It’s how a candidate feels they’ve been treated throughout the recruitment process and how that treatment makes them feel about the organization.

Job Seekers Still Feel Fully in Control

When it comes to the current labor market, more than half of all job seekers (51%) believe that finding a job is easy, and 58% believe the current job market favors candidates. More than two-thirds (68%) believe their job search will take one to three months, and 41% would even feel comfortable quitting without having another job lined up.

Candidates feel confident that they are still in the driver’s seat of the job market, and organizations would do well to respond to these perceptions by focusing on areas that can speed the hiring process, better nurture candidates, and cater to worker priorities. Here’s the top reasons why candidates are starting the job search:

Candidate Expectations Through Recruiting

Job seekers have high expectations when it comes to the candidate experience and their interactions with recruiters. An overwhelming majority of workers expect to work with either a recruiter working on behalf of the company (47%) or a corporate recruiter (34%) during the recruiting process.

In some industries, such as financial services, manufacturing, and retail, recruiters working on behalf of the company are more common than corporate recruiters (approximately 20 percentage points more likely than corporate recruiters). This is affirming news for organizations that outsource part or all of their recruiting process to strategic RPO partners.

Within the candidate experience, job seekers believe there are areas of the recruiting process that should be deprioritized. These may be areas that candidates feel are unnecessary, don’t give an accurate picture of who they are, or even lengthen the hiring process. Job seekers believe that recruiters and hiring managers should focus less on:

Candidates Push Back on the Pain Points of Hiring

There are several areas of the recruiting process job seekers dislike. But for employers, this provides a list of opportunities within the job search, application, interview, and offer stage to improve, optimize, or transform.

Whether it’s a lack of transparency, a slow process, or outdated technologies, identify areas your company can seek to improve to bolster the candidate experience and connect with quality talent to drive your business forward.

Candidates Say: Communication is Key

Once a job seeker has applied for a job, they have expectations about what kinds of communication they should receive from an employer.

Nearly half (49%) believe they should either receive an automated email from the company or a personal email from the recruiter. Less than one in five job seekers have no expectations for communication.

Given many candidates prefer messaging from employers throughout the recruiting process, companies that prioritize timely, personalized messaging can better engage prospects for open roles.

Organizations must take the opportunity to improve their communication with candidates and deliver higher-quality experiences.

The Positive Candidate Experience Checklist

A great candidate experience means providing active and passive job seekers with engaging content, a fast application process, streamlined communications, consumer-grade technologies to answer questions quickly, and prompt feedback throughout their experiences.

Whether it’s making them feel valued during the application process, providing helpful feedback or communication, or treating them with professionalism and respect after their candidacy has ended, the candidate experience encompasses every interaction a job seeker has with an employer.

If you’re looking to improve your candidate experience, the key is to always keep the candidate at the heart of everything you do.

By nurturing each individual and prioritizing candidate engagement at every step of their journey, you’ll be well on your way to building stronger relationships with top talent that will deliver results for your business.

Top candidate experiences include:

• Consistent employer brand messages
• Automated messaging with recruiters
• Personalized job recommendations
• Feedback loops at each hiring stage
• AI-powered chatbots to optimize candidate interactions
• Easy to schedule interviews
• Mobile-optimized career sites
• Seamless job application process
• Tailored content and experiences
• Easy to find information

Make the Candidate Experience a Priority

Providing a quality candidate experience allows companies to find and recruit top talent to impact the success of the business. A solid candidate experience also ensures organizations can build a robust talent pipeline and employer brand that strengthens their reputation relative to competitors.

For employers today, understanding job seeker mindset and behavior is critical to connecting with them more effectively and staying competitive in a tight labor market. Based on the findings from Employ’s research, candidates are likely to fall into one of four quadrants in their job-seeking behavior.

See the full Job Seeker Quadrant and get other valuable insights on the job market in the Employ Q1 Quarterly Report. Examining Employer and Job Seeker Realities in the Current Job Market: How Employers Can Respond to Candidate Preferences, Perceptions, and Personas.

The post Candidate Expectations You Need to Know in 2023 first appeared on Jobvite.

From fostering remote engagement to crafting optimized job listings, here are 12 responses to the questions, “Hiring leaders, can you provide strategies you are following to help best prepare for hiring in 2023? Why should others follow this tip for hiring preparation in the new year?”

