The Candidate Experience – Why It’s Important | Recruiting Best Practices

Now that the marketplace is seeing some signs of life and businesses are hiring once again, it’s important for business owners to position themselves in a manner that appeals to the top quality candidates. Your business may still receive hundreds of applications and resumes for available positions.

However, if you’re after employees that represent the cream of the crop, understand that these top candidates are in a better position to be more selective in their job search activities. You’re going to have to impress them with the entire candidate experience if you want to successfully recruit them to work for you.

These are just a few of the reasons the candidate experience is so important for the sake of recruitment today.

Business is Happening and Businesses are Hiring as a Result

For the first time in nearly a decade, we’re seeing real growth in the job market. Companies are finally hiring again. That means that your competitors are probably competing for the top talent in the same limited pool of qualified workers.

While candidates today may be willing to work for less pay and even fewer perks than yesterday, they are still focused on finding positions that offer a good work environment. Their experiences as candidates provide them with a quick glimpse into what life will be like as an employee with your company compared to all the other companies out there that are hiring as well.

It’s Easier to Encourage Your Employees to Recommend Talented Friends

Employee references are one of the best ways to bring bright, talented people on board. Chances are your employees aren’t going to recommend people who aren’t going to pull their load and do their fair share of the work. More importantly, as your employees, they have a vested interest in the success of your business. They’re going to recommend people who will help make your company as successful as possible. However, they’ll only recommend their friends to come work for you if they are confident that you’re going to provide a welcoming candidate experience for them.

First Impressions Only Happen Once

There’s a lot of truth to the saying that “you only get one chance to make a first impression”. Those are words to live by when it comes to your impression on candidates as much as it is true about any given candidate’s first impression on you.

You can provide a seamless process for candidates to apply for positions within your organization, letting them know you run your company like a well-oiled machine. Or, you can create a process with many fits and starts along with no clear-cut directions concerning what comes next. These are all things that reflect poorly upon your business. Take care that you’re providing the first impression you intend to with job candidates.

You don’t have to go out of your way to change the way you operate business in order to improve your opportunities to make a favorable first impression. However, if you take a little time to show job candidates that you’ve put a fair amount of thought into the application and selection process it will prove to be a much better overall system for you both. This will honor the candidate experience.

Enjoy our related post on the topic of recruitment for success.

What is Your Competitor Doing? | Employee Compensation

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