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Gerry Crispin

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Page 2: Gerry Crispin

The Role of Job Alerts In a Modern Recruitment Marketing Strategy

Talent acquisition teams need to be mirroring that to some degree in the various phases of candidate experience.

A few examples Gerry provided for setting expectations include:

• Providing an estimation of how long the application will take up front• Letting candidates know how long it will take to make a hiring decision• Letting candidates know when you will stop taking applications for a position• Showing candidates how many other applications were submitted• Detailing who candidates will be speaking with and when during the on-site interview process

Gerry also provided some input on the psychology behind expectations. He discussed an example of a job board that shows the probability a company will respond to you. He said, “When you see two companies side by side and their response rates, which one are you going to apply to?”

As you can see, there are many opportunities to set expectations. The Talent Board noted that 71% of companies do not list the average expected time required to complete an application at the beginning. That’s a quick win right there.

Gerry said it’s important to try new ways of setting expectations in an iterative, experimental fashion, so you can run a multitude of tests simultaneously and then measure the impact to your net promoter score.

Listen to your candidatesAccording to Gerry, giving candidates both the opportunity to be heard and provide feedback will improve your score and candidate experience.

There’s not much worse in the job search process than feeling like you’re just one person among millions trying to find a job. The online application process can easily make someone feel that way.

As Gerry explained, to get past that or at least ease their mind, you’ve got to let candidates know they’ve got a voice and that you’re listening.

One example of listening is to not just provide an email address on your site for more information about jobs, but to actively encourage on-the-spot engagement via chatting. He

The Path to An Exceptional Candidate Experience (According to Gerry Crispin)

Overview: The Five Drivers Behind Great Candidate ExperiencesThe world of hiring seems to be more candidate-driven than ever been before. Skilled professionals are in high demand, and that means they’ve got options. The presence of options, coupled with their rising bargaining power has catapulted candidate experience to the top of most major companies’ lists of recruiting priorities. How can you attract, connect with and convert talent if your candidate experience is weak?

Last week, we were lucky to have principal & co-founder of CareerXroads and founding member of The Talent Board, Gerry Crispin, in the Jibe office discussing this very topic. You’re likely familiar with the work he’s done on the annual Candidate Experience Research and Awards. If not, check it out here—it’s incomparably good information on candidate experience from both candidate and employer perspectives.

The Talent Board uses a version of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to score and rank companies’ candidate experience. In this context, NPS shows the likelihood a candidate would refer another person to apply to your company. It’s a good indicator of the health of your overall candidate experience (more detailed info on NPS can be found here).

Of course, there are tons of resources and strategies to tap into while improving your NPS, and consequently improving candidate experience. But, as Gerry explained, over the years, he’s seen five key themes stand out that seem to have a direct impact on how well a company performs. We’ll discuss them below:

Set expectations Gerry said, “If you set expectations, you will be rated higher.” He was adamant about the idea of how clearly defining what will happen in each stage of candidate experience—from sourcing and attraction, through the application, interview, hiring, and onboarding process—will improve your net promoter score.

Expectations are often an afterthought, likely because few talent acquisition professionals ever really go through and audit their own candidate experience. The result is they become blind to the fact that their application or interviewing process leaves their candidates feeling powerless and without information.

We live in a world of technology-enabled expectation setting. You can watch the icon of your Uber car as it travels toward you or track the status of your food order on Seamless as it’s prepared and delivered or—name any other awesome consumer experience.

Let your network know what you’re reading: Share this eBook on Twitter or LinkedIn!

said, “Just try to search the Dell website for a laptop. You will be prompted multiple times to chat with an expert. Why should a company that badly needs to fill a position not provide the opportunity for job seekers to chat with a recruiter?”

Examples of listening to candidates include:

• Chatting: As mentioned, having a chat pop-up may help make candidates feel like they have a voice. You may also consider doing something like a weekly Twitter chat. There’s a chance no one will show up, but you never know when that hard-to-find candidate will come out of the woodwork. • Responsiveness on social media: When a job seeker tweets a question directly to your Twitter handle or posts on your Facebook page, someone should be instructed to respond to them. An easy-to-deploy solution would be to just thank them for their interest and then provide an email address to which they can inquire. • Providing contact information: To let candidates know they have a voice, some companies will actually provide contact information of the recruiter who is handling the requisition. That way, they can reach out as needed.• O�ering the option to reply to automatic emails: Delivering an auto-response email that says “Do not reply to this email” makes the process seem very one-sided. It also makes it di�cult to receive potentially useful feedback or to answer questions that would improve your NPS. It’s advisable to reconsider barriers that have been in place for years.

Just think, a small improvement to your listening could improve your candidate experience and drive more candidates to your jobs over time. 71% of candidates said they might or would share their experience publicly. So whether you like it or not, you’re getting some good or bad word of mouth advertising.

Many companies have compliance hurdles stopping them from ever getting to this point—or at least, perceived compliance issues, where talent acquisition teams will never attempt to pursue such a listening strategy. That is a shame, because there is the opportunity to make minor tweaks to your process that could add up to major NPS and candidate experience improvements in the long run.

Exemplify fairnessAgain, talent acquisition has to be in tune with the fact that candidates understand there are many people applying for jobs. This can easily make it seem “unfair” when they apply without ever hearing anything. As Gerry explained, a process that seems fair from the candidate’s perspective will receive a higher NPS than others.

• Following up with recommendations on what can be improved upon• Ending with positive comments about the situation no matter what—whether the candidate was chosen or not• Again, do not just give feedback, ask for it as well to create a sense of fairness at some point

“There is absolutely no excuse” for not providing some form of closure. Taking a moment to ensure that every candidate will receive something in return for their time and interest—even if it’s automated—will deliver long-term benefits to your candidate experience.

Demand accountabilityGerry said, “You’re accountable for your life and everything else, so why not be accountable for the candidate experience you’re giving? Recruiters, by and large, who are accountable for candidate experience are rated higher, which will drive up the company’s overall candidate experience and net promoter score.”

For many talent acquisition leaders, the answer to improving candidate experience is right in front of them—make recruiters more accountable. That is easier said than done, though. Demanding accountability requires creating a process for measuring performance, incentivizing performance, and enabling an environment of continuous learning.

If you are providing a short survey when the recruiting process ends, the first step toward accountability is simply tying candidates’ responses back to the performance of the recruiter. From there, leadership needs to set up a schedule for reviewing that performance on both an individual and team level, as well as a set of rewards for meeting goals—monetary, in-kind, or both.

Leadership must be able to synthesize the information and provide feedback to recruiters on areas for improvement. Gerry explained, this will improve your NPS, your candidate experience, and go as far as improving your organization’s financial performance.