• Focus on Fostering Remote Engagement
• Keep Up with Shifting Candidate Priorities
• Consider Reaching Out to People Who Left
• Offer More Remote Work Options
• Build a Talent Network
• Leverage Sponsored Employment to Stand Out
• Explore More Hiring Processes with New Tech
• Look for Someone Who Fits Your Company Culture
• Engage in Social Media Recruiting
• Automate Screening for Better, Cheaper Hires
• Develop a Strong Employer Brand
• Craft Unique and Optimized Job Listings

Focus on Fostering Remote Engagement

Despite a push from hiring and talent acquisition leaders to return to some semblance of “normalcy,” it’s likely that businesses will be forced to contend with a largely decentralized, distributed, and remote talent pool in 2023.

In order to stand out in the current talent market, companies should prioritize engaging potential candidates in a remote setting, meeting them where they’re most comfortable. By inspecting how your company engages with both current and prospective staff, you can identify ways to improve employee loyalty and show your business’s ability to function smoothly in a remote environment.

Promoting an engaging company culture through this remote engagement should be less about physical perks, such as in-house ping-pong tables or artisan coffee, and more about the steps that will be taken to onboard and support new employees — regardless of location. Businesses that can demonstrate a commitment to remote engagement are highly appealing to top talent.

Teresha Aird, Chief Marketing Officer & HR Lead, Offices.net

Keep Up With Shifting Candidate Priorities

Your candidates’ priorities are shifting, so your focus must move with them for the best success. Overhaul your hiring practices, compensation, and perks to give candidates more of what they want, like fair compensation, flexibility, and work-life balance, and less of what they don’t.

With inflation increasing living costs, compensation is even more important than balance and flexibility — increase salaries to account for higher expenses. While work-life balance priorities dropped as financial pressures grew, it’s still high on the list of importance. Clearly communicate company values during the hiring process and provide better pay transparency — both have become differentiators in the current job market.

Watch how candidates’ priorities shift in 2023 and make swift moves to keep open roles as attractive to them as possible.

Ruben Gamez, Founder & CEO, SignWell

Consider Reaching Out to People Who Left

Consider a powerful re-hiring strategy for 2023. Given today’s talent scarcity and the demand for A+ talent, why not remember the top performers who left your employment over the past several years and invite them to return? 

Think about launching a “We Want You Back!” campaign in Q1 2023. Inviting and rehiring top performers can be equivalent to adding the productivity of several B and C performers.  

These re-hires also know the business culture, have relationships with present staff, and can start strong.  Their return also shows to current employees how company leadership is enlightened and committed to a positive and productive work environment.

Bill Gunn, Principal Consultant, G&A

Offer More Remote Work Options

Remote work has increasingly become a normalized part of the work culture. From remote cybersecurity jobs to work-from-home UX design roles, every industry that is gunning to be relevant and attract top talent in 2023 has had to succumb to this trend. 

Only some employees are eligible to work remotely, but a lot of roles have made the switch to make many candidates wary of in-person roles. This trend has led to candidates favoring organizations offering remote options. Organizations not offering them are set up for a challenging 2023 in the recruitment market. Offering hybrid schedules or flexible options will attract candidates and make the hiring process far more accessible and more robust.

Yongming Song, CEO, Live Poll for Slides

Build a Talent Network

It is important to build up a network of potential candidates who are interested in working with your organization. This includes identifying high-potential individuals, engaging with them through social media or other digital platforms, and maintaining relationships with them. 

Doing so will help you stay ahead of the competition in hiring for 2023 by providing access to a larger pool of qualified candidates. Moreover, it will help you create a more diverse hiring pipeline, allowing for greater flexibility when filling positions.

Tzvi Heber, Founder, CEO, & HR Head, Ascendant Detox

Leverage Sponsored Employment to Stand Out

Since thousands of jobs are uploaded every day, your job listing’s visibility may eventually decline. A sponsored job is one of the finest strategies to guarantee that your job ad remains distinctive. 

In any relevant search results, these premium postings will be more prominent and won’t drop in prominence over time, like free job listings, which can draw in more qualified applicants. 

