What are the symptoms of an ailing candidate experience?
For New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the first major symptom was a rising candidate dropout rate in its online application process. When roughly 60% of candidates dropped out of the process when asked to complete an online assessment, David Crawford, Vice President of Talent Acquisition, knew it was time to do some exploratory surgery—an experience he shared in another recent Talent Board webinar.
Crawford and his team examined the process from every angle, extracting data from candidate surveys and their applicant tracking system. They also reviewed the organization’s overall application process and took a critical look at its career website. Their conclusion: the Hospital was basically putting candidates through “an obstacle course” before the first interview took place.
The Cure: Improved Cultural Alignment
To remedy the situation, Crawford and team streamlined the application process and made it more candidate-friendly. But an even greater realization dawned on them: the Hospital needed to better align its candidate experience with its overall culture and values. Its recruiters needed to treat every job seeker with the same care and respect the Hospital provides to patients. In short, New York-Presbyterian’s recruiters needed to be seen by candidates as trustworthy and caring advisors.
To accomplish these goals, the Hospital created its Recruiter Academy and Crawford enlisted “students” from across the organization who had a strong interest in becoming recruiters and a deep understanding of New York-Presbyterian’s culture of “we put patients first.” These individuals went through the Academy’s intensive two-week course, which covered a wide range of skills and behaviors they needed for success—including demonstrating credibility, communicating effectively, interviewing with purpose, understanding the requisition process, marketing and branding, diversity and inclusion, and building strong client relationships.
“Like our patients, job candidates are looking for several things from our recruiters,” Crawford said during the webinar. “They’re looking for connection and comfort, and they want to be treated with respect and dignity. At New York-Presbyterian, we want to cultivate an environment where recruiters are able to deliver this experience to all applicants.”
Being Bold Has Its Rewards
Rethinking and overhauling your candidate experience is a mighty bold move—one that can seem utterly overwhelming to many companies. But as New York-Presbyterian shows, the results of acting boldly not only benefit your organization’s bottom line but your candidates and your reputation as an employer.
If your company has taken its own bold steps to revitalize its candidate experience, don’t miss the opportunity to potentially share your story with the world by participating in the Talent Board CandE program. By doing so, you’ll also benefit from access to great benchmarking data and the ability to give and receive best practices in Talent Board research, symposiums, awards galas, webinars, podcasts and more.
You can still participate in the 2017 Talent Board Candidate Experience Awards and Benchmark Research. Find out how today. And if you’re interested in learning more about how New York-Presbyterian transformed its candidate experience, just click on the preceding link to watch the brief webinar.
Photo Credit: geeknose Flickr via Compfight cc
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