The TakeawayLeading companies approach improving these aspects of candidate experience in their own unique ways—ways which tend to reflect the culture and resources available to them.

Gerry said, “Every year, I see something interesting and new.” And then he explained how one company has started incorporating simulations into its assessments, so both candidates and

In many ways, the first two points around setting expectations and listening play a role here. If candidates know what to expect and they feel like you’re listening to them, those two aspects intrinsically foster a sense of fairness.

Examples of making recruiting and hiring processes fair include:

• Properly aligning job descriptions to application and interviewing processes• Asking applicable questions during any assessments (if you ask irrelevant questions or ones that don’t align with the job description, candidates will view it as unfair)• Asking relevant questions during the interviewing process with the hiring manager (otherwise, candidates will leave thinking “there’s no way they’ll hire me”)• Properly setting expectations for the application and hiring process• Providing the opportunity for candidates to have a voice by requesting feedback

The Talent Board revealed that at least 59% of candidates in 2015 were never asked to provide feedback (another 22% couldn’t remember if they were given the option).

Working to improve fairness helps you to break through the one-sidedness of the recruiting and hiring processes.

Provide closureGerry explained, “There’s absolutely no excuse for not telling someone they didn’t get the job or thanking them for applying. You’ve got to be able to do that—and, at the very least, technology makes it easy to automate this.”

Thanking candidates for applying and telling them they didn’t get the job will improve your score. In addition, Gerry noted companies that perform better than others in NPS provide feedback.

As shown in the 2015 Candidate Experience Research data, a vast majority of companies that received a one-star rating gave no feedback to candidates. Many candidates expect feedback—applying and interviewing is a very transactional experience, and it seems unfair to receive absolutely nothing in return.

Examples of how to provide feedback and closure include:

• Thanking every candidate for their time, every time (use recruiting automation software if necessary for high volume)

hiring organizations can actually see if the position is a good fit right o� the bat. That type of interesting recruiting process can lead to better scores.

You don’t necessarily have to create a simulation or invest in something over the top. The point is to look at the five buckets listed above and identify areas where you can experiment with ways to improve, measure the performance, calibrate, and then move forward. Many small adjustments to your candidate experience can add up quickly.

Improving your candidate experience? Let us help:Click the button below and one of our HR technology specialists will score your career

site candidate experience, and then provide a prioritized list of areas to improve:

Other resources you might want to read:

Page 3: Gerry Crispin

The Path to An Exceptional Candidate Experience (According to Gerry Crispin)

Talent acquisition teams need to be mirroring that to some degree in the various phases of candidate experience.

A few examples Gerry provided for setting expectations include:

• Providing an estimation of how long the application will take up front• Letting candidates know how long it will take to make a hiring decision• Letting candidates know when you will stop taking applications for a position• Showing candidates how many other applications were submitted• Detailing who candidates will be speaking with and when during the on-site interviewprocess

Gerry also provided some input on the psychology behind expectations. He discussed an example of a job board that shows the probability a company will respond to you. He said, “When you see two companies side by side and their response rates, which one are you going to apply to?”

As you can see, there are many opportunities to set expectations. The Talent Board noted that 71% of companies do not list the average expected time required to complete an application at the beginning. That’s a quick win right there.

Gerry said it’s important to try new ways of setting expectations in an iterative, experimental fashion, so you can run a multitude of tests simultaneously and then measure the impact to your net promoter score.

Listen to your candidatesAccording to Gerry, giving candidates both the opportunity to be heard and provide feedback will improve your score and candidate experience.

There’s not much worse in the job search process than feeling like you’re just one person among millions trying to find a job. The online application process can easily make someone feel that way.

As Gerry explained, to get past that or at least ease their mind, you’ve got to let candidates know they’ve got a voice and that you’re listening.

One example of listening is to not just provide an email address on your site for more information about jobs, but to actively encourage on-the-spot engagement via chatting. He

Overview: The Five Drivers Behind Great Candidate ExperiencesThe world of hiring seems to be more candidate-driven than ever been before. Skilled professionals are in high demand, and that means they’ve got options. The presence of options, coupled with their rising bargaining power has catapulted candidate experience to the top of most major companies’ lists of recruiting priorities. How can you attract, connect with and convert talent if your candidate experience is weak?

Last week, we were lucky to have principal & co-founder of CareerXroads and founding member of The Talent Board, Gerry Crispin, in the Jibe o�ce discussing this very topic. You’re likely familiar with the work he’s done on the annual Candidate Experience Research and Awards. If not, check it out here—it’s incomparably good information on candidate experience from both candidate and employer perspectives.

The Talent Board uses a version of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to score and rank companies’ candidate experience. In this context, NPS shows the likelihood a candidate would refer another person to apply to your company. It’s a good indicator of the health of your overall candidate experience (more detailed info on NPS can be found here).

Of course, there are tons of resources and strategies to tap into while improving your NPS, and consequently improving candidate experience. But, as Gerry explained, over the years, he’s seen five key themes stand out that seem to have a direct impact on how well a company performs. We’ll discuss them below:

Set expectations Gerry said, “If you set expectations, you will be rated higher.” He was adamant about the idea of how clearly defining what will happen in each stage of candidate experience—from sourcing and attraction, through the application, interview, hiring, and onboarding process—will improve your net promoter score.

Expectations are often an afterthought, likely because few talent acquisition professionals ever really go through and audit their own candidate experience. The result is they become blind to the fact that their application or interviewing process leaves their candidates feeling powerless and without information.

We live in a world of technology-enabled expectation setting. You can watch the icon of your Uber car as it travels toward you or track the status of your food order on Seamless as it’s prepared and delivered or—name any other awesome consumer experience.

Let your network know what you’re reading: Share this eBook on Twitter or LinkedIn!

said, “Just try to search the Dell website for a laptop. You will be prompted multiple times to chat with an expert. Why should a company that badly needs to fill a position not provide the opportunity for job seekers to chat with a recruiter?”

Examples of listening to candidates include:

• Chatting: As mentioned, having a chat pop-up may help make candidates feel like they have a voice. You may also consider doing something like a weekly Twitter chat. There’s a chance no one will show up, but you never know when that hard-to-find candidate will come out of the woodwork. • Responsiveness on social media: When a job seeker tweets a question directly to your Twitter handle or posts on your Facebook page, someone should be instructed to respond to them. An easy-to-deploy solution would be to just thank them for their interest and then provide an email address to which they can inquire. • Providing contact information: To let candidates know they have a voice, some companies will actually provide contact information of the recruiter who is handling the requisition. That way, they can reach out as needed.• O�ering the option to reply to automatic emails: Delivering an auto-response email that says “Do not reply to this email” makes the process seem very one-sided. It also makes it di�cult to receive potentially useful feedback or to answer questions that would improve your NPS. It’s advisable to reconsider barriers that have been in place for years.