As soon as you pay to post a position, you’ll also gain access to Instant Fit, which provides you with a list of applicants whose resumes match your job requirements on Indeed right away.

Kurt Uhlir, Chief Marketing Officer, Kurt Uhlir

Explore More Hiring Processes With New Tech

I’ve always used data for recruiting purposes, but as technology progresses, the possibilities are growing. I’m no longer limited to hard skill evaluations; I’m now better able to consider a candidate’s holistic suitability for any position.

Soft skills, like emotional intelligence, team cohesion, and effective communication often determine how well an employee adapts to a new workplace. By combining psychological and sociological surveys with data collection techniques, I’m placing candidates in their ideal work cultures. 

This is a crucial metric for long-term success because inefficient hiring processes can lead to work stoppages and delayed projects. 

Rob Reeves, CEO & President, Redfish Technology

Look for Someone Who Fits Your Company Culture

In my experience, the most challenging aspect of hiring for senior or executive positions is finding someone who not only has the skills and experience, but also fits the culture the company strives for. 

These higher-level employees often already have a well-established style of leadership, and any attempts at shifting it to fit the values of the new workplace can be a real challenge. That’s why, in 2023, I’d recommend trying to look for someone who already fits your approach. 

Make it a year to build the recruitment process around company culture. This way, you’ll ensure that the values you want to uphold at your workplace aren’t just words written somewhere on the wall; they’re real guidelines according to which employees function daily.

Piotrek Sosnowski, Chief People & Culture Officer, HiJunior

Engage in Social Media Recruiting

As the world of work continues to expand, we are increasingly using social media to recruit and hire employees. 

Engaging with potential candidates and gaining a sense of their skills, personality, interests, and qualifications in order to ensure an overall company fit is becoming increasingly possible and effective via social media.

In 2023, identify top talent and build relationships with candidates more aggressively through social media rather than going through employment agencies. Learn about prospective candidates through their profiles and pursue them personally by establishing a rapport.

This enables us to interact with our creators, marketers, developers, and writers directly, engage with their content, introduce them to other employees online, and establish a friendly but professional rapport.

Kyle Kroeger, Founder, Via Travelers

Automate Screening for Better, Cheaper Hires

With such a tight hiring pool, you can’t afford any recruitment downtime. Adopting new AI-powered headhunting tools gives you 100% up-time as you search and screen new candidates hands-free. 

It also greatly helps reduce the biases that human recruiters unwittingly bring into the screening process, thanks to advanced machine learning that’s becoming more intelligent daily. With 35% lower employee turnover, AI’s unbiased processes help find a better fit for every role.

AI screening reduces traditional costs by up to 75%, giving your team more money and time to invest in wooing and landing great hires when they have countless other job options available.

Maximilian Wühr, CGO & Co-Founder, FINN

Develop a Strong Employer Brand

One of the best things we are doing to prepare for hiring in 2023 is developing a strong customer brand. I believe that in the new year, employers are going to be increasingly focused on finding candidates who are not only technically qualified, but also a good fit for their company culture. 

By developing a strong customer brand, we are showcasing our ability to not only be the best training group, but also to build relationships and contribute to a positive team dynamic. 

I think this is an important attribute that will become even more valuable in the new year, and I would encourage other businesses to work on their own brands as well.

Derek Bruce, Sr. Director, Skills Training Group

Craft Unique and Optimized Job Listings

As more and more jobseekers search for open positions online, businesses are turning to content marketing to make their job listings stand out. Crafting a unique and attractive job listing can have significant benefits, such as ensuring that you stand out to notable candidates and improving your overall business brand.

In addition, writing an optimized job listing that touches on relevant keywords can help employers reach a broader audience, as these types of listings will be more likely to appear near the top of relevant search engine results. 

Furthermore, job seekers may be more likely to apply if they are presented with a well-crafted summary of the position’s expectations and requirements, as opposed to vague generalizations. Ultimately, despite the time and effort required, writing an engaging and optimized job listing will often pay dividends by providing your business with the best possible chance to hire the ideal candidate.

Jessica Munday, People & Culture Manager, Custom Neon

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.

The post 12 Ways to Get Ready for Hiring in 2023 first appeared on Jobvite.

