A guide to candidate experience and how to improve it

What is candidate experience? 

Candidate experience refers to the entire process a candidate goes through, from their first awareness of a role, through to their eventual onboarding. 

In fact, the candidate hiring experience starts before the application; the real candidate experience journey begins with an applicant’s awareness of the employer, which could occur before there’s even a vacancy. This is why first impressions matter, and why it’s important to understand the importance of candidate experience and know how to improve it. It takes just seconds for people to form opinions, so make sure their first opinion of your brand is a positive one to help position your organisation as an employer of choice. 

For candidates who are successful in their interviews and are offered the job, the hiring experience will end with their onboarding. But the end of the candidate experience journey for those who aren’t as successful can be a little confusing. Sometimes, it will end with a ‘no’ and a rejection email, while other experiences will end with a feedback survey; some candidate journeys will not end at all, with applicants instead remaining in talent pools. 

Why is candidate experience important?

The importance of candidate experience shouldn’t be underestimated, but it’s a factor many employers forget to consider when outlining their recruitment strategy. Here are just some of the reasons why it’s so important for hirers to provide a positive candidate experience is so important:

1. Cement your position as an ’employer of choice’

A positive candidate experience helps to ensure applicants remain engaged and enthusiastic throughout the hiring process. This increases the likelihood of talent choosing your business over other employers, as they’ll feel a genuine sense of involvement and excitement from the very beginning.

A good candidate experience also increases the likelihood that previous candidates will reapply when new opportunities arise. This in turn increases the volume of applications in future campaigns, helping to cement your business as an employer of choice.

2. Boost employee morale and retention

A strong candidate experience will showcase your company’s employer brand from the beginning of the applicant journey. The more involved that candidates are made to feel throughout the process, the more likely they are to stay with you for the long term, benefiting overall morale and long-term employee retention.

The recruitment journey is key to promoting your employer brand as one that puts its workers first – it shows a genuine desire to provide the best possible candidate experience.

3. Get new hires off to the best start

Successful employee onboarding is crucial for engaging new employees and improving the overall candidate experience. A positive onboarding experience contributes to increased productivity, employee retention, and worker morale, ensuring that new recruits feel welcomed and involved from the beginning of their time with your company.

4. Increase the new hire success rate

Creating the best hiring experience not only engages and helps new hires settle in quicker, but also helps to improve the chances of candidates staying in their role for longer, improving your organisation’s overall new hire success rate. If people continue their career in your business, this will save you time and money on recruitment over the long term.

5. Improve time to hire

Successful candidates are much more likely to accept when they’re offered a role if you’ve focused on improving candidate experience, worked to engage your candidates, kept them well informed, and treated them with respect at every stage. Not only will this massively improve your time to hire, but it can also help to reduce the influence of counter and other job offers candidates may receive.

6. Protect your employer brand 

Candidate experience is a key aspect of your employer brand, for both successful and unsuccessful candidates. Not only is the candidate more likely to shine your organisation in a positive light, but through word of mouth and online reviews, others will be aware of how good your brand is. With a reported 8 out of 10 of candidates sharing their candidate experience publicly, any positive feedback will help to put your brand in a better position for recruiting new talent in the future.

7. Make better quality hires 

Understanding the importance of candidate experience will likely lead to better quality hires for your organisation. If a candidate’s experience is positive, straightforward, engaging, and well-informed, they are more likely to accept your job offer. 

The easier a job is to apply to, the more candidates you’re likely to receive, meaning there’s a higher chance of quality candidates coming through, demonstrating the importance of taking steps to improve candidate experience.

What does a positive candidate experience look like?

There are key elements that the most successful candidate hiring experiences all share. These include:

• Clear communication: use clear, targeted language in job adverts, and explicitly outline application timelines. Communicate with candidates throughout the process, and strive to provide timely feedback at every stage. Make sure communications are professional yet personal, and show respect for candidates’ time
• Straightforward process: make candidates’ experiences as simple as possible, with easy-click applications, simple procedures, a single point of contact, video interviewing, and prompt decision making
• Transparency: openly state role expectations, salary, benefits, and next steps on the job ad, and be proactive about bringing these up with candidates throughout the application process
• Fair and inclusive: use automation to remove unconscious bias from the hiring process to keep the hiring experience fair, consistent, and inclusive
• Two-way engagement: make sure candidates have opportunities to ask questions at every stage of the process, and provide feedback to help you further improve candidate experience in future
• Efficient onboarding: a positive candidate experience will culminate with a smooth transition from offer acceptance through to subsequent onboarding

What does poor candidate experience look like?