Just think, a small improvement to your listening could improve your candidate experience and drive more candidates to your jobs over time. 71% of candidates said they might or would share their experience publicly. So whether you like it or not, you’re getting some good or bad word of mouth advertising.

Many companies have compliance hurdles stopping them from ever getting to this point—or at least, perceived compliance issues, where talent acquisition teams will never attempt to pursue such a listening strategy. That is a shame, because there is the opportunity to make minor tweaks to your process that could add up to major NPS and candidate experience improvements in the long run.

Exemplify fairnessAgain, talent acquisition has to be in tune with the fact that candidates understand there are many people applying for jobs. This can easily make it seem “unfair” when they apply without ever hearing anything. As Gerry explained, a process that seems fair from the candidate’s perspective will receive a higher NPS than others.

• Following up with recommendations on what can be improved upon• Ending with positive comments about the situation no matter what—whether the candidate was chosen or not• Again, do not just give feedback, ask for it as well to create a sense of fairness at some point

“There is absolutely no excuse” for not providing some form of closure. Taking a moment to ensure that every candidate will receive something in return for their time and interest—even if it’s automated—will deliver long-term benefits to your candidate experience.

Demand accountabilityGerry said, “You’re accountable for your life and everything else, so why not be accountable for the candidate experience you’re giving? Recruiters, by and large, who are accountable for candidate experience are rated higher, which will drive up the company’s overall candidate experience and net promoter score.”

For many talent acquisition leaders, the answer to improving candidate experience is right in front of them—make recruiters more accountable. That is easier said than done, though. Demanding accountability requires creating a process for measuring performance, incentivizing performance, and enabling an environment of continuous learning.

If you are providing a short survey when the recruiting process ends, the first step toward accountability is simply tying candidates’ responses back to the performance of the recruiter. From there, leadership needs to set up a schedule for reviewing that performance on both an individual and team level, as well as a set of rewards for meeting goals—monetary, in-kind, or both.

Leadership must be able to synthesize the information and provide feedback to recruiters on areas for improvement. Gerry explained, this will improve your NPS, your candidate experience, and go as far as improving your organization’s financial performance.

The TakeawayLeading companies approach improving these aspects of candidate experience in their own unique ways—ways which tend to reflect the culture and resources available to them.

Gerry said, “Every year, I see something interesting and new.” And then he explained how one company has started incorporating simulations into its assessments, so both candidates and

In many ways, the first two points around setting expectations and listening play a role here. If candidates know what to expect and they feel like you’re listening to them, those two aspects intrinsically foster a sense of fairness.

Examples of making recruiting and hiring processes fair include:

• Properly aligning job descriptions to application and interviewing processes• Asking applicable questions during any assessments (if you ask irrelevant questions or ones that don’t align with the job description, candidates will view it as unfair)• Asking relevant questions during the interviewing process with the hiring manager (otherwise, candidates will leave thinking “there’s no way they’ll hire me”)• Properly setting expectations for the application and hiring process• Providing the opportunity for candidates to have a voice by requesting feedback

The Talent Board revealed that at least 59% of candidates in 2015 were never asked to provide feedback (another 22% couldn’t remember if they were given the option).

Working to improve fairness helps you to break through the one-sidedness of the recruiting and hiring processes.

Provide closureGerry explained, “There’s absolutely no excuse for not telling someone they didn’t get the job or thanking them for applying. You’ve got to be able to do that—and, at the very least, technology makes it easy to automate this.”

Thanking candidates for applying and telling them they didn’t get the job will improve your score. In addition, Gerry noted companies that perform better than others in NPS provide feedback.

As shown in the 2015 Candidate Experience Research data, a vast majority of companies that received a one-star rating gave no feedback to candidates. Many candidates expect feedback—applying and interviewing is a very transactional experience, and it seems unfair to receive absolutely nothing in return.

Examples of how to provide feedback and closure include:

• Thanking every candidate for their time, every time (use recruiting automation software if necessary for high volume)

hiring organizations can actually see if the position is a good fit right o� the bat. That type of interesting recruiting process can lead to better scores.

You don’t necessarily have to create a simulation or invest in something over the top. The point is to look at the five buckets listed above and identify areas where you can experiment with ways to improve, measure the performance, calibrate, and then move forward. Many small adjustments to your candidate experience can add up quickly.

Improving your candidate experience? Let us help:Click the button below and one of our HR technology specialists will score your career

site candidate experience, and then provide a prioritized list of areas to improve:

Other resources you might want to read:

Page 4: Gerry Crispin

The Path to An Exceptional Candidate Experience (According to Gerry Crispin)

Talent acquisition teams need to be mirroring that to some degree in the various phases of candidate experience.

A few examples Gerry provided for setting expectations include:

• Providing an estimation of how long the application will take up front• Letting candidates know how long it will take to make a hiring decision• Letting candidates know when you will stop taking applications for a position• Showing candidates how many other applications were submitted• Detailing who candidates will be speaking with and when during the on-site interview process

Gerry also provided some input on the psychology behind expectations. He discussed an example of a job board that shows the probability a company will respond to you. He said, “When you see two companies side by side and their response rates, which one are you going to apply to?”

As you can see, there are many opportunities to set expectations. The Talent Board noted that 71% of companies do not list the average expected time required to complete an application at the beginning. That’s a quick win right there.

Gerry said it’s important to try new ways of setting expectations in an iterative, experimental fashion, so you can run a multitude of tests simultaneously and then measure the impact to your net promoter score.

Listen to your candidatesAccording to Gerry, giving candidates both the opportunity to be heard and provide feedback will improve your score and candidate experience.

There’s not much worse in the job search process than feeling like you’re just one person among millions trying to find a job. The online application process can easily make someone feel that way.

As Gerry explained, to get past that or at least ease their mind, you’ve got to let candidates know they’ve got a voice and that you’re listening.

One example of listening is to not just provide an email address on your site for more information about jobs, but to actively encourage on-the-spot engagement via chatting. He

Overview: The Five Drivers Behind Great Candidate ExperiencesThe world of hiring seems to be more candidate-driven than ever been before. Skilled professionals are in high demand, and that means they’ve got options. The presence of options, coupled with their rising bargaining power has catapulted candidate experience to the top of most major companies’ lists of recruiting priorities. How can you attract, connect with and convert talent if your candidate experience is weak?

Last week, we were lucky to have principal & co-founder of CareerXroads and founding member of The Talent Board, Gerry Crispin, in the Jibe o�ce discussing this very topic. You’re likely familiar with the work he’s done on the annual Candidate Experience Research and Awards. If not, check it out here—it’s incomparably good information on candidate experience from both candidate and employer perspectives.

