Candidate Experience – Importance and Meaning

Table of Content 

1. What is Candidate Experience 

2. How to Conduct a Candidate Experience Survey 

3. What is Candidate Experience in Recruitment 

4.  How to Improve Candidate Experience 

5. Why Candidate Experience Matters 

What is Candidate Experience 

Candidate experience is basically the overall perception of the candidate for the hiring process throughout their recruitment journey. 

What are the Components that Candidate Experience Includes 

The candidate experience includes everything from the moment a person applies for a job to the finally if they decide to take the offer extended by the company: other things it includes are clear communication, transparency, and a smooth process, making sure candidates feel respected and satisfied, despite what the results come out to be. 

You, as an HR, should also consider and ensure simple and respectful interactions, timely feedback, and an easy application process all contribute to a positive candidate experience. It can help you attract good candidates and build an overall positive employer reputation for your company. 

How to Conduct a Candidate Experience Survey 

To conduct a candidate survey, you can do the following. 

1. Begin by clearly defining the goals of your candidate survey. Make sure you have outlined all of the things that you want your candidates to provide feedback on—it can be the application process, communication, interviews, and the candidate satisfaction. 

2. The next step would be to create a comprehensive survey. In this section, you’ll want to include all the touchpoints of the candidate journey. To do it right, you’ll have to include all the right questions, interview experience, and impressions that they have of the company culture. 

3. Then determine the set of tools you’ll need for this process. You can use SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, or other specialized tools like HROne for more in-depth data analysis related to your HR processes. 

4. Make sure the survey is anonymous. 

5. The best time to send this survey to your candidates would be right after their recruitment process has been completed. That’s because this is the time when everything that has gone in the process would be fresh in their mind, and it’ll be easier for them to answer questions with clarity without spending much time on it. 

6. Make sure your candidates understand the purpose of your survey. 

7. To get the best results, send personalized invitations to your candidates and keep it concise. 

What is Candidate Experience in Recruitment 

Candidate’s experience in recruitment what are the candidates’ views and how does he or she feel about the whole recruitment process during their recruitment journey? 

How to Improve Candidate Experience 

To improve your candidate experience: 

The first thing you need is to ensure to improve the candidate experience that you’re filling for the right need. For this purpose, you’ll have to: 

• Perform a skill gap analysis and figure out what is the exact need that you’re trying to answer. 
• Coordinate with your hiring manager to determine what the title of this position would be. 
• And then based on that write your job description. 

Once it’s done, consider the following pointers for providing a better candidate experience: 

• Make sure you have given transparent details about in the job description, about the company culture, and the overall application process, 
• Set the right expectations for the role, timelines, and next steps in the recruitment process. 
• Make the overall process simpler and easier to carry out and user friendly for the candidate. 
• Make sure that your career page is mobile friendly. 
• When drafting your job description, keep it informative, engaging, and provide a clear understanding of the candidate’s role. 
• Highlight the company culture in your job description. 
• Reduce the delays in the interview process if you can. It’ll help you prevent the candidate’s frustration. 
• Make sure that you give your candidates clear instruction regarding the interview process. 
• Promote unbiased hiring and diversity in your company. 

Why Candidate Experience Matters 

The candidate experience is important because it helps you get happy candidates who talk about the company in their social circles, to their peers, and others.  

It ensures that even if you don’t accept the candidate for this job role, they may still consider your company for future roles. 

In fact, it’s known that over 77% of the candidates talk about their candidate experience with their network and about 65% of rejected candidates talk about their candidate experience if they were rejected by the company. 

Besides that, 38% of the candidates would prefer to join your company if they have had positive recruitment experience as it reflects your company culture as well. 

But just like that, poor candidate experience may result in you not attracting and retaining the right talent.