How to Win Over Top Candidates During Every Step of the Hiring Process

Like a picture, hiring has a frame, and even if you're not seeing it that way, your candidates and prospective employees are. The mechanics of the hiring process are just one feature (albeit an essential one) of a whole process that they experience that you can hone to valuable effect. Let's take these steps in sequence.

Where do candidates see your vacancies?

Firstly, think about how candidates can learn about your vacancies. If it's through your company website site, ask yourself if it is up to date, user friendly, and accurately represents your brand? If it’s on a specialist job board, does it stand out and will it catch the reader’s attention?

Candidates often appreciate a certain elegant minimalism in the way information is presented and usually don't want to spend all day sifting through loads of detail. They want to hear plenty more to offer them than just “an exciting role”.  It’s here where the candidate experience is improved with well curated content. What are you really looking for? What journey is your client on? What are their core values? What do their potential future co-workers look like?

Look at your job application

Secondly, consider the application process itself. A great candidate experience typically involves a mobile-optimised, user-friendly application, with required information kept to a reasonable minimum. These features are particularly key if simplicity, innovation, style, and similar attributes are central to your brand identity. If so, a cumbersome, complex application process can be a huge turn-off. We all know that candidates drop off during the online application process because of lengthy and unwieldy forms to fill in!

Perhaps you can build in simple, effective elements to the process that let your candidates showcase their personalities and add a more human touch, like video?

Think about your screening process

Next, you'll want to envision how candidates move (hopefully seamlessly) on to the next stage after submitting their application. The first of these should be a no-brainer; every application gets an answer, right? To the more seasoned recruiter, this point may sound somewhat cliché and pedestrian but unfortunately, it’s in these situations where candidates will also disappear. After all, they want to know, instead of just being left hanging!

Furthermore, the response should be reasonably prompt. The best candidates want to have a host of choices. If you get back to them slowly, it may already be too late to snap them up. Of course, the way you follow up has taken on increased significance too. For example, those high-performing millennials don't want your response disappearing into their inbox; they want the news right where they can see it, either by text or chat. Even timely well-directed communications need to get to the point. Don't chat so much with your candidates that their experience at this stage becomes laborious. The more streamlined the interview process is, the better. Although some hiring is inescapably collaborative, you and your team should be well-aligned at this step to avoid wasting candidates' time toing and froing.

On-boarding is part of the experience too

If you are recruiting for your own business, then on-boarding is just a crucial a part of the candidate experience as what's come before. You certainly don’t want to fluff it up here! Make sure there's an easy, intuitive way for your ‘newbies’ to get organised right from the start.

Rest assured, the whole process shouldn't be overwhelming, even if some big elements above are missing.

Tackling this challenge should be as straightforward, direct, and satisfying as your candidate experience should be.