The Talent Board uses a version of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to score and rank companies’ candidate experience. In this context, NPS shows the likelihood a candidate would refer another person to apply to your company. It’s a good indicator of the health of your overall candidate experience (more detailed info on NPS can be found here).

Of course, there are tons of resources and strategies to tap into while improving your NPS, and consequently improving candidate experience. But, as Gerry explained, over the years, he’s seen five key themes stand out that seem to have a direct impact on how well a company performs. We’ll discuss them below:

Set expectations Gerry said, “If you set expectations, you will be rated higher.” He was adamant about the idea of how clearly defining what will happen in each stage of candidate experience—from sourcing and attraction, through the application, interview, hiring, and onboarding process—will improve your net promoter score.

Expectations are often an afterthought, likely because few talent acquisition professionals ever really go through and audit their own candidate experience. The result is they become blind to the fact that their application or interviewing process leaves their candidates feeling powerless and without information.

We live in a world of technology-enabled expectation setting. You can watch the icon of your Uber car as it travels toward you or track the status of your food order on Seamless as it’s prepared and delivered or—name any other awesome consumer experience.

Let your network know what you’re reading: Share this eBook on Twitter or LinkedIn!

said, “Just try to search the Dell website for a laptop. You will be prompted multiple times to chat with an expert. Why should a company that badly needs to fill a position not provide the opportunity for job seekers to chat with a recruiter?”

Examples of listening to candidates include:

• Chatting: As mentioned, having a chat pop-up may help make candidates feel like theyhave a voice. You may also consider doing something like a weekly Twitter chat. There’s achance no one will show up, but you never know when that hard-to-find candidate willcome out of the woodwork.• Responsiveness on social media: When a job seeker tweets a question directly to yourTwitter handle or posts on your Facebook page, someone should be instructed to respondto them. An easy-to-deploy solution would be to just thank them for their interest andthen provide an email address to which they can inquire.• Providing contact information: To let candidates know they have a voice, somecompanies will actually provide contact information of the recruiter who is handling therequisition. That way, they can reach out as needed.• O�ering the option to reply to automatic emails: Delivering an auto-response emailthat says “Do not reply to this email” makes the process seem very one-sided. It alsomakes it di�cult to receive potentially useful feedback or to answer questions that wouldimprove your NPS. It’s advisable to reconsider barriers that have been in place for years.

Just think, a small improvement to your listening could improve your candidate experience and drive more candidates to your jobs over time. 71% of candidates said they might or would share their experience publicly. So whether you like it or not, you’re getting some good or bad word of mouth advertising.

Many companies have compliance hurdles stopping them from ever getting to this point—or at least, perceived compliance issues, where talent acquisition teams will never attempt to pursue such a listening strategy. That is a shame, because there is the opportunity to make minor tweaks to your process that could add up to major NPS and candidate experience improvements in the long run.

Exemplify fairnessAgain, talent acquisition has to be in tune with the fact that candidates understand there are many people applying for jobs. This can easily make it seem “unfair” when they apply without ever hearing anything. As Gerry explained, a process that seems fair from the candidate’s perspective will receive a higher NPS than others.

• Following up with recommendations on what can be improved upon• Ending with positive comments about the situation no matter what—whether the candidate was chosen or not• Again, do not just give feedback, ask for it as well to create a sense of fairness at some point

“There is absolutely no excuse” for not providing some form of closure. Taking a moment to ensure that every candidate will receive something in return for their time and interest—even if it’s automated—will deliver long-term benefits to your candidate experience.

Demand accountabilityGerry said, “You’re accountable for your life and everything else, so why not be accountable for the candidate experience you’re giving? Recruiters, by and large, who are accountable for candidate experience are rated higher, which will drive up the company’s overall candidate experience and net promoter score.”

For many talent acquisition leaders, the answer to improving candidate experience is right in front of them—make recruiters more accountable. That is easier said than done, though. Demanding accountability requires creating a process for measuring performance, incentivizing performance, and enabling an environment of continuous learning.

If you are providing a short survey when the recruiting process ends, the first step toward accountability is simply tying candidates’ responses back to the performance of the recruiter. From there, leadership needs to set up a schedule for reviewing that performance on both an individual and team level, as well as a set of rewards for meeting goals—monetary, in-kind, or both.

Leadership must be able to synthesize the information and provide feedback to recruiters on areas for improvement. Gerry explained, this will improve your NPS, your candidate experience, and go as far as improving your organization’s financial performance.

The TakeawayLeading companies approach improving these aspects of candidate experience in their own unique ways—ways which tend to reflect the culture and resources available to them.

Gerry said, “Every year, I see something interesting and new.” And then he explained how one company has started incorporating simulations into its assessments, so both candidates and

In many ways, the first two points around setting expectations and listening play a role here. If candidates know what to expect and they feel like you’re listening to them, those two aspects intrinsically foster a sense of fairness.

Examples of making recruiting and hiring processes fair include:

• Properly aligning job descriptions to application and interviewing processes• Asking applicable questions during any assessments (if you ask irrelevant questions or ones that don’t align with the job description, candidates will view it as unfair)• Asking relevant questions during the interviewing process with the hiring manager (otherwise, candidates will leave thinking “there’s no way they’ll hire me”)• Properly setting expectations for the application and hiring process• Providing the opportunity for candidates to have a voice by requesting feedback

The Talent Board revealed that at least 59% of candidates in 2015 were never asked to provide feedback (another 22% couldn’t remember if they were given the option).

Working to improve fairness helps you to break through the one-sidedness of the recruiting and hiring processes.

Provide closureGerry explained, “There’s absolutely no excuse for not telling someone they didn’t get the job or thanking them for applying. You’ve got to be able to do that—and, at the very least, technology makes it easy to automate this.”

Thanking candidates for applying and telling them they didn’t get the job will improve your score. In addition, Gerry noted companies that perform better than others in NPS provide feedback.

As shown in the 2015 Candidate Experience Research data, a vast majority of companies that received a one-star rating gave no feedback to candidates. Many candidates expect feedback—applying and interviewing is a very transactional experience, and it seems unfair to receive absolutely nothing in return.

Examples of how to provide feedback and closure include:

• Thanking every candidate for their time, every time (use recruiting automation software if necessary for high volume)

hiring organizations can actually see if the position is a good fit right o� the bat. That type of interesting recruiting process can lead to better scores.

You don’t necessarily have to create a simulation or invest in something over the top. The point is to look at the five buckets listed above and identify areas where you can experiment with ways to improve, measure the performance, calibrate, and then move forward. Many small adjustments to your candidate experience can add up quickly.

