Personalized Candidate Experience: Drive More Candidates to Your Open Roles

Recruiting is a people’s industry – ask any recruiter why they picked this career, and they’ll tell you about wanting to make a positive impact on people’s lives. Staffing and recruiting have always been about matching the right person with the right company, but there’s been a shift in today’s hiring landscape. With incredible technological advancements over the past few decades, the hiring process has become more and more digitalized. The digital staffing age has come with a cost, though: the lack of a personalized candidate experience.

What Is the Candidate Experience?

The candidate experience is a holistic hiring approach that considers the needs and expectations of the applicant in an interview process. How a company conducts itself in its recruitment cycle (attracting, sourcing, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding) is often a critical factor in determining whether or not the company will place and retain a qualified candidate.

What a Personalized Candidate Experience Looks Like

In a world of largely impersonal and anonymous recruitment tactics, a personalized candidate experience is the key to attracting top talent. Hiring is more than just sending job postings, emailing candidates with the same “so what’s your availability” question, and then having a zoom meeting.

A personalized candidate experience is about making people feel valued throughout the entire hiring process. Creating an amazing experience for candidates will make your company stand out in this competitive market.

Here are four tips you can take to better personalize the candidate experience at your company.

1) Treat Candidates Like Consumers

When it comes to marketing, many businesses will personalize their messaging, branding, and buyer journey to meet the needs of their consumers. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, using personalization in marketing can increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10-30%, reduce acquisition costs by 50%, and lift revenues by 5-15%.

If marketers can see that much success with personalization, it’s safe to assume a similar effect can happen for employers when targeting candidates. If employers are looking to attract, retain, and engage top talent, a good place to start is to treat applicants like valued customers rather than a resource. There are a few ways you can do this:

• Research candidate demographics: what do the people in this profession like, dislike, and need?
• Offer candidates content personalized to their interests, wants, and needs.
• Stay in contact with candidates throughout the entire hiring process.
• Never leave them wondering what they need to do next.

2) Develop a Candidate Journey Strategy

How is your brand presenting itself on various channels (e.g., careers page, social media, Glassdoor)? Once a candidate connects with you, what does their first interaction with your company look like? What is your hiring process – from screening to interviewing to hiring?

Determine what sort of touchpoint you’d like candidates to experience at each stage of the hiring process. No matter how someone finds you or interacts with your company, your brand should always be putting its best foot forward.

3) Communicate Well and Communicate Often

While each step of the candidate journey often isn’t face-to-face, virtual interactions still matter. Whether it be a virtual tour of the office, a zoom meeting, or sending an update via email, candidates appreciate being kept in the loop throughout the entire hiring process. So be consistent in your communication and give candidates the courtesy of knowing your final decision – even if you aren’t offering them the job! You never know if that candidate could be a perfect fit for a future role at your company.

4) Utilize Automation to Create Tailored Experiences

While technology can hinder providing a personalized experience, it can actually help engage candidates throughout the hiring process if used correctly. For example, you can use several tools to automate your applicant tracking and communication process to help streamline your hiring cycle. This approach can provide a more tailored experience to your candidate and free up recruiter time from repetitive tasks, enabling them to focus most of their efforts on relationship building.

Ready to Create a Personalized Candidate Experience? TeamSoft Can Help

By optimizing the candidate experience, you will create a more sustainable pipeline for talent and set yourself apart from your competitors. Since 1996, TeamSoft has made it our mission to build relationships and match clients with high-quality professionals. Contact us today to learn more about how we can personalize the candidate experience at your company to attract, retain, and engage top tech talent.