Josh TolanYour job as an HR professional is to get people behind your company’s mission, convince them to invest in the amazing opportunities you have, and put the best talent forward in your hiring process. You are the cultivator of growth and the nurturer of employee engagement and success. No pressure.
The truth is, we recognize the pressure you face to stand out in a competitive market and secure top talent. So we pulled together a quick list of the key experience factors candidates are looking for in your hiring process:
Communication
Ensuring candidates have a positive experience in your hiring process begins and ends with good communication. From how you communicate your hiring needs in your job descriptions to early outreach, invitations to interview, and keeping candidates updated, communication is the foundation for attracting and securing talent.
The first step in showing your communication prowess is writing clear job descriptions. Candidates need to know before applying if they’re adequately qualified, where they can go for pertinent information, and how the hiring process will progress. This info needs to be current. Not only will it save you time from filtering through ill-fitting talent, it’ll help avoid misunderstandings that also waste the candidate’s time and give them a poor impression of your company.
Furthermore, to make certain your hiring process speaks to today’s top talent, you need to get your complete communication strategy up to speed. Start by checking your communication tools for ease of use for both your team and candidates and customization. The ability to quickly access talent and empower them to easily reach you with their questions and concerns is a game-changer in the candidate experience.
Connection
Proof of a successful communication process is building valuable and meaningful connections with candidates. Applicants want to feel authentic interest from recruiters and members of your hiring team. Establishing a personal connection in the hiring process sets you on track to securing more engaged and committed employees.
If you’re rushing candidates through the hiring process to fill roles quickly, you’re missing important opportunities to connect potential new hires to your company’s values, mission, and culture. This is most evident if you’re experiencing high turnover in new hires or low levels of employee engagement. Unfortunately, your hiring process can be to blame because you may be giving candidates the wrong impression about your company before they join your team.
Your hiring process may also suffer from disengaged candidates, poor candidate experience, and low offer acceptance rates if talent doesn’t feel they can connect in interviews. Assessing your ability to effectively make valuable connections with candidates seems more personal than turning to your hiring metrics. However, this data is a strong indicator of how your communication strategy is working and whether your employer branding and interview process accurately project your company and culture.
Fairness
This checkpoint is a given. Your hiring process needs to be fair, and you take great strides toward creating an unbiased interview process by crafting valuable structured interview questions and evaluation criteria.
Quick tip: If you’re not using a structured interview process, learn about why this may be your next most important step.
Knowing your team has made every effort to keep assessments fair, however, is not enough. Candidates need to recognize they’ve entered a fair hiring process. This boosts their confidence in their ability to compete for your open roles and establishes trust in your hiring team. They are also more likely to believe by joining your team, they will continue to experience equal opportunities for advancement and equitable pay.
For candidates to see your hiring process as fair, establish consistency between interviews. Top talent frequently looks to candidate reviews or connects with current employees to prepare for interviews. If your job interviews run the gamut, candidates are inclined to believe your hiring process is disorganized and biased.
You should also review your candidate assessments for relevance. If applicants cannot see how interview questions or screening tests could possibly relate to the role for which they are applying, they are more open to presuming what qualifiers you’re assessing for.
Fun
There is no reason your hiring process can’t be fun. In fact, while that’s not the word most hiring and HR professionals use to describe their hiring strategy, it should be an underlying goal if you want to draw in top talent. There are a few factors that contribute to a hiring experience that are not particularly enjoyable.
- Long commutes
- Too many interviews
- Complicated interview tools
- Lack of timely feedback
Using a dedicated video interview platform solves many of these problems for candidates. For one, commutes are cut out for early screening interviews. You can invite talent to submit one-way video interviews and even follow up with live video interviews in the initial stages of the interview process. There’s no need to travel for in-person interviews until final decisions need to be made.
Video interviews are easy to record and submit. And with the use of interview scheduling tools, your team can connect and review interviews at their convenience, keeping the process moving along smoothly. This means your team can collaborate and provide timely feedback to candidates as well, improving the candidate experience.
Even better, video interview platforms are useful beyond hiring to keep your HR and hiring team working together effectively as you balance managing your workforce and meet hiring needs.
