A Game-Changer for Candidate Experience

Do you remember the best job interview you’ve ever had? What about the worst?

It’s no secret that job-searching can be a long, hard, and grueling process with a lot of rejection involved. For candidates, the outcome of a job search can drastically change their lives, their family’s lives, and their income.

A disappointing recruitment experience can linger in someone’s memory for a long time. Lateness, disorganization, a lack of communication, or unfair-seeming assessments can all reflect poorly on an organization and its culture.

Sixty-nine percent of job seekers who had a negative experience would rarely or never reapply for a job with the company again, while 54% say a negative experience would impact their decision to buy the company’s products or services in the future. Further research shows that 63% of job seekers would be more likely to refuse a job offer because of a bad candidate experience, while 59% would even tell others not to apply to the company.

In today’s social media culture, candidate experience is more important than ever, since information travels so quickly online. Upset candidates can take to sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor to vent their frustration, leading to reputational damage and trouble attracting new talent. On the other hand, glowing reviews from happy candidates can have the opposite effect.

So how can hiring teams go the extra mile to create an outstanding candidate experience?

We all know it’s important to be on time to interviews, keep candidates informed, and generally be friendly and respectful. But there are other factors that have a big impact on the candidate experience, like the type of assessments used. Assessments can significantly change both the length of the hiring process and the quality of its results.

No More Games

Today, many hiring vendors have developed games and puzzles that can be used to test job candidates. On the face of it, this might seem like an interesting way to get candidates engaged in the interview process.

However, in reality, most of these games have little or no proven validity as hiring tools. And, far from being fun, being asked to engage in low-validity games during an interview can feel frustrating and condescending for the candidate.

Candidates are taking valuable time away from their work or family commitments to fill out applications and attend interviews. Some might be worried about their livelihoods. In this context, games and puzzles may seem inappropriate—and since the games aren’t proven to find the best person for the job, they don’t deliver much value to organizations, either.

Rather than a “fun” hiring process, candidates crave openness, fairness, and transparency. A survey from Slack showed that 87% of respondents hoped their next job would be transparent—and a great way to begin building that trust from the get-go is with an easy-to-understand interview process that makes candidates’ growth and development a top priority.

Take Your Candidate Experience to the Next Level with Hutrics

Hutrics offers a suite of professionally designed hiring assessments that have been extensively tested and validated, and are specially designed for leadership hiring. We have data showing that our assessments drive real business outcomes in areas such as turnover, burnout, and performance. By testing candidate capabilities in areas such as working memory, personality, biographical data, and values, and offering onboarding coaching to ensure new hire success, we’re able to create better results for organizations while also delivering a positive experience for candidates.

One area where Hutrics’ offer stands out is in our developmental reports and digital coaching. We offer these services to all candidates, regardless of whether or not they’ve been successful in the hiring process.

Our developmental reports are focused on the candidate’s assessment results. They are designed to help the candidate improve as a leader. If the candidate was not successful, the developmental report is designed to keep them focused on re-applying to your organization, even if they weren’t a great fit for the role they originally applied for.

In the typical candidate experience, candidates are often simply sent a form letter telling them they haven’t been selected. Sometimes, they don’t receive any communication at all. This lack of communication is often referred to as “ghosting”, and it’s a pet peeve for a lot of candidates—LinkedIn is filled with stories about post-interview ghosting and how frustrating it can be.

Developmental reports turn this narrative on its head, giving valuable feedback and making sure the candidate knows how to improve. This means the recruitment experience can be empowering and useful, even when the candidate isn’t successful. Since most organizations don’t provide this kind of feedback, this can really make your company stand out and provide a boost for your employer brand (something that 84% of job seekers say is important).

Current trends in recruitment, such as the “Great Resignation”, have recruiters focused on attracting the best possible candidate pool in a competitive market. Candidate experience plays a huge role in this process.

To learn more about Hutrics’ developmental reports and how they can help you build a better candidate experience, contact us today.