In the current job market, ensuring you’re delivering a great candidate experience is more critical than ever. The enduring candidate-led market remains one the key challenges faced by recruitment companies across a majority of sectors, as they continue to experience increased demand amid a diminishing pipeline of new talent.
What is meant by ‘candidate experience’?
Candidate experience refers to the collective interactions and impressions that applicants have with a recruitment agency or hiring team throughout the process. It goes right from the initial job search through to the final hiring decisions. If delivered well, a positive candidate experience will leave the individual feeling valued, respected and engaged, regardless of whether they’re offered the role or not. On the other hand, a negative candidate experience can lead to frustration, disengagement and damage to the recruiter’s brand and reputation.
So, how can you ensure that your recruitment business continues to deliver a great experience for your candidates? Read through our 5 top tips below to find out more:
1. Communicate clearly
Be open and transparent in your communication with candidates throughout the recruitment process, keeping them informed about their application and providing any updates as they happen. Aim to treat each candidate individually by personalising your interactions and tailoring your approach. Ensure that any feedback is delivered in a timely and constructive manner, whether they have been successful or otherwise, and that you maintain your standards of professionalism throughout.
2. Streamline your processes
Respect your candidates’ time by minimising delays and prevent lengthy wait times in your recruitment process. In particular, speeding up your standard onboarding stages, such as completing the necessary pre-employment background checks, is a logical place to start when it comes to streamlining your processes. Platforms such as VettingGateway can manage this entire process for you, which not only simplifies it and makes it easier for you to manage, but it delivers a better experience for your candidates too.
3. Be accessible
Make is as easy as possible for candidates to reach out with any questions or concerns, providing them with multiple channels of communication so that they can choose the ones they’re most comfortable with. Be it email, phone call, live chat or otherwise, ensure they’re aware of how they can contact you and make sure you provide timely responses to their queries.
4. Provide guidance
Offer guidance and support throughout the process, particularly when dealing with entry-level candidates who may not be used to the hiring process. Provide value-adds to individuals through additional resources such as CV and interview tips, recruitment trends or salary guides.
5. Continuous improvement
It’s tempting to refine your candidate experience and consider it done, but regularly reviewing and adapting to changing needs and market conditions is crucial to the overall success of your recruitment strategy. Always stay up-to-date on best practices and ensure you incorporate feedback from candidates to help enhance their experience further.
Streamline your recruitment background checks with VettingGateway
We’ve already mentioned the need to streamline your processes as much as possible, and VettingGateway is the perfect place to start. With access to their industry-leading platform, you can streamline and simplify the often lengthy and complicated process of background checking your applicants.
Not only that, VettingGateway has recently launched Enterprise Hub, a brand-new solution created specifically for those who manage background checks on behalf of other businesses. It’s the perfect option for recruitment companies, enabling you to effortlessly group and manage your applicants into client ‘Zones’, eliminating complexity, increasing efficiency, and speeding up your-time-to-hire.
If you would like to find out more about VettingGateway, please book a demo with a team member below.