careers page Archives - TalentCulture

The world of recruitment has undergone a power shift in the last decade. With job openings at a record high and alarming talent shortages in some industries, candidates have more decision power than ever before. They can afford to be more selective. As a result, businesses are enhancing their hiring strategies to reach top talent, and candidate experience has become the buzzword of the hour in recruitment circles.

There are three steps you must follow to create a great candidate experience. But first, let’s get down to basics and define what candidate experience is.

What is candidate experience?

Candidate experience refers to the perception a job seeker has about a prospective employer. It encompasses all touchpoints between job seekers and organizations, from the initial point of contact all the way to the job offer acceptance. The goal is for candidates to feel appreciated and respected throughout the whole process.

Why is candidate experience important?

A negative experience in which the candidate feels unheard, uninformed, or upset can hurt your recruitment success and reflect badly on your company as a whole. A positive candidate experience, on the other hand, can be beneficial in many ways. It helps to:

Secure top talent
Shape your employer branding
Increase your brand awareness
Give you an edge over the competition
Attract more candidates
Draw in more customers
Improve the quality of hires

With all that in mind, here are three steps to a great candidate experience.

1. Make your employer brand shine online.

Have you ever heard the phrase: “Treat candidates as you would treat your customers?” This adage has never been truer. In today’s job market, it’s crucial for you to create a good reputation for your company, not only as a provider of goods or services but also as an excellent place to work. You want people who come across your online content to regard you as a great potential employer. To do this, consider the following.

Social media

Social media could be the first place a potential future employee finds out about your company. So use your social pages strategically. Find out which platforms are most used by your target audience and focus your effort on these platforms. Building an online presence on social media takes time and effort, but it can greatly enhance the way a candidate perceives you as an employer.

Careers page

Visitors coming to your career page want to know what your openings are and what it’s like to work for you. Don’t hesitate to include authentic pictures of your current employees with quotes about the company and its culture. You can also post fun pictures of recent team bonding activities, for example.

You already advertise specific jobs in your postings, but you can also run broader “brand awareness” ads for your hiring needs. These ads serve not to fill a certain spot but to showcase your employer brand and enhance your reputation as a place to work. Talent can be scarce nowadays, and you want to be a job seeker’s first choice. So don’t hesitate to be creative in your hiring methods, for example, by trying out a video ad!

2. Simplify your application process.

Today’s Internet users expect web pages to be user-friendly. They want to be able to find what they want quickly, with the least clicks possible. This applies to younger generations of users but also older ones. So, whoever your ideal candidate is, make sure your whole application process is as smooth as possible. To ensure that happens, consider the following:

Mobile

This is crucial in 2021. Numbers taken from international job platform Talent.com’s internal database show that over 70 percent of the site traffic comes from mobile devices. Since the mobile trend shows no sign of abating, it’s up to you to adapt your application process to modern job seekers’ desires and habits. This means making sure your job postings are accessible through mobile and even optimized for mobile.

Quick application

Put yourself in a job seeker’s shoes and review your current application process. Are there any bugs or malfunctions? Are there redundant steps that could be removed? If so, work on your application process to make it as user-friendly as possible. To achieve this, you could automate certain elements or work with a job platform that offers on-site quick applications.

Jobs postings

In the war for talent, you want to catch the best candidates before your competition. In this context, your job postings can’t be just a list of requirements. They must also encourage people to apply and join your team. Highlight what’s in it for them and why they should pick you. Present your company culture, benefits, and perks. You want to make your job postings as appealing as possible to attract talent.

3. Establish a constant, clear, and fluid communication process with candidates.

Communication is key. And during the applicant process, communication can take many forms. In order to create a great candidate experience, it’s important for recruiters to create functioning communication channels and to have great communication habits. Here’s how:

Honesty

Be honest and transparent before, during, and after interviews. You want to establish an environment of authenticity. When candidates see that you are honest with them, they are likely to be honest with you. This saves time, builds your credibility, and contributes to the development of authentic relationships.

Clarity

Candidates want to be kept in the loop. They want to know if they’ve made it to the next round of interviews, ideally quickly. Therefore, it’s important for you to be responsive and candidate journey map with your candidates. Make sure candidates know what to prepare, how long each step of the process will be, and when they can expect to hear from you.