Improving your candidate experience? Let us help:Click the button below and one of our HR technology specialists will score your career

site candidate experience, and then provide a prioritized list of areas to improve:

Other resources you might want to read:

Page 5: Gerry Crispin

Talent acquisition teams need to be mirroring that to some degree in the various phases of candidate experience.

A few examples Gerry provided for setting expectations include:

• Providing an estimation of how long the application will take up front• Letting candidates know how long it will take to make a hiring decision• Letting candidates know when you will stop taking applications for a position• Showing candidates how many other applications were submitted• Detailing who candidates will be speaking with and when during the on-site interview process

Gerry also provided some input on the psychology behind expectations. He discussed an example of a job board that shows the probability a company will respond to you. He said, “When you see two companies side by side and their response rates, which one are you going to apply to?”

As you can see, there are many opportunities to set expectations. The Talent Board noted that 71% of companies do not list the average expected time required to complete an application at the beginning. That’s a quick win right there.

Gerry said it’s important to try new ways of setting expectations in an iterative, experimental fashion, so you can run a multitude of tests simultaneously and then measure the impact to your net promoter score.

Listen to your candidatesAccording to Gerry, giving candidates both the opportunity to be heard and provide feedback will improve your score and candidate experience.

There’s not much worse in the job search process than feeling like you’re just one person among millions trying to find a job. The online application process can easily make someone feel that way.

As Gerry explained, to get past that or at least ease their mind, you’ve got to let candidates know they’ve got a voice and that you’re listening.

One example of listening is to not just provide an email address on your site for more information about jobs, but to actively encourage on-the-spot engagement via chatting. He

Overview: The Five Drivers Behind Great Candidate ExperiencesThe world of hiring seems to be more candidate-driven than ever been before. Skilled professionals are in high demand, and that means they’ve got options. The presence of options, coupled with their rising bargaining power has catapulted candidate experience to the top of most major companies’ lists of recruiting priorities. How can you attract, connect with and convert talent if your candidate experience is weak?

Last week, we were lucky to have principal & co-founder of CareerXroads and founding member of The Talent Board, Gerry Crispin, in the Jibe o�ce discussing this very topic. You’re likely familiar with the work he’s done on the annual Candidate Experience Research and Awards. If not, check it out here—it’s incomparably good information on candidate experience from both candidate and employer perspectives.

The Talent Board uses a version of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to score and rank companies’ candidate experience. In this context, NPS shows the likelihood a candidate would refer another person to apply to your company. It’s a good indicator of the health of your overall candidate experience (more detailed info on NPS can be found here).

Of course, there are tons of resources and strategies to tap into while improving your NPS, and consequently improving candidate experience. But, as Gerry explained, over the years, he’s seen five key themes stand out that seem to have a direct impact on how well a company performs. We’ll discuss them below:

Set expectations Gerry said, “If you set expectations, you will be rated higher.” He was adamant about the idea of how clearly defining what will happen in each stage of candidate experience—from sourcing and attraction, through the application, interview, hiring, and onboarding process—will improve your net promoter score.

Expectations are often an afterthought, likely because few talent acquisition professionals ever really go through and audit their own candidate experience. The result is they become blind to the fact that their application or interviewing process leaves their candidates feeling powerless and without information.

We live in a world of technology-enabled expectation setting. You can watch the icon of your Uber car as it travels toward you or track the status of your food order on Seamless as it’s prepared and delivered or—name any other awesome consumer experience.

said, “Just try to search the Dell website for a laptop. You will be prompted multiple times to chat with an expert. Why should a company that badly needs to fill a position not provide the opportunity for job seekers to chat with a recruiter?”

Examples of listening to candidates include:

• Chatting: As mentioned, having a chat pop-up may help make candidates feel like they have a voice. You may also consider doing something like a weekly Twitter chat. There’s a chance no one will show up, but you never know when that hard-to-find candidate will come out of the woodwork. • Responsiveness on social media: When a job seeker tweets a question directly to your Twitter handle or posts on your Facebook page, someone should be instructed to respond to them. An easy-to-deploy solution would be to just thank them for their interest and then provide an email address to which they can inquire. • Providing contact information: To let candidates know they have a voice, some companies will actually provide contact information of the recruiter who is handling the requisition. That way, they can reach out as needed.• O�ering the option to reply to automatic emails: Delivering an auto-response email that says “Do not reply to this email” makes the process seem very one-sided. It also makes it di�cult to receive potentially useful feedback or to answer questions that would improve your NPS. It’s advisable to reconsider barriers that have been in place for years.

Just think, a small improvement to your listening could improve your candidate experience and drive more candidates to your jobs over time. 71% of candidates said they might or would share their experience publicly. So whether you like it or not, you’re getting some good or bad word of mouth advertising.

Many companies have compliance hurdles stopping them from ever getting to this point—or at least, perceived compliance issues, where talent acquisition teams will never attempt to pursue such a listening strategy. That is a shame, because there is the opportunity to make minor tweaks to your process that could add up to major NPS and candidate experience improvements in the long run.

Exemplify fairnessAgain, talent acquisition has to be in tune with the fact that candidates understand there are many people applying for jobs. This can easily make it seem “unfair” when they apply without ever hearing anything. As Gerry explained, a process that seems fair from the candidate’s perspective will receive a higher NPS than others.

• Following up with recommendations on what can be improved upon• Ending with positive comments about the situation no matter what—whether the candidate was chosen or not• Again, do not just give feedback, ask for it as well to create a sense of fairness at some point

“There is absolutely no excuse” for not providing some form of closure. Taking a moment to ensure that every candidate will receive something in return for their time and interest—even if it’s automated—will deliver long-term benefits to your candidate experience.

Demand accountabilityGerry said, “You’re accountable for your life and everything else, so why not be accountable for the candidate experience you’re giving? Recruiters, by and large, who are accountable for candidate experience are rated higher, which will drive up the company’s overall candidate experience and net promoter score.”

For many talent acquisition leaders, the answer to improving candidate experience is right in front of them—make recruiters more accountable. That is easier said than done, though. Demanding accountability requires creating a process for measuring performance, incentivizing performance, and enabling an environment of continuous learning.

If you are providing a short survey when the recruiting process ends, the first step toward accountability is simply tying candidates’ responses back to the performance of the recruiter. From there, leadership needs to set up a schedule for reviewing that performance on both an individual and team level, as well as a set of rewards for meeting goals—monetary, in-kind, or both.

Leadership must be able to synthesize the information and provide feedback to recruiters on areas for improvement. Gerry explained, this will improve your NPS, your candidate experience, and go as far as improving your organization’s financial performance.

The TakeawayLeading companies approach improving these aspects of candidate experience in their own unique ways—ways which tend to reflect the culture and resources available to them.

