One of the biggest mistakes talent acquisition teams make is waiting until the end of the recruiting process to measure candidate experience. If that’s your approach, you’re only gathering feedback from a small percentage of your talent pool – the candidates you hired or rejected at the very bottom of the funnel.
Using that strategy means you’re not hearing from the vast majority of job seekers, which also means you can’t accurately measure the ROI of your spending.
Fortunately, the solution is pretty straight forward. Start measuring candidate experience earlier in the recruiting process – and more often – to get a clear picture of what’s happening throughout the funnel. These insights help you address issues at the top of the funnel, so you get even better results at the bottom.
Here’s a look at a variety of opportunities for measuring candidate experience throughout the funnel.
Measuring Candidate Experience During Sourcing & Awareness
We’ve argued before that the candidate experience begins much earlier than many TA teams realize, and we haven’t changed our minds. Gathering feedback from job seekers at the very top of the funnel – before your first conversation – provides an invaluable look into a blind spot many organizations overlook.
Here are some ways to implement this:
- Pop-ups on job ads on your career site that ask one- to two-question surveys, such as, “How did you hear about us?” and, “How likely are you to apply for this position?”.
- Following chatbot sessions, use single-question surveys with yes/no answers, such as, “Was the chatbot helpful in answering your questions?”.
- Optionally, when a candidate chooses a negative response, you can prompt to gather their contact info and follow-up with automated communication to enhance their experience, such as invitations to informational recruiting events or suggestions on other positions that might be a fit for them.
Measuring Candidate Experience Before Interviews
Remembering that the candidate experience includes what happens before a candidate speaks with a recruiter or hiring manager, looking for ways to collect insights during this stage is crucial.
Here are a few ways to do that:
- Use one- to two-question pop-up surveys after a candidate registers for an upcoming recruiting event (ask them to rate the ease of the registration process or their level of interest in the job opening).
- Email a questionnaire a few days before a recruiting event.
- Don’t forget to collect feedback in between next steps (i.e., candidates who were prescreened at an event and then scheduled for a second, later interview).
Measuring Candidate Experience After Interviews
If you’re using a traditional model for candidate feedback, you may already be gathering insights at this stage – but it’s surprising how many TA teams are either not doing it or do it inconsistently. Automating the process of collecting candidate feedback helps ensure a consistent process, resulting in more accurate data and a more uniform experience for all interviewed candidates
Here are some best practices to employ at this stage:
- Immediately following the interview (especially if conducted virtually on the platform) and/or via email.
- Ask about the interview session (examples: was the interviewer respectful, did you feel comfortable, are you still interested in the position, etc.).
Measuring Candidate Experience Around Onboarding
Over the past few years, there’s been an uptick in organizations losing folks between offer acceptance and start date. What’s clear is that employers need to do more to nurture engagement during this time.
- Before onboarding: Between the offer and onboarding, survey candidates about their experience and invite them to social events that build engagement.
- During onboarding: Ask new hires how they are finding the onboarding process while they’re going through it – and be prepared to review and respond to this feedback in a timely fashion. A poor onboarding experience is linked with low engagement and a high risk of quitting in the first 90 days of work.
- Soon after their start date: The early days in a new role are still part of onboarding and a crucial opportunity to save a new hire from becoming disengaged or disenchanted. Somewhere between two to four weeks after their hire date, survey new hires about how supported they feel in their new role, how comfortable they feel with their coworkers, and how responsive their manager has been to any concerns.
How To Decide When to Measure Candidate Experience
You could implement all these surveys at every step of the recruiting process for every single candidate in your pipeline. But, doing so could inadvertently dampen your customer experience. That approach would also create an enormous amount of data that you might not be able to act on. There’s such a thing as too many surveys. Instead, decide when to measure candidate experience throughout your recruiting process by first determining where you need the most insights. This is a key strategy used by TA teams with an award-winning candidate experience. Here are some questions to ask:
- Where in the recruiting process do you lack visibility? (For most organizations, this is at the very top of the funnel.)
- What is the weakest point of conversion? (Example: You’re getting lots of traffic on job ads but application rates are down.)
- Are there post-hire issues that could be improved by gathering certain insights earlier in the process? (Example: A high proportion of voluntary quits in the first 90 days cite similar reasons for their decision.)
Measuring Candidate Experience Early Improves Outcomes
By measuring candidate experience earlier in the recruiting process – and more often throughout the funnel – you’ll discover opportunities for improvement. With a platform like the Radancy Talent Acquisition Cloud, you’ll have end-to-end data to inform decisions around what to change. Over time, consistently measuring candidate experience allows TA teams to fine-tune the recruiting process for the best possible outcomes when it comes to making better hires as well as controlling recruiting costs and strengthening employer branding.
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