idea or two to incorporate into the process to help make it more user-friendly on the candidate side of things.

To save some time and effort, I would only send it to the people we interview. Those who apply get the automatic email response when they apply, and I try to make sure and send the blanket “the position’s been filled” email after we hire someone. In my mind we don’t owe those people anything more, because honestly it would become a full-time job responding to each individual person. While I think it’s important to treat candidates like customers, I’m also realistic enough to know that we can’t offer personalized service to the 50+ people applying to some positions.

There’s an award for that

Just as I was finishing this post, I saw a friend mention The Candidate Experience Awards. I’m going to talk with our people and see if we want to participate, because it looks like an interesting process. I already know we do a good job with how to be a best place to work, but are we doing the best on the front end before the candidate ever joins the team? I think it would be neat to find out.

Anyone else do a survey like this with their candidates? Anyone think they might like to participate in the Candidate Experience Awards? I’d be interested in hearing your perspective. 

15 thoughts on “The Candidate Experience-How Confident are You?”

  1. Denni Oravec

    Thanks for the mention of the CandE Awards! I hope you do participate because by doing so, you will really get a chance to see how your company measures up against others, in the processes and tools they use through the complimentary benchmark report you’ll receive. You’ll also learn how your candidates REALLY feel about their experience with your company, (even it they aren’t hired) if you move to Round 2. There is really no downside to applying – if you don’t win, no one knows, if you do, then we tell everyone how great you are! It is great to hear that the candidate experience is in the forefront of your discussions. Hope you participate and hope you win!

  2. Lauren Smith

    Go for it! The CandE awards is a game changing initiative that’s long overdue. As Denni said, you’ve got nothing to lose.

    I just stumbled on your blog today — great work!

    You might also enjoy my 2-part series on What’s wrong with the Candidate Experience. http://www.ascendify.com/candidate-experience/

    Best,
    Lauren
    Marketing Director
    Ascendify Social Recruiting

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