Whether they get the job or not, candidates with a positive experience are more likely to portray your company as an employer of choice. Measuring candidate experience and sharing results helps you improve your recruiting process.
Ask for feedback from all candidates who exit your recruitment process, including successful and rejected applicants. Keep the survey short and use a mix of questions (multiple-choice, rating scales, open-ended).
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Enhances the Hiring Process
Candidate experience surveys like surveys from Greenhouse provide a powerful means for collecting candid feedback about the recruitment process. This information can help recruiters improve applicant communication and establish an efficient, effective hiring cycle.
Candidates appreciate being treated with respect, transparency, and understanding throughout the recruiting process. This can lead to a higher acceptance rate for job offers and contribute to the success of your organization as a brand.
Ensure that your survey questions are short and easy to answer. Optimize the survey experience for mobile devices to minimize candidate dropout rates. Additionally, candidates are more likely to be honest when they know their responses will be anonymous. It is a best practice to clarify that their responses will not be tied to their identity early in the process.
Boosts Employer Brand
To attract talent, build a robust candidate pool, and increase the number of candidates who accept your offers, you need to provide an engaging recruitment experience. This means proactively seeking feedback from applicants and allowing them to express their opinions, including those who advance further in the process.
This feedback can be a valuable source of insight to help you identify areas where your recruiting processes need improvement. For example, it may reveal that job descriptions could be more precise or that your interviewing skills need a tune-up.
When you share constructive feedback with your candidates, it helps them develop professionally and shows that you value them as people. This is a great way to enhance your employer brand and strengthen the recruiting process.
Increases Completion Rates
A candidate experience survey shows candidates that your organization is serious about recruiting and cares about their feedback. The survey allows for addressing any issues affecting the candidate’s recruitment journey.
Be sure to inform candidates of the survey early in the process. This will help avoid candidates feeling ambushed or as if they have been randomly selected for the survey. It also demonstrates that your organization is committed to obtaining unbiased feedback.
Use a mix of multiple-choice, rating scales, and open-ended questions to gather data on the key touchpoints of your recruiting process, such as application experience, interview process, communication, and overall impressions. This ensures that you are addressing the most critical areas for improvement.
Increases Retention Rates
A candidate’s experience during recruitment determines whether they accept your job offer or moves on to another opportunity. This is why ensuring your candidates have a smooth, positive journey through the application process is essential.
Even for those who don’t get the job, a good hiring experience is a great way to maintain a relationship with potential employees and encourage them to look for future opportunities. Using post-rejection surveys to gather feedback can help you identify areas of improvement and make data-backed changes to your recruitment strategy.
To ensure your survey participation rates are high, let candidates know from the start that you’ll ask them for their candid feedback. This best practice helps to respect participants’ time and increases the quality of your feedback.
Reduces Rejection Rates
In a world where candidates are no longer job seekers but brand ambassadors, customers, and future employees, every positive candidate experience matters. This is why it is imperative to continuously fine-tune the hiring process by gathering candidate feedback and using it to implement improvements.
Candidates who receive a negative experience will likely share their frustrations with the company on social media, in reviews, or even with their peers and friends. By soliciting candid feedback and addressing any shortcomings, you can avoid the potential for negative publicity and build an employer brand that attracts the best talent.
Make sure to time survey requests appropriately, avoiding asking respondents when they are still hoping for a second interview or feeling rejected. Also, be sure to offer an incentive for participation.
Varsha