Gerry said, “Every year, I see something interesting and new.” And then he explained how one company has started incorporating simulations into its assessments, so both candidates and

The Path to An Exceptional Candidate Experience (According to Gerry Crispin)

In many ways, the first two points around setting expectations and listening play a role here. If candidates know what to expect and they feel like you’re listening to them, those two aspects intrinsically foster a sense of fairness.

Examples of making recruiting and hiring processes fair include:

• Properly aligning job descriptions to application and interviewing processes• Asking applicable questions during any assessments (if you ask irrelevant questions orones that don’t align with the job description, candidates will view it as unfair)• Asking relevant questions during the interviewing process with the hiring manager(otherwise, candidates will leave thinking “there’s no way they’ll hire me”)• Properly setting expectations for the application and hiring process• Providing the opportunity for candidates to have a voice by requesting feedback

The Talent Board revealed that at least 59% of candidates in 2015 were never asked to provide feedback (another 22% couldn’t remember if they were given the option).

Working to improve fairness helps you to break through the one-sidedness of the recruiting and hiring processes.

Provide closureGerry explained, “There’s absolutely no excuse for not telling someone they didn’t get the job or thanking them for applying. You’ve got to be able to do that—and, at the very least, technology makes it easy to automate this.”

Thanking candidates for applying and telling them they didn’t get the job will improve your score. In addition, Gerry noted companies that perform better than others in NPS provide feedback.

As shown in the 2015 Candidate Experience Research data, a vast majority of companies that received a one-star rating gave no feedback to candidates. Many candidates expect feedback—applying and interviewing is a very transactional experience, and it seems unfair to receive absolutely nothing in return.

Examples of how to provide feedback and closure include:

• Thanking every candidate for their time, every time (use recruiting automation softwareif necessary for high volume)

hiring organizations can actually see if the position is a good fit right o� the bat. That type of interesting recruiting process can lead to better scores.

You don’t necessarily have to create a simulation or invest in something over the top. The point is to look at the five buckets listed above and identify areas where you can experiment with ways to improve, measure the performance, calibrate, and then move forward. Many small adjustments to your candidate experience can add up quickly.

Improving your candidate experience? Let us help:Click the button below and one of our HR technology specialists will score your career

site candidate experience, and then provide a prioritized list of areas to improve:

Other resources you might want to read:

Let your network know what you’re reading: Share this eBook on Twitter or LinkedIn!

Page 6: Gerry Crispin

The Path to An Exceptional Candidate Experience (According to Gerry Crispin)

Talent acquisition teams need to be mirroring that to some degree in the various phases of candidate experience.

A few examples Gerry provided for setting expectations include:

• Providing an estimation of how long the application will take up front• Letting candidates know how long it will take to make a hiring decision• Letting candidates know when you will stop taking applications for a position• Showing candidates how many other applications were submitted• Detailing who candidates will be speaking with and when during the on-site interview process

Gerry also provided some input on the psychology behind expectations. He discussed an example of a job board that shows the probability a company will respond to you. He said, “When you see two companies side by side and their response rates, which one are you going to apply to?”

As you can see, there are many opportunities to set expectations. The Talent Board noted that 71% of companies do not list the average expected time required to complete an application at the beginning. That’s a quick win right there.

Gerry said it’s important to try new ways of setting expectations in an iterative, experimental fashion, so you can run a multitude of tests simultaneously and then measure the impact to your net promoter score.

Listen to your candidatesAccording to Gerry, giving candidates both the opportunity to be heard and provide feedback will improve your score and candidate experience.

There’s not much worse in the job search process than feeling like you’re just one person among millions trying to find a job. The online application process can easily make someone feel that way.

As Gerry explained, to get past that or at least ease their mind, you’ve got to let candidates know they’ve got a voice and that you’re listening.

One example of listening is to not just provide an email address on your site for more information about jobs, but to actively encourage on-the-spot engagement via chatting. He

Overview: The Five Drivers Behind Great Candidate ExperiencesThe world of hiring seems to be more candidate-driven than ever been before. Skilled professionals are in high demand, and that means they’ve got options. The presence of options, coupled with their rising bargaining power has catapulted candidate experience to the top of most major companies’ lists of recruiting priorities. How can you attract, connect with and convert talent if your candidate experience is weak?

Last week, we were lucky to have principal & co-founder of CareerXroads and founding member of The Talent Board, Gerry Crispin, in the Jibe o�ce discussing this very topic. You’re likely familiar with the work he’s done on the annual Candidate Experience Research and Awards. If not, check it out here—it’s incomparably good information on candidate experience from both candidate and employer perspectives.

The Talent Board uses a version of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to score and rank companies’ candidate experience. In this context, NPS shows the likelihood a candidate would refer another person to apply to your company. It’s a good indicator of the health of your overall candidate experience (more detailed info on NPS can be found here).

Of course, there are tons of resources and strategies to tap into while improving your NPS, and consequently improving candidate experience. But, as Gerry explained, over the years, he’s seen five key themes stand out that seem to have a direct impact on how well a company performs. We’ll discuss them below:

Set expectations Gerry said, “If you set expectations, you will be rated higher.” He was adamant about the idea of how clearly defining what will happen in each stage of candidate experience—from sourcing and attraction, through the application, interview, hiring, and onboarding process—will improve your net promoter score.

Expectations are often an afterthought, likely because few talent acquisition professionals ever really go through and audit their own candidate experience. The result is they become blind to the fact that their application or interviewing process leaves their candidates feeling powerless and without information.

We live in a world of technology-enabled expectation setting. You can watch the icon of your Uber car as it travels toward you or track the status of your food order on Seamless as it’s prepared and delivered or—name any other awesome consumer experience.

Let your network know what you’re reading: Share this eBook on Twitter or LinkedIn!

said, “Just try to search the Dell website for a laptop. You will be prompted multiple times to chat with an expert. Why should a company that badly needs to fill a position not provide the opportunity for job seekers to chat with a recruiter?”

Examples of listening to candidates include:

• Chatting: As mentioned, having a chat pop-up may help make candidates feel like they have a voice. You may also consider doing something like a weekly Twitter chat. There’s a chance no one will show up, but you never know when that hard-to-find candidate will come out of the woodwork. • Responsiveness on social media: When a job seeker tweets a question directly to your Twitter handle or posts on your Facebook page, someone should be instructed to respond to them. An easy-to-deploy solution would be to just thank them for their interest and then provide an email address to which they can inquire. • Providing contact information: To let candidates know they have a voice, some companies will actually provide contact information of the recruiter who is handling the requisition. That way, they can reach out as needed.• O�ering the option to reply to automatic emails: Delivering an auto-response email that says “Do not reply to this email” makes the process seem very one-sided. It also makes it di�cult to receive potentially useful feedback or to answer questions that would improve your NPS. It’s advisable to reconsider barriers that have been in place for years.

