Throughout your recruitment process, your candidates are the most important element. It’s all about attracting and pleasing them. If they’re not happy, you won’t get the good quality candidates you need. A good candidate experience is the most essential thing to get right. Below are a few tips how:
Keep it simple
This does not apply to every aspect of your recruitment process, as the next step certainly contradicts this. But when your potential candidates are applying for your roles, you do not want to overcomplicate things as they’ll get bored. A candidate journey starts from the second they first see your advert and from there the application process should be no longer than a few clicks. If after 10 clicks they still aren’t able to apply, you will lose a candidate at each click. We changed G4S’ whole application process with an easy to use landing page, providing a key centre for applicants to be channelled towards their page. This enabled applicants to enter their details in just a few clicks and then a member of the G4S team gave them a call for the more in-depth information. Keep it simple and easy to follow and apply, you can ask the complicated questions in the interviews.
Be bold
People are attracted to the most vibrant, colourful and unusual things. It’s just science. If you’re walking down a street and on one side is a black and white billboard and on the other is an animated billboard, your eye will naturally be drawn to the latter. Try to apply this to your advertising. Do something different that will make potential candidates look twice. This applies mostly to advertising campaigns but can easily apply to job board advertising too. You can go further than a simple job listing and go for a lively and exciting banner to attract your candidates.
Create the right content
There is no point in attracting your candidate with a bold advert for them to read a dull job copy. Your content needs to reflect your company and its culture and values. Keep it interesting and more candidates will be likely to apply for your jobs. Make sure you include all the vital info too, such as salary and hours, as this is what candidates look for first.
Use the right job boards
There are some people that will apply for every and any job going. This is great if your company doesn’t need somebody with a particular set of skills. It works on the other end too. If a candidate thinks they’re applying for a job in education because you’ve posted your job on the TES but it’s in fact a job in catering, they’re not going to be happy. I’ve spoken about this before, but you need to attract the right candidates from the right places and job boards. This will help improve the candidate experience 10x as they’ll be able to find the right job easily.
Focus on social media
Whether we like it or not, social media is a huge part of our lives now. It’s where people interact and share and where other people might find jobs. With the rise in popularity of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it is important you push your company onto these platforms to show off your jobs and career opportunities you can offer. They are also great for making your company seem a bit more human. The stories are everywhere, like when Tesco responded to a customer rather cheekily about their mobile service when the customer shamed them for not being as big a name as Vodafone. It could really help you step up above your competitors and make your potential candidates more attracted to your company and help them find out more info!
I know that when I’ve been applying for jobs, a lengthy application process and too much fluff around the job turns me away from it. I like a clear, simple journey to be able to apply to my dream job. Following the above guidelines means you can improve your candidate journey or experience and furthermore your company will be receiving more and better quality applicants. Which will then turn into the perfect employee you’ve been advertising for.
