As a Talent Acquisition Professional, what does “candidate experience” mean to you?

To me, candidate experience is every single touch point that you have between your company and the candidate before, during, and after the recruiting process.  

Here are some quick tips from my experience consulting at a variety of software and startup companies – hope these inspire you to ramp up your existing practice or cultivate your own great candidate experience!

1. How to Attract and Engage Talent Before the Application: Use Social Media

If your organization doesn’t have an active LinkedIn, Facebook, Glassdoor, or Twitter, build your profiles and develop a plan!

Using social media platforms to showcase your company news, available positions, and culture gives candidates a better picture of your organization.

Encourage your employees to be active on social media and post about their work – the engagement helps candidates get a feel for what they could be doing or experiencing at your company.

At your next company event, take pictures, post on social media, and interact with your followers! 

Look at what #givingback does!! Amazing job @OP_Recruiting @T4Youth @AceBounce #pingpong pic.twitter.com/WOno1S0ynV

— Alex Konrath (@alexkonrath7) November 18, 2016

2. Have and Maintain a Robust Applicant Tracking System for Correspondence

There are a few great ATS systems that allow those managing candidate inflow to send automated, yet personalized emails to candidates once you receive their application. This is especially important at a larger company that receives hundreds of applications daily.

Even if the candidate isn’t a fit, sending a quick response acknowledging that you’ve received their resume goes a long way!

3. Keep Interviews Short and Sweet

A candidate may need to meet several team members during an onsite interview; one way to improve this step is to break long interviews into digestible pieces.

Having 2 people meet with a candidate in 30 minute segments or taking a candidate to lunch with a few team members makes for a less stressful situation for both the interviewers and interviewee.

Another underused option is leveraging Skype, WebEx, GoToMeeting, etc. for multiple interviews, especially with those not onsite.

Err on the side of caution with too many in-person interviews – if you have a passive candidate, they might not have the flexibility to come to your office several times over the course of many working days.

4. OVER Communicate

Set expectations early and often during the recruitment process!

During interviews, let candidates know the approximate length of time they should expect to be in the office, and the names of those they are meeting with.  

For a third-party recruiter, this is extremely important for keeping your candidates happy and excited about the opportunity and company you are representing.  

If a candidate is not going to get an offer, don’t hesitate to follow up.  Sometimes it can be hard to share bad news, but almost all job seekers will appreciate having feedback regardless of the outcome rather than radio silence.

Hopefully these tips help shed some light on ways that you can improve or fine-tune your candidate experience!

Alex Konrath is a Recruitment Consultant with Objective Paradigm, spending her time developing recruitment strategies, handling full-cycle recruitment processes for Sales, Technology, and Product roles, and helping build brand awareness for numerous clients. When not at work she loves to attend spin or yoga classes, and is highly addicted to Bravo TV. Stay tuned to the OP blog for more insight from Alex – connect with her on LinkedIn.