Just think, a small improvement to your listening could improve your candidate experience and drive more candidates to your jobs over time. 71% of candidates said they might or would share their experience publicly. So whether you like it or not, you’re getting some good or bad word of mouth advertising.

Many companies have compliance hurdles stopping them from ever getting to this point—or at least, perceived compliance issues, where talent acquisition teams will never attempt to pursue such a listening strategy. That is a shame, because there is the opportunity to make minor tweaks to your process that could add up to major NPS and candidate experience improvements in the long run.

Exemplify fairnessAgain, talent acquisition has to be in tune with the fact that candidates understand there are many people applying for jobs. This can easily make it seem “unfair” when they apply without ever hearing anything. As Gerry explained, a process that seems fair from the candidate’s perspective will receive a higher NPS than others.

• Following up with recommendations on what can be improved upon• Ending with positive comments about the situation no matter what—whether thecandidate was chosen or not• Again, do not just give feedback, ask for it as well to create a sense of fairness at somepoint

“There is absolutely no excuse” for not providing some form of closure. Taking a moment to ensure that every candidate will receive something in return for their time and interest—even if it’s automated—will deliver long-term benefits to your candidate experience.

Demand accountabilityGerry said, “You’re accountable for your life and everything else, so why not be accountable for the candidate experience you’re giving? Recruiters, by and large, who are accountable for candidate experience are rated higher, which will drive up the company’s overall candidate experience and net promoter score.”

For many talent acquisition leaders, the answer to improving candidate experience is right in front of them—make recruiters more accountable. That is easier said than done, though. Demanding accountability requires creating a process for measuring performance, incentivizing performance, and enabling an environment of continuous learning.

If you are providing a short survey when the recruiting process ends, the first step toward accountability is simply tying candidates’ responses back to the performance of the recruiter. From there, leadership needs to set up a schedule for reviewing that performance on both an individual and team level, as well as a set of rewards for meeting goals—monetary, in-kind, or both.

Leadership must be able to synthesize the information and provide feedback to recruiters on areas for improvement. Gerry explained, this will improve your NPS, your candidate experience, and go as far as improving your organization’s financial performance.

The TakeawayLeading companies approach improving these aspects of candidate experience in their own unique ways—ways which tend to reflect the culture and resources available to them.

Gerry said, “Every year, I see something interesting and new.” And then he explained how one company has started incorporating simulations into its assessments, so both candidates and

In many ways, the first two points around setting expectations and listening play a role here. If candidates know what to expect and they feel like you’re listening to them, those two aspects intrinsically foster a sense of fairness.

Examples of making recruiting and hiring processes fair include:

• Properly aligning job descriptions to application and interviewing processes• Asking applicable questions during any assessments (if you ask irrelevant questions or ones that don’t align with the job description, candidates will view it as unfair)• Asking relevant questions during the interviewing process with the hiring manager (otherwise, candidates will leave thinking “there’s no way they’ll hire me”)• Properly setting expectations for the application and hiring process• Providing the opportunity for candidates to have a voice by requesting feedback

The Talent Board revealed that at least 59% of candidates in 2015 were never asked to provide feedback (another 22% couldn’t remember if they were given the option).

Working to improve fairness helps you to break through the one-sidedness of the recruiting and hiring processes.

Provide closureGerry explained, “There’s absolutely no excuse for not telling someone they didn’t get the job or thanking them for applying. You’ve got to be able to do that—and, at the very least, technology makes it easy to automate this.”

Thanking candidates for applying and telling them they didn’t get the job will improve your score. In addition, Gerry noted companies that perform better than others in NPS provide feedback.

As shown in the 2015 Candidate Experience Research data, a vast majority of companies that received a one-star rating gave no feedback to candidates. Many candidates expect feedback—applying and interviewing is a very transactional experience, and it seems unfair to receive absolutely nothing in return.

Examples of how to provide feedback and closure include:

• Thanking every candidate for their time, every time (use recruiting automation software if necessary for high volume)

hiring organizations can actually see if the position is a good fit right o� the bat. That type of interesting recruiting process can lead to better scores.

You don’t necessarily have to create a simulation or invest in something over the top. The point is to look at the five buckets listed above and identify areas where you can experiment with ways to improve, measure the performance, calibrate, and then move forward. Many small adjustments to your candidate experience can add up quickly.

Improving your candidate experience? Let us help:Click the button below and one of our HR technology specialists will score your career

site candidate experience, and then provide a prioritized list of areas to improve:

Other resources you might want to read:

Page 7: Gerry Crispin

The Path to An Exceptional Candidate Experience (According to Gerry Crispin)

Talent acquisition teams need to be mirroring that to some degree in the various phases of candidate experience.

A few examples Gerry provided for setting expectations include:

• Providing an estimation of how long the application will take up front• Letting candidates know how long it will take to make a hiring decision• Letting candidates know when you will stop taking applications for a position• Showing candidates how many other applications were submitted• Detailing who candidates will be speaking with and when during the on-site interview process

Gerry also provided some input on the psychology behind expectations. He discussed an example of a job board that shows the probability a company will respond to you. He said, “When you see two companies side by side and their response rates, which one are you going to apply to?”

As you can see, there are many opportunities to set expectations. The Talent Board noted that 71% of companies do not list the average expected time required to complete an application at the beginning. That’s a quick win right there.

Gerry said it’s important to try new ways of setting expectations in an iterative, experimental fashion, so you can run a multitude of tests simultaneously and then measure the impact to your net promoter score.

Listen to your candidatesAccording to Gerry, giving candidates both the opportunity to be heard and provide feedback will improve your score and candidate experience.

There’s not much worse in the job search process than feeling like you’re just one person among millions trying to find a job. The online application process can easily make someone feel that way.

As Gerry explained, to get past that or at least ease their mind, you’ve got to let candidates know they’ve got a voice and that you’re listening.

One example of listening is to not just provide an email address on your site for more information about jobs, but to actively encourage on-the-spot engagement via chatting. He

Overview: The Five Drivers Behind Great Candidate ExperiencesThe world of hiring seems to be more candidate-driven than ever been before. Skilled professionals are in high demand, and that means they’ve got options. The presence of options, coupled with their rising bargaining power has catapulted candidate experience to the top of most major companies’ lists of recruiting priorities. How can you attract, connect with and convert talent if your candidate experience is weak?

Last week, we were lucky to have principal & co-founder of CareerXroads and founding member of The Talent Board, Gerry Crispin, in the Jibe o�ce discussing this very topic. You’re likely familiar with the work he’s done on the annual Candidate Experience Research and Awards. If not, check it out here—it’s incomparably good information on candidate experience from both candidate and employer perspectives.

