You treat your employees like people, not just numbers, right? You respect their time, communicate with them regularly and get to know them personally. If you want to improve your candidate experience, you need to treat candidates the same way.
Candidates want a simple experience that reflects the environment in which they may work. Negative experiences frustrate candidates, which could lead them to posting bad reviews of your company on career sites like Indeed. Poor reviews will make it more difficult for you to find great talent. Automation and an applicant tracking system (ATS) can help you make sure every candidate leaves with a positive impression of your company, even if they are not hired.
No more ‘black hole’ of communication
After candidates apply for a position at your company, they should quickly hear from you. Although many candidates may infer they haven’t been selected if they don’t get acknowledgement of receipt, receiving nothing can make them wonder if their application even made it through the system.
An automated process helps to remove the “black hole” of communication by ensuring every candidate – qualified or not – hears something back from your company. In 2016, 47% of candidates were still waiting to hear back from an employer more than two months after submitting an application, according to the nonprofit organization Talent Board. While an automated response may not be personal, it at least lets candidates know you received their application and how long they should expect to wait to be contacted if they are being considered.
When you create an automated process, you’re forced to establish a clear hiring pipeline for all hiring managers to follow. Setting up a process allows you to test candidates’ experiences and find gaps in communication. This process then can be provided to candidates even before they’ve applied.
Once a hiring process is established, add a section on your careers page that clearly lays out the steps in an interview process. Concrete steps – for example, if a phone interview will occur, in addition to in-person interviews and a homework assignment – help candidates understand where they are in the process.
A personal connection with recruiters
High-touch aspects of recruiting, like interview preparation, can be improved when routine tasks are removed from the recruiter’s/hiring manager’s plate. A good ATS allows your recruiters to spend most of their time with talented candidates, instead of spending hours weeding through those who don’t meet your minimum requirements.
Recruiters have time to call candidates and prepare them for their in-person interviews, including answering any questions they may have and providing a detailed agenda. This personal touch helps to reduce or remove the nerves candidates feel going in to interviews – which will make those interviews a more accurate representation of the candidates.
Clear guidelines and decreased repetition
With an automated recruiting and established processes in place, your hiring managers will know better how long each aspect of the interview process will take. An established and consistent process will make it easier to identify the gaps that may lead to long waits between interviews or unnecessary steps and wasted time.
Candidates who gave their experiences a one-star rating indicated their time at appointments and interviews was disrespected, and some said they withdrew from consideration because the process took too long, according to Talent Board. Candidates won’t fall out of a long process if they know ahead of time to expect it.
How an ATS can help you
Organization is the key to success when it comes to providing a consistent candidate experience. Whether your business uses external recruiters, staffing firms or its own recruiters and HR department to gather candidates’ information, an ATS makes it easy to stay organized.
No matter what kind of business you have, automated recruiting can help you treat every candidate consistently and fairly. The result is an applicant left with a positive impression of your company, and an improved talent pool for you.