Interviewing a new hire for your company is often the first introduction your candidates have to the inner workings of your business. Candidate experience in recruitment can have a major effect on the outcome of your hiring process, your company’s reputation, your hiring decisions, and so much more. A single bad candidate experience could affect your company’s rating on hiring websites as well as via word-of-mouth, so it’s important to make sure that you are giving each individual candidate a positive experience and treating them as if they are the person you are eventually going to hire. After all, in any field, it is possible that you could eventually reinterview and hire someone in a future recruitment period, even if you pass on them now. 

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Why is candidate experience important? Besides the fact that candidates talk about their hiring experiences and negative ones are the most likely to be shared, any experience that a person has with the internal team at your business is a glimpse into the inner workings of your company. Additionally, the way a candidate feels about your company during their interview is one of the most important determining factors for a candidate whether or not they will ultimately accept the position and decide to work with you, if the job is offered. Research shows that candidates are very likely to share negative experiences online and with their peer groups, and that candidates who have positive experiences in their interviews are more likely to accept the position than someone who has a negative experience. 

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What is the best way to improve candidate experience? There are several ways, which we’ll discuss below, but one of the most important ways is through a streamlined and well-structured interview process. Using interview intelligence software is one of the best ways to ensure that your company is providing a consistent interview experience from one candidate to the next and eliminating bias in your interviews. For example, your team may feel that they have an instant connection with a certain candidate, which may change the way they interact in the interview. Using interview intelligence software keeps your hiring team on track so that no matter what emotions your team has about the candidate, the interview process will be the same from one person to the next.

Candidate Experience Examples

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As you engage in the interview process with your pool of candidates, it’s important for you to consider the most positive candidate experience for your benchmark. We recommend reviewing a few candidate experience examples to determine which steps appear to be key for candidates who report a positive experience. Another important consideration is the reported negative candidate experiences that you can find online. It can be a good idea for your hiring team to consider both of these kinds of experiences to ensure that the interview process is streamlined and positive. 

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Let’s break these down. What are some negative candidate experiences that have been reported from job interviews? 

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• The hiring process takes too long, stretching out into weeks and months for some candidates. This is a problem because most candidates are looking to make a move from their current situation quickly, whether that is a different position or unemployment. 
• The interview itself takes too long. The interview should be a conversation, not a monologue, and a candidate will be frustrated if the interview is not reciprocal. 
• Candidates feel that their time is not respected during the process. This applies to long interviews as well as long hiring times. A candidate who does not feel respected will not be eager to accept a position within your company. 
• A lack of follow-up leaves them in the dark. Candidates who don’t know what’s going on with a hiring process will often assume they are being passed on. 
• An unrealistic job description is also frustrating for candidates, so it’s important to carefully review what you have put together, have it vetted by someone who actually works in the role, and ensure that you are providing candidates with reasonable expectations. 

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On the flipside, the positive candidate experiences that make the hiring process a good experience are:

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• Concise interviews that cover all of the relevant points, focus as much as possible on the actual job being hired for, and are reciprocal in conversation rather than structured like presentations. 
• Clear and accurate job descriptions that express relevant and reasonable expectations. 
• Respect, which is often shown in reasonable timelines, clear communication, and obvious preparation for the interviews. 
• Communication, even when there isn’t much to communicate, so that candidates feel in-the-know and respected. 
• Providing timelines to candidates so they know what to expect and when. 

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Best Candidate Experience Examples

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If you are seeing your own hiring practices in the negative list, you’ve identified an area for improvement within your company. Consider how to improve your candidate experience by first addressing all of the areas where you land on the negative list. It can be valuable to look up best candidate experience examples and use them as a benchmark for your own candidates’ experiences.  

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How companies do business is constantly evolving and one of the hottest topics in the human resources would is candidate experience best practices. 2022 and 2023 have seen major revolutions in how people operate in the workplace, with remote work still seeing a major surge since the pandemic. Workers are also expressing the desire to have higher standards when it comes to what they will accept from their employer or potential employer. With this in mind, human resources departments are looking for how to improve candidate experience throughout the interview process. What is a good candidate experience in recruitment? Let’s break that down with some examples. 

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A good candidate experience will make the candidate feel like they matter and are valued for their qualifications, experience, and interest in the position. A candidate will expect to have their time and experience respected during the interview. These are seemingly basic expectations but many recruits have expressed frustration with how companies are conducting interviews. Simply making sure that you are providing basic respect to your candidates and making an effort to not waste their time will help your candidates to recognize that they are valued individuals and that their expertise is desired. 

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How To Improve Candidate Experience In Recruitment

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If you are looking for how to improve your candidate experience in recruitment processes, you are doing better than the competition already. We recommend beginning by doing a search for candidate experience best practices 2022 and 2023 to learn more about what candidates are currently looking for in the employment world as it is today. 

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If you are using interview intelligence software, you can create a candidate experience checklist as a part of your process to ensure that your hiring team is checking all of the important boxes. These are some of the items that might appear on your candidate experience best practices checklist:

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• Provide an agenda to all involved in the hiring process, including the hiring team and your candidates, so everyone is clear about what to expect from the process. 
• If your business has a career site, ensure that your information is up-to-date and that you clearly communicate your brand identity so that candidates can develop reasonable expectations about working with your brand. 
• Automate the process! This is where interview intelligence may come in as it can assist in the process of automation. Automation allows you to provide the same or similar experiences to every candidate so that every person who is interviewed by your company feels that they have a good experience. 
• Make sure your job applications are simple and hassle-free. Many people complain about having to retype their information directly from their resume, which is a fair point, so eliminating this annoyance can help. 
• Survey your candidates about their feelings about the process and take their feedback into consideration. You can also gather this information from third party sites as many candidates will share their true feelings online but not directly. 
• Provide candidates with the information they need and want, like timelines and processes. Make sure that you are keeping in touch with everyone and providing them with information about the process so they know if they are still in the running or not. 
• Provide a smooth onboarding experience so that the good experience of the interview continues into hiring. 
• Keep an interview day agenda for the team to ensure that everyone and everything stays on track. This can be automated through interview intelligence software as well. 

Candidate Experience Metrics

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As you conclude your interview process and onboard your new hire, now is the perfect time to consider how you will change the process going forward. Gathering candidate experience metrics based on your candidate experience survey and online research will be your first step toward improving your interviews on the next round. Return candidates will be pleased to see changes in your processes and existing employees will also appreciate seeing that feedback has value. As you consider the results of the candidate experience survey and best practices emerge from the research, your company will be able to improve your interview and hiring processes for years to come. Interview intelligence software, like that offered by Pillar, is one of the best ways to ensure that your practices are integrated and benefitting your company, your recruits, and your employees. 

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Want to learn more about interview intelligence and how it can help your team? Request a demo today!