A great candidate experience is essential for employer branding. As the hiring process progresses, candidates want to feel appreciated and respected.
Candidate experience is directly related to how likely candidates are to refer their networks. A good candidate experience can ruin your brand and make finding the talent you need more accessible.
Survey Insights
A company can become known as an employer of choice by providing an exceptional candidate experience. It can increase employee engagement and ultimately lead to business success. However, creating an excellent candidate experience requires careful planning and a clear understanding of what employer branding means to your organization. The candidate experience starts long before a person is recruited. This perception builds up following multiple candidate-company interactions and forms your employer brand, which can impact your ability to attract suitable candidates. Stories about a good or bad candidate experience spread quickly thanks to modern technology and social media. It can harm your candidate experience, as 86% of candidates say they avoid companies with bad reviews online. Even unsuccessful candidates will share their experiences, so focusing on employer branding throughout the candidate journey is crucial. Using candidate experience survey questions to ask about their experience and sharing this information with candidates can help improve the recruitment process, strengthening your employer brand.
Employee branding is always a hot topic in recruitment. It’s the image of an organization as an employer portrayed in marketing materials and interactions with candidates during the hiring process. Employer brand and candidate experience are linked. However, it’s essential to understand the distinction between them. Employer branding is the company’s perception as an employer, formed through owned and earned media outlets. The candidate experience is the perception shaped by multiple candidate-company interactions and ultimately drives outside candidates to apply or withdraw from the recruiting process.
A good candidate experience can protect an organization’s reputation as a great workplace, leading to decreased time-to-hire and increased cost-per-hire. A good candidate experience, on the other hand, can attract top talent and create a loyal base of employees that will promote the brand to current and potential customers alike. Aligning your candidate experience strategy with your employer brand strategy is essential.
Developing a Survey Strategy
Businesses can make data-driven decisions about improving their candidate experience with the right survey strategy. It may include improving job descriptions, fostering genuine connections during interviews, designing effective onboarding programs, and cultivating an employee-centric work culture. A stellar candidate experience also helps establish a company’s employer brand. When the hiring process blows away candidates, they are more likely to share their positive experience with their networks and consider referring to friends and family. It’s true in a world where technology and social media have made it easier to name and shame companies and harm their reputations through negative experiences.
As a result, developing an employer branding and candidate experience strategy that works together is more important than ever before. By focusing on the candidate experience, employers can help their brands be more attractive to potential employees and foster a long-term relationship with them.
Implementing a Survey
With today’s job market being so candidate-centric, every business should take the time to monitor and improve their candidate experience meticulously. A positive, engaging recruitment process is a huge selling point for attracting top talent and helping create an attractive employer brand for potential hires.
Candidates apply to a company because of what they’ve been told it stands for and its values, whether through their careers site, recruitment ad, or third-party reviews. When they go through the interview process and either accept or reject a role, they expect their experience with the company to live up to the promise made in the advertising. A remarkable candidate experience not only attracts exceptional talent but also establishes your company as an employer of choice and lays the foundation for a strong culture, all of which contribute to the success of your business. It’s a significant investment that pays dividends over the long term.