The Talent Board uses a version of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to score and rank companies’ candidate experience. In this context, NPS shows the likelihood a candidate would refer another person to apply to your company. It’s a good indicator of the health of your overall candidate experience (more detailed info on NPS can be found here).

Of course, there are tons of resources and strategies to tap into while improving your NPS, and consequently improving candidate experience. But, as Gerry explained, over the years, he’s seen five key themes stand out that seem to have a direct impact on how well a company performs. We’ll discuss them below:

Set expectations Gerry said, “If you set expectations, you will be rated higher.” He was adamant about the idea of how clearly defining what will happen in each stage of candidate experience—from sourcing and attraction, through the application, interview, hiring, and onboarding process—will improve your net promoter score.

Expectations are often an afterthought, likely because few talent acquisition professionals ever really go through and audit their own candidate experience. The result is they become blind to the fact that their application or interviewing process leaves their candidates feeling powerless and without information.

We live in a world of technology-enabled expectation setting. You can watch the icon of your Uber car as it travels toward you or track the status of your food order on Seamless as it’s prepared and delivered or—name any other awesome consumer experience.

said, “Just try to search the Dell website for a laptop. You will be prompted multiple times to chat with an expert. Why should a company that badly needs to fill a position not provide the opportunity for job seekers to chat with a recruiter?”

Examples of listening to candidates include:

• Chatting: As mentioned, having a chat pop-up may help make candidates feel like they have a voice. You may also consider doing something like a weekly Twitter chat. There’s a chance no one will show up, but you never know when that hard-to-find candidate will come out of the woodwork. • Responsiveness on social media: When a job seeker tweets a question directly to your Twitter handle or posts on your Facebook page, someone should be instructed to respond to them. An easy-to-deploy solution would be to just thank them for their interest and then provide an email address to which they can inquire. • Providing contact information: To let candidates know they have a voice, some companies will actually provide contact information of the recruiter who is handling the requisition. That way, they can reach out as needed.• O�ering the option to reply to automatic emails: Delivering an auto-response email that says “Do not reply to this email” makes the process seem very one-sided. It also makes it di�cult to receive potentially useful feedback or to answer questions that would improve your NPS. It’s advisable to reconsider barriers that have been in place for years.

Just think, a small improvement to your listening could improve your candidate experience and drive more candidates to your jobs over time. 71% of candidates said they might or would share their experience publicly. So whether you like it or not, you’re getting some good or bad word of mouth advertising.

Many companies have compliance hurdles stopping them from ever getting to this point—or at least, perceived compliance issues, where talent acquisition teams will never attempt to pursue such a listening strategy. That is a shame, because there is the opportunity to make minor tweaks to your process that could add up to major NPS and candidate experience improvements in the long run.

Exemplify fairnessAgain, talent acquisition has to be in tune with the fact that candidates understand there are many people applying for jobs. This can easily make it seem “unfair” when they apply without ever hearing anything. As Gerry explained, a process that seems fair from the candidate’s perspective will receive a higher NPS than others.

• Following up with recommendations on what can be improved upon• Ending with positive comments about the situation no matter what—whether the candidate was chosen or not• Again, do not just give feedback, ask for it as well to create a sense of fairness at some point

“There is absolutely no excuse” for not providing some form of closure. Taking a moment to ensure that every candidate will receive something in return for their time and interest—even if it’s automated—will deliver long-term benefits to your candidate experience.

Demand accountabilityGerry said, “You’re accountable for your life and everything else, so why not be accountable for the candidate experience you’re giving? Recruiters, by and large, who are accountable for candidate experience are rated higher, which will drive up the company’s overall candidate experience and net promoter score.”

For many talent acquisition leaders, the answer to improving candidate experience is right in front of them—make recruiters more accountable. That is easier said than done, though. Demanding accountability requires creating a process for measuring performance, incentivizing performance, and enabling an environment of continuous learning.

If you are providing a short survey when the recruiting process ends, the first step toward accountability is simply tying candidates’ responses back to the performance of the recruiter. From there, leadership needs to set up a schedule for reviewing that performance on both an individual and team level, as well as a set of rewards for meeting goals—monetary, in-kind, or both.

Leadership must be able to synthesize the information and provide feedback to recruiters on areas for improvement. Gerry explained, this will improve your NPS, your candidate experience, and go as far as improving your organization’s financial performance.

The TakeawayLeading companies approach improving these aspects of candidate experience in their own unique ways—ways which tend to reflect the culture and resources available to them.

Gerry said, “Every year, I see something interesting and new.” And then he explained how one company has started incorporating simulations into its assessments, so both candidates and

In many ways, the first two points around setting expectations and listening play a role here. If candidates know what to expect and they feel like you’re listening to them, those two aspects intrinsically foster a sense of fairness.

Examples of making recruiting and hiring processes fair include:

• Properly aligning job descriptions to application and interviewing processes• Asking applicable questions during any assessments (if you ask irrelevant questions or ones that don’t align with the job description, candidates will view it as unfair)• Asking relevant questions during the interviewing process with the hiring manager (otherwise, candidates will leave thinking “there’s no way they’ll hire me”)• Properly setting expectations for the application and hiring process• Providing the opportunity for candidates to have a voice by requesting feedback

The Talent Board revealed that at least 59% of candidates in 2015 were never asked to provide feedback (another 22% couldn’t remember if they were given the option).

Working to improve fairness helps you to break through the one-sidedness of the recruiting and hiring processes.

Provide closureGerry explained, “There’s absolutely no excuse for not telling someone they didn’t get the job or thanking them for applying. You’ve got to be able to do that—and, at the very least, technology makes it easy to automate this.”

Thanking candidates for applying and telling them they didn’t get the job will improve your score. In addition, Gerry noted companies that perform better than others in NPS provide feedback.

As shown in the 2015 Candidate Experience Research data, a vast majority of companies that received a one-star rating gave no feedback to candidates. Many candidates expect feedback—applying and interviewing is a very transactional experience, and it seems unfair to receive absolutely nothing in return.

Examples of how to provide feedback and closure include:

• Thanking every candidate for their time, every time (use recruiting automation software if necessary for high volume)

hiring organizations can actually see if the position is a good fit right o� the bat. That type of interesting recruiting process can lead to better scores.

You don’t necessarily have to create a simulation or invest in something over the top. The point is to look at the five buckets listed above and identify areas where you can experiment with ways to improve, measure the performance, calibrate, and then move forward. Many small adjustments to your candidate experience can add up quickly.

Improving your candidate experience? Let us help:Click the button below and one of our HR technology specialists will score your career

site candidate experience, and then provide a prioritized list of areas to improve:

Other resources you might want to read:

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