Companies that streamline hiring with recruitment software have been more effective in speeding time to hire and providing a more consistent candidate experience that bolsters their employer brand. With tools like candidate texting or chatbots to improve the responsiveness and quality of conversations with candidates, employers that recognize the importance of engaging candidates and ensuring a seamless experience are more effective in finding candidates in a challenging labor market.

Remember, It’s Still A Candidate’s World

With record-level rates of unemployment, more than 10 million open jobs, and significant turnover, companies have been left to rapidly fill positions with qualified talent. Because employers are competing for top employees, they often still encounter candidates in the driver’s seat who are looking for more in every aspect of their employment.

Candidates currently have their pick of opportunities when it comes to roles. In fact, companies of all sizes are seeing candidates entertaining multiple job offers during the recruiting process. They’re looking for an employer that can provide the best hiring experience as well as more competitive benefits than in previous roles.

The challenge and opportunity to succeed in recruiting requires delivering a standout candidate experience by flawlessly engaging with candidates at every touchpoint in your hiring process. Because when you make it as easy as possible for candidates to interact with your employer brand and apply for your open roles, you can elevate your recruiting function and ensure you deliver a high quality of candidate that outpaces your competitors.

The Most Terrifying Part of Recruiting: Employers That Ghost Candidates

Even in light of the current hiring environment, one of the most frightening parts of recruiting is that employers are leaving candidates hanging. Known as ghosting candidates, it seems that some employers believe that not engaging or offering a streamlined candidate experience is acceptable. Employers should not take candidates for granted and cannot afford to turn off applicants for open roles. Yet many job seekers still regularly experience ghosting from employers.

Connecting the right candidates to the right job, providing an engaging career site experience, offering an easy application process, and ensuring obstacles are removed is essential in streamlining the hiring process. If you are not agile to respond to the challenges in the current labor market, if your hiring team is unresponsive, or you take too long to interact with candidates, you are doing damage to your own company and face an uphill climb in filling roles and hiring talent for your business.

“What is the most frightening part of recruiting? Employers that ghost candidates and think it is acceptable. ” -Jobvite

Stressed recruiters with inadequate tools are far more likely to let candidates fall off in the process with outdated hiring practices, making it even harder for companies to fill roles with qualified talent. So what are the top reasons that recruiters and employers ghost candidates? Let’s take a look:

Here are some of the top reasons candidates are ghosted by companies today:

• Lack of automated messaging tools to engage candidates and keep them informed in the hiring process
• Slow internal communication between the hiring team and decision makers
• Unable to keep up with the volume of candidates for open roles
• Employer expectations are not aligned with candidate expectations
• Inability to re-engage silver medalists to keep them informed of other hiring opportunities
• An out-of-date ATS that doesn’t allow recruiters to effectively track and manage applicant flow

In today’s competitive labor market, recruiting teams need to create the best possible experience to capture and convert top candidates during the early stages of the hiring process. This means that they must keep communications with applicants and hiring teams efficient, helpful, and transparent.

With the labor market continuing to favor candidates, each moment counts in the fight to convert candidates into applicants. Leveraging the right tools, having the right strategy, and ensuring you follow best practices when it comes to your career site and application process can increase your candidate conversion rates significantly.

Keep Candidates in the (Shorter) Loop

Companies that recognize ghosting candidates is a scary proposition instead adopt recruitment software to help with the heavy lifting of communicating with candidates. They’re avoiding candidate ghosting by setting up automated messaging at all points of the hiring process to ensure timely responses, accurate answers, and efficient meeting scheduling. Because without it, companies will lose out on the ability to attract talented candidates that will move their business forward.

One of the ways you can stop ghosting candidates is to leverage communication tools that keep candidates in the know. Some of the top tools businesses of all sizes are using include:

• Chatbots: Applicants can engage with a chatbot early in the hiring process to learn more about a role and even apply with a few simple clicks.
• Candidate texting: Automated messaging saves recruiters hours per requisition by automatically engaging with candidates during the application, interview, and onboarding processes.
• Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) software: Advanced recruiting teams are adopting a CRM platform to centralize their talent pools and easily set up automatic communication campaigns for passive candidates.
• Asynchronous video: Video interviewing is a favorite tool of busy recruiters who are hiring in high volumes. Allow applicants to record interview answers and submit on their own time, avoiding the need for a live meeting to screen every candidate.
• Automated interview scheduling: No more manually coordinating schedules between hiring teams and candidates. Automatic scheduling tools allow candidates to pick a meeting time from a pre-selected list of times that work for everyone.