It’s also important for hirers to understand what a less positive candidate experience looks like, so they can create a better experience for applicants. A poor candidate experience may be characterised by:

• Poor communication: missing information in job ads, a lack of transparency around salary or expectations, unclear timelines, infrequent updates, and ghosting candidates are all examples of poor communication that can negatively impact candidate experience
• Application barriers: barriers to smooth applications like log-in screens or difficult-to-navigate career pages, can impact the candidate experience, and risk your business losing out on top talent
• Inefficiencies and inconsistencies: complicated application forms, excessive interview stages, repeated requests for the same information, unclear selection criteria, slow decision-making, and poor accessibility can all adversely affect the overall recruitment experience
• Lack of professionalism: when hirers arrive at interviews late or underprepared, or fail to follow up with candidates, this demonstrates a lack of professionalism and respect for applicants’ time
• No onboarding support: a lack of communication after the offer stage can impact the onboarding experience, and create a disorganised first impression, potentially impacting new hire success rate and long-term retention

How to improve candidate experience: 6 top tips

From utilising applicant tracking software to continual testing and gathering feedback, here are our top tips for improving candidate experience in recruitment:

1. Use tech to manage the candidate experience 

Hiring software, such as an applicant tracking system (ATS), is ideal for monitoring, assessing, and improving candidate experience. From candidate reports to candidate engagement tools, using a system like Talos ATS can significantly enhance your candidates’ hiring experience. 

Automated processes can identify an applicant’s eligibility for a role, while integrations with email systems help to keep candidates engaged. What’s more, video interviewing technology can help to speed up the interview process, while employee onboarding tech makes onboarding seamless for both candidates and your organisation. 

Talos ATS also features in-built AI features designed to reduce HR admin, meaning they have more time to spend engaging with candidates to create a positive hiring experience.

2. Test, test, and test again

The best way to find faults in your candidate journey is through testing. Take yourself through the candidate journey. Start by evaluating your career pages, your social media accounts and your website – can you do more to promote your employer brand?

Next, analyse your job ads; do they disclose all the right information? Can candidates easily apply? 

Then, test how long the candidate journey typically takes from application through to acceptance. This will give you a clear indication of how to create a positive candidate experience at every stage.

3. Gather candidate feedback

Gathering candidate feedback is an essential part of building a positive recruitment experience. Even if a candidate isn’t successful, their experience of your candidate journey is invaluable. 

Capture their insights by sending candidates a survey post-hire or post-rejection. Ask what they thought about the process, how you could improve candidate experience in the future, and whether they would refer your organisation to a friend. This is a great way to gather external insight and improve the journey for future candidates. 

4. Keep the hiring process human

When embracing AI as part of the candidate hiring experience, it’s important to keep the process as human as possible. It’s vital to treat applicants as people, not just numbers in a system. 

Tim Clifford, Talent Insights Specialist at Talos360, says: “There’s a risk that recruitment becomes transactional when it’s overly automated. Make sure there are human checks at every stage of the process, and personalise candidate interactions where you can. Acknowledge candidates’ time and effort, provide regular updates, and clearly communicate any feedback you have for them to keep them feeling valued.”

When the candidate experience feels truly human-centred, candidates are more likely to stay engaged, and have a positive view of your organisation, even if they are not successful. 

5. Engage candidates during their notice period

The stage between an offer being accepted and a new hire’s first day is an important part of the candidate experience. HR shouldn’t neglect this period, and keep candidates engaged while they work their notice. Ways to do this include:

• Providing regular onboarding updates
• Introducing hires to their team via email
• Sharing insights about company culture
• Inviting new hires to socials set to take place before or soon after they join

These steps can help to reduce first-day anxiety, and allow candidates to arrive feeling prepared, confident, and already valued as part of the team. 

6. Nurture talent pools

Unsuccessful applicants should be nurtured as part of talent pools to ensure a positive candidate experience, even once the hiring window has closed. Keeping strong candidates engaged allows you to build a pipeline of qualified talent for upcoming roles, helping to improve hiring metrics, such as time to hire and cost per hire, in the future. 

Nurturing a talent pool can help to strengthen your employer brand, improve the availability of suitable talent, and create a more sustainable, proactive hiring strategy. 

8 candidate experience best practices

• To summarise, our recommended candidate experience best practices include:
• Include new starter onboarding as part of the overall candidate experience
• Prioritise clear, consistent communication
• Ensure transparency at every stage
• Showcase a strong employer brand
• Make the application process simple and accessible
• Keep processes fair and inclusive
• Embrace automation and AI to keep hiring processes efficient
• Provide candidates with opportunities to provide feedback

Improve candidate experience with Talos ATS

Taking steps to improve candidate experience starts with focusing on streamlining your recruitment process both for candidates and for your hiring managers. By making this more straightforward, you can save time by engaging your candidates where it really counts.

Talos ATS, our award-winning application tracking system, includes AI-powered features designed to help improve your organisation’s candidate experience:

• Upgrading your recruitment tech
• Sticking to a well-organised recruitment workflow
• Maintaining high-quality communication with candidates
• Automating your hiring process wherever possible, such as with Talos ATS
• Providing an exemplary onboarding/training process

Discover an easier way to manage hiring – save time and cut costs with Talos ATS: