Candidate Experience: 3 ways to ensure your future employees have a positive and pleasant experience during the recruitment process

In today’s social world, candidates rather than companies, seem to be better placed to select with whom they want to build their career. Often, the decision to accept or reject a job offer, is taken basis the experience the candidate has had during the recruitment process.

As a Talent Acquisition professional, candidate experience is of special interest to me. During the course of some online researching, I have found two articles that share interesting insights and tips on how to improve the candidate experience.

The first article, Technology Insights: Technology to Improve the Candidate Experience by David Creelman, focuses on how technology can be the support enabler for improving candidate experience. Today’s tech solutions allow to create a virtual personal assistant to manage the whole recruitment logistics more efficiently. The article also showcases how with Apps, analytics are available at a click, which can play a huge role in tracking candidate experience.

http://bit.ly/1Sm1sGL

The second article, How can Recruiters improve the Candidate Experience? by Sophie Deering, has additional insights and guidance on improving the same. As per her, candidates’ need to be supported, informed and communicated with regularly during the recruitment process to keep the whole experience professional and pleasant. Supporting her views with an abundance of data, Sophie argues that it’s important for a recruiter to build a connect with the candidate before getting into transactions such as asking for a resume.

http://bit.ly/1Lf0IlZ

Drawing on these two articles and my experience as a Talent Acquisition professional, I have listed 3 Action Items that I would recommend to recruiters who want to enhance the experience of their candidates (or future employees):

·         Don’t Wait: The job market is fierce and quality talent always has a choice. Make sure you create a positive impact for the candidate while overseeing the recruitment process

·         Invest in Technology: Today, there are ready made tech solutions that can be deployed in a short time frame.

·         Retain the Human Touch: Even as you standardize and automate processes, ensure you create a human bond with your candidate. 

So, I’d say – Make improving candidate experience one of your primary focus goals and chart out your path towards the same.

My name is Vikas Dua and with over 10 years of experience in the fast paced world of ITES where recruitment is a daily part of life, I have had the opportunity to design and implement varied recruitment and candidate on boarding initiatives. You can follow me at @vykasdua