Start Making Your Candidate Experience Less Spooky, More Engaging

Looking to improve your candidate experience and stop scaring job seekers in the process? Get more insights on how your company can respond to the current labor market. Be sure to download the Employ Quarterly Insights Report for strategies your business can use to better connect with and nurture candidates.

The post Here’s Why Ghosting Candidates Is So Spooky first appeared on Jobvite.

The key to creating positive experiences for the recruiting trifecta is to leverage technology and streamline communication to create a cohesive experience. To learn more about how to do this, we were joined by industry experts as they shared the importance of focusing on the whole picture of the candidate, hiring manager, and recruiter experience at the Talent Acquisition Experience Trifecta webinar. If you missed the event, don’t worry. We’ve recapped it and shared our top three takeaways on how you as a leader can encourage your talent acquisition function to focus on incorporating these strategies within your organization.

#1: How to Optimize the Candidate Experience: Focus on Consistency and Timeliness

Kevin Grossman, Talent Acquisition and Human Capital Strategist at Talent Board, mentioned the following true difference-makers when it comes to improving the candidate experience:

• Consistent and Timely Communication
• Consistent and Timely Expectation Setting
• Consistent and Timely Feedback
• Consistent and Timely Transparency

Clearly, there is no silver bullet for talent acquisition teams, and the positions in highest demand in each industry may differ, but these four core ideas are the same. Make sure that as candidates move through the application, screening, offer/rejection, and onboarding processes, they’re getting enough clarity to understand which stage they are in, what’s needed from them, and what they can expect.

While technology and automation can help in the early stages through FAQ, chatbots, or AI, candidates who are making it further into the process should feel the additional investment that is being made at those stages. At the end of the day, while these are details that drive many decisions on our end, candidates are generally not that interested in our people, processes, or tech stack; candidates are interested in getting the job, and it is your duty to empower your teams to guide candidates through the talent journey.

An important additional note on the candidate experience, especially when considering lower volume hiring, is to request some sort of feedback from candidates regardless of where they end their recruiting journey. Ensure that your recruiting organization is as unbiased as possible. Understanding which points in the journey were pleasant or painful for candidates can help your recruiting function pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses in the hiring processes.

#2: How to Optimize the Recruiter Experience: Focus on Empowerment and Automation

Madeline Laurano, Founder and Chief Analyst at Aptitude Research, presented a number of perceptions that recruiters have regarding their jobs and why they joined the recruitment industry as well as how those perceptions can differ from their leadership teams.

From the value of their tech stack to the availability of talent, recruiters, by and large, see their situation as more desperate than do business and HR leadership. Whether this is accurate, perception is the keystone of experience. This means that either:

• Business and HR leadership must invest more time in enabling and empowering their recruiters to make full use of their current toolset, OR
• Business and HR leadership must invest more into the tools available within their firm’s recruitment team

Regardless of which option fits your organization better, the value of the investment will be the same – your recruiters will be happier. Remember, one thing you should know about recruiters is that they look forward to the people-facing aspect of their jobs. They enjoy meeting new people, learning about them, supporting them through the candidate process, and, ultimately, seeing them thrive in a new community.

It turns out, however, that most recruiters are spending most of their time on technical tasks like finding applicants, reviewing applicants, and scheduling interviews. These mundane tasks could be streamlined and automated with better technology or a better handle on the technology available to them. A reduction in manual technical tasks by increased investment in automation or enablement allows for an increase in time recruiters can devote to that personal aspect of their job. This means a better experience for not only the recruiter, but the candidate as well.

#3: How to Optimize the Hiring Manager Experience: Focus on Expectations and Communication

The importance of clear communication between recruiters and hiring managers is essential in supporting a positive hiring manager experience. Yet hiring managers must often have their expectations checked on what a good candidate should look like. From a recruiter’s perspective, this almost requires over-promising and under-delivering, and that defeats supporting a healthy talent acquisition function.

Instead, the solution is to widen the communication channels between your recruiters and hiring managers, and to empower your recruiters to give push back a little when hiring managers expect a candidate to exceed or meet al the job requirements.

As a leader within the organization, make it a known expectation that recruiters should bring honesty and market expertise to the table in any conversation with a hiring manager. Remind hiring managers that they should bring flexibility, an open mind, and a realistic compensation budget.

Make the Recruiting Trifecta a Priority in Your Company 

Focusing on the experience of candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers offers a competitive advantage to your company. Set the tone to your recruiting and hiring teams that each audience is important and delivering positive experiences is essential to drive a well-performing talent acquisition function. Understanding the expectations of candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers supports cohesiveness and consistency in hiring, and will make you a differentiated leader if you can support and find the balance of meeting expectations of all three groups.

For more information and insights on the recruiting trifecta, check out the Talent Acquisition Experience Trifecta webinar.

The post Why Leaders Should Care About Candidate, Recruiter, and Hiring Manager Experiences first appeared on Jobvite.

In September, the unemployment rate was 3.5%, or roughly 5.8 billion people. The number of open positions, however, is currently around 10 million and continues to grow. Now is not the time for recruiters to continue working with an applicant tracking system (ATS) that is not giving them the best possible results. The ATS has been around for over 20 years now. But to some recruiters, it feels like the capabilities are just that — 20 years old. Strategic, forward-thinking talent acquisition teams and recruiters have adopted automation, AI, natural language processing, better user experiences, chatbots, and integrations to help them find, recruit, and hire top talent.

Is An ATS No Longer Enough for Your Recruiting?

Gen Z is now 20% of the U.S. population, and 88% of them believe that AI will improve their jobs. They understand technology, and they believe it will automate tedious tasks and streamline workflows. TA teams need to have a world-class talent acquisition suite with modern technologies and a wide range of capabilities to improve their daily workflows and help increase efficiency in the sourcing, hiring, and onboarding processes.

So, if you aren’t getting the results you need from your ATS or Talent Acquisition Suite, maybe it’s time to revisit what capabilities it’s offering you, what you’re using, and what may be missing.

Ask yourself these questions to determine if you are getting the best possible results from your current TA tech:

1. What are our current candidate conversion rates?

On average, companies convert only 30% of applicants. Jobvite defines the candidate conversion rate as the process of transitioning a career site visitor into a known candidate or applicant by either completing the job application process or joining a talent network. First, figure out your candidate conversion rates. And if you aren’t achieving conversion rates of at least 70%, check out the Fortune 500 Candidate Conversion Audit report to see what common mistakes other companies are making and where you might have opportunities to improve quickly.

2. Are we automatically sourcing qualified talent?

According to Aptitude Research, recruiters spend up to 16 hours per week scheduling calls and 10 hours looking for candidates in their ATS. Recruiters can reduce time spent on sourcing by around 30% using automated technology. Not only does automation cut down on time and effort, but AI finds the right candidates for the role by pre-screening for you and directing them to recruiters or hiring managers when the time is right. Your TA teams need to be sourcing automatically in 2022!

3. Are we delivering better candidate communications with texting and chatbots?

Intelligent messaging helps pre-screen and answer candidate questions – recruiting teams are using chatbots and texting to pre-screen candidates and answer their questions automatically. Texts to candidates boast an impressive 98% open rate, compared to email (20%). Intelligent messaging keeps candidates engaged in all stages of the hiring process. Texting and chatbots should be part of your core talent acquisition suite.

4. Is our onboarding process helping or hurting?

All employees need high-quality onboarding to start with your company to have a chance of succeeding. Provide a consistent onboarding experience for every employee using onboarding software as part of your talent acquisition suite and retain that top talent you just hired.

5. Do we have visibility to know what is working and what is not?

Strategic recruiting teams constantly measure their processes and work to improve them. An in-depth analytics platform allows agile teams to keep an eye on key recruiting metrics and make changes as needed. Use the analytics built into your system to measure results and improve recruiting outcomes.

6. Are we getting as many referrals as we can?

It’s a known fact that referrals are a great source of candidates and often make the best hires. If you aren’t managing referrals from within your talent acquisition suite, you are missing out on this great source of candidates.

