Candidate experience is a top recruiting priority this year and there’s no better source of data on it than the Talent Board.
Their extension data collection has created invaluable benchmarks for organizations big and small. Overall, the winners of the CandE Awards demonstrate these best practices:
- Listen and communicate more often.
- Set clear expectations about the recruiting process from pre-application to onboarding for candidates.
- Hold themselves more accountable for candidate experience and talent acquisition performance while measuring it regularly and consistently.
- Be perceived by candidates as having a fairer process (e.g., candidates believe they have been able to share why their knowledge, skills and experience deserves consideration for the jobs to which they have applied).
Here are the 5 best stats on candidate experience from the Talent Board’s latest report.
1. 27% of employers only ask for feedback after the candidates are hired
Additionally, only 14% of employers ask for feedback after candidates are interviewed but before they are hired.
The problem with only getting feedback from candidates after they’re hired is that you’re working with a missing data set: you have no idea why candidates dropped out of your process and what negative experiences they might have had.
This matters a lot because the majority of candidates will share a negative job application process with their friends, colleagues, or online.
One innovative company that’s using new technology to gather candidate feedback is Sutherland, an IT service provider. If the candidate wants to abandon the application process, its chatbot finds out why and send this information back to the recruiter.
This type of real-time, immediate feedback is a clear competitive advantage on how to improve the candidate experience accurately and quickly.
2. 26% of candidates’ top complaint is the process took too long
A lengthy job application process was the complaint second to 46% of candidates who believed their time was disrespected during the interviews.
Jobvite’s data reveal the war for talent is having tangible effects: in 2017, the number of interviews decreased while the number of hires increased.
Encouragingly, this means employers are changing their recruiting process to become more efficient and time-effective by measures such as investing in AI and smart automation tech for sourcing, screening, and messaging candidates.
3. 52% of candidates were still waiting for a response after 3 months
In the age of email, SMS, and chatbots, not replying to candidates at all is becoming unacceptable. This becomes especially egregious if candidates are waiting for a response after going through a phone screen or even an in-person interview.
Responding back is some of the lowest hanging fruit to improve your candidate experience and show respect to your candidates.
4. 46% of candidates would sever a business relationship due to a poor candidate experience
The ideal of “candidates as consumers” becomes obvious when candidates who had a negative experience stated they’ll take their brand loyalty, purchases, and relationship somewhere else.
On the flip side, 74% candidate who rate their experience as “great” say they’ll definitely increase their employer relationships by applying again, referring others and making purchases when applicable.
5. $6 million – the amount of revenue Virgin Media was losing due to poor candidate experience
The importance of candidate experience becomes clear when you quantify it as a bottom line metric.
In this case, Virgin Media was losing millions annually in potential sales revenue. By improving their candidate experience, they turned it into a $7 million revenue stream.