Tact

Tactful rejection contributes to a positive candidate experience. Not every qualified applicant can be chosen, and it’s your job to communicate your selection in a respectful manner. You can find free rejection letter templates online and adapt them to your needs. You can even give rejected candidates constructive criticism, which could make them more likely to re-apply in the future.

Conclusion

Providing a great candidate experience means making your employer brand shine online, simplifying your application process, and establishing a constant, clear, and fluid communication process with candidates. To keep track of candidates, don’t hesitate to use an applicant tracking system (ATS) or utilize a candidate journey map. It can help you understand your candidates’ states of mind and the challenges they face at each stage of the journey.

So, you’re hoping to create some buzz around the job ad you’ve just published on your careers page? Today’s recruiting environment is competitive and complex. Recruiting the best candidates starts with making the right first impression—and using a combination of tactics will help you get the most out of your job ad. For the best results, it’s important to include social and mobile recruiting tools, as well as free and paid ads—and to know the best day to post.

Building Hype Around Job Openings

So where do you start?

The first thing you need to do is get your listing noticed by the communities where the passive candidates hang out. LinkedIn might be just the platform you are looking for. The business- driven social platform has scores of ways to get your job ad noticed, including groups you can join, mention jobs in, or initiate general discussions around the role, your company, or the industry.

The next thing is to promote the opening within your organization. Does everyone on staff know you have just listed a new job? Share it across your company. If you don’t have a referral system in place, we’d strongly advise you to set one up. For example, eFounders used simple tools they were already familiar with and made it work. Include a social sharing feature to your job ad and give your staff incentives to start sharing from their own social accounts.

Another tactic is to create your own online communities. Smart companies make sure they have created Facebook groups or a Facebook Jobs tab, or even run a Facebook ad campaign, with the sole purpose of attracting potential candidates. Promote your employer brand through these pages and when you post a job ad, you’ll have a talent pool of existing fans. Add as many touch points as possible between you and prospective candidates.

Make sure to add mobile listings to your arsenal. According to research from comScore.com, smartphones and tablets account for 60 percent of total digital media time in 2014. Kelton Research survey results indicated 86 percent of active candidates surveyed use their smartphone to begin a job search, and 70 percent of active candidates want to apply via a mobile device.

The Top Job Boards

Posting your job ad on your careers page and social media is not enough. You need to include job boards. While the leading premium job boards in terms of ROI (return on investment) are LinkedIn, Craigslist, Indeed, and Monster, there are many other job boards you can consider using.

Some job boards, like Indeed, also offer a free option as well as a paid. SimplyHired and Glassdoor offer free postings when you access them through an ATS like Workable. For the most effective places to post your jobs, check out our job board directory, which enables you to choose job boards based on industry, location, and cost (paid versus unpaid).

Posting your job on your careers page and social media is not enough. You need to include job boards. While the leading premium job boards in terms of ROI (return on investment) are LinkedIn, Craigslist, Indeed and Monster, there are many other job boards you can consider using.

The Best Day to Post a Job

Don’t post your jobs on Friday evening, because by Monday they’ll be last week’s news! Instead, wait until Sunday evening or Monday or Tuesday morning and advertise your roles when the candidates are most active.

Most job sites use freshness as a factor in ranking job search results. Plus, the new jobs of the day usually land in email updates and job board front pages, so getting there when the action is happening can often get you double the candidates you’d receive on a slow day.

The Premium Job Boards

When volume of candidates is the priority LinkedIn, Indeed, and Craigslist are the top sites for posting job listings due to their popularity, functionality, and reach. LinkedIn boasts the biggest potential candidate pool and may be the most powerful sourcing tool in your arsenal. Indeed is a job search engine and a global job board leader with over 180 million unique visitors per month. Finally, although Craigslist is a classifieds site and not a traditional job board, it beats everyone on inbound traffic.

If the big guys are too broad, and you need to do some laser-targeting, you’re in luck. Try our global, searchable job board directory to drill down by industry, location, and cost. Just the thing if you’re looking for “only healthcare job boards,” or “only job boards in Brazil.”

Happy hiring!
Photo Credit: Kevin H. via Compfight cc

Workable is a client of TalentCulture and sponsored this post.

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3 Key Steps to Creating a Great Candidate Experience