7. What about our internal candidates?

Internal candidates make great candidates for new roles. Having an internal mobility program not only helps to retain top talent for longer, it gives you a great career path story for future hires. And that goes for your recruiters as well! According to Aptitude Research, 32% of recruiters surveyed are looking for other career opportunities.

8. Do you have a strategic plan to continually improve your TA process?

None of us can make immediate improvements to current processes or technologies overnight. If we try to do too much too quickly, we’ll fail. So, get strategic and thoughtful about how mature your current processes and technologies are and where you can improve and get better results. Need some help getting started? Take just 10 minutes to complete the EVOLVE Talent Acquisition framework to identify and prioritize areas for improvement.

These are just a few ideas, I’m sure there are many more. And according to Josh Bersin, recruitment technology is helping TA teams retain top talent as well as market a strong employer brand to source high-quality candidates. The sooner you consider areas to recruit smarter, the sooner you can enjoy the benefits!

Learn More About Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite

Talent acquisition teams are turning to technology to help them hire top, qualified talent quickly. So, it’s crucial that they have an in-depth stack of TA software that reduces effort by using automation and AI. Looking to learn more about what Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite can do for your team? To see Jobvite in action, watch the on-demand Jobvite Product Tour or request a live demo.

The post When to Know If The ATS is No Longer Enough first appeared on Jobvite.

How to Improve the Candidate Experience

To help improve the experience candidates have during your hiring process, follow these four important tips from Jobvite:

#1: Keep Candidates Informed Every Step of the Way

When seeking to create positive candidate experiences, communication is key. No candidate likes to be kept in the dark; they want to stay informed and updated regarding where they are in the hiring process. Unfortunately, too many recruiters and employers treat the hiring process as a one-way street, requiring prompt answers and updates from candidates, without offering the same thing in return.

Jobvite Intelligent Messaging makes it easier than ever to provide candidates with real-time, helpful feedback. Send candidates scheduled messages with details about the next steps they need to take. Let them know when their applications have been received and are being reviewed. Even send rejection letters to let them know they will not be moving forward in the hiring process, offering insights into the reasoning behind your decision instead of a form letter.

#2: Let Your Candidates Know What to Expect

Hand-in-hand with keeping candidates in the loop regarding their place in the hiring process, it’s equally important to let candidates know what to expect if they are hired. That means offering them a clear and detailed glimpse not only into their new role’s responsibilities, but also into your company’s unique culture.

Today’s job candidates understand the importance of company culture. In fact, 88% of surveyed job seekers said they believe that a good company culture is essential to business success. Demonstrate the things that make your company culture stand out using Jobvite’s fully customizable, premium career site building toolkit.

#3: Reduce Unconscious Bias Using AI Software

One of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of improving any hiring process is unconscious bias. Even when we tell ourselves we’re not being biased during candidate selection, there may be ways our bias peeks through even without us knowing it. Not only can perceived bias negatively impact your candidate experience, but it also is very likely preventing you from making the best decisions to benefit your business.

One of the best ways to remove bias from the hiring process is through the use of AI software. Jobvite’s built-in AI capabilities are designed to help recruiters and employers accurately identify the experience and qualifications they need most, then zero in on exactly which candidates best satisfy those needs.

#4: Maintain Relationships with Candidates

When does your candidate experience end? After you decide not to hire them, right? Wrong. Just because a candidate isn’t right for the position you currently need to fill, that doesn’t mean they won’t be right for a different role in the future. A good way to improve candidate experience is to keep in touch with all high-quality candidates, not just the ones you hire.

With Jobvite’s CRM, you can get ahead of new requisitions and make sure you have the right talent identified and engaged before your business needs them. Instead of starting over from scratch, you may already have dozens of prime candidates sitting in your recruitment pipeline.

Jobvite Offers the Ultimate Candidate Experience Solution

From prompt, transparent feedback and communication to a clear explanation of responsibilities and company culture, your organization can invest in multiple areas to ensure your applicants’ candidate experiences are positive. With the Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite, you can ensure the entire talent acquisition lifecycle delivers optimized candidate experiences for better recruiting results. 

Watch our product tour on-demand or subscribe to our blog to stay in-the-know on the latest insights in talent acquisition.

The post Four Ways to Improve the Candidate Experience first appeared on Jobvite.

Here are 12 items to include in your candidate experience surveys:

