In 2023, one trend that will guarantee success in tech recruitment is the candidate experience. How good would it be if a candidate feels positive about your company even if the end result is not a hire? A high-quality experience will make sure applicants feel good towards employers no matter the end result, and give companies a competitive advantage and approachable reputation.

Though it is quite an important term, are we sure what candidate experience means?

An entire candidate experience starts the moment an applicant becomes aware of a brand and ends with their onboarding. And, how the candidate feels about your company during the whole process is the “candidate’s experience”. An earlier study* revealed that four out of five applicants think that candidate experience is an indicator of how the company treats its own employees; therefore, we believe that what kind of effect companies leave on the applicants will stand crucial in the following years.

So, no matter whether the end result is a hire or not, a positive candidate experience helps companies easily engage with prospective applicants, get referrals, and increase their employer branding.

Here, we gathered useful tips to help you increase your company’s candidate experience. Let’s start with what to do during the awareness and application process, in the interview process, and after the interview.

Awareness & Application 

When a candidate is aware of your company and considers applying for one of your openings, the first thing they will do is to check your company website and social media. What is the company’s history? What are the company-wise or employee-wise achievements? How is the working environment? Do employees seem to be happy working there? It is totally possible to give convincing answers to these questions on your website and social media with active use. How about diving into how to use social media that creates the best candidate experience in another blog post?

Alright, the candidate loved your company, its achievements, and the way of working. That’s already a win! However, it is not ending there. Now, they will apply to one of your openings. One of the most critical things in tech recruitment is to make the application process as smooth as you can. Creating an account on your website, making them fill in a bunch of unnecessary information, and asking them to write long cover letters is a buzzkill for a talented candidate. Let’s make the application process easy, simple, and clean!

Interviewing

That’s great, they have got an interview!

You can start with the operational things, details are always important 🙂 If the interview is on-site, you can give information about how to arrive at the interview location and what to do when they enter the building. Or, if the interview is an online one, you can let them know which software you will be using so that they can get familiar with it if they haven’t used it before.

But, interviews are not the most comfortable experiences, aren’t they? However letting applicants know who and how many people will join the interview, how long it will last, and what kinds of topics to be discussed remove the uncertainty and anxiety in their minds, and make such a positive influence on them!

Furthermore, structured interviews will help the interviewer to be objective toward the candidate. By asking already-selected questions, you won’t forget to ask any important information, be distracted by their previous answers, and you will keep track of time easily which are all part of a positive candidate experience in tech recruitment 🙂

After the Interview

Understandably, candidates would like to know if they are going on to the next step after the interview. The critical thing here is always letting candidates know what is happening on your end. Are you still processing the interview? When should they hear back from you? Let them know! If they are not a perfect fit for the position, you can give them constructive feedback which will be very appreciated. This should not be the end of your communication, you should assure them you are always ready to support them as their growth partner!

If the interview goes well and all of the processes end up with hiring, then you can peak the candidate experience with a great onboarding! This could include a warm welcome from your end, introducing them to their colleagues, or assigning a buddy for them.

To conclude, candidate experience is the result of a procedure, and it happens in every single part of the tech recruitment process. We hope that the tips above will help you to create better experiences for your applicants. After all, helping the world become a better place and leaving good feelings in a stranger’s heart is unmeasurable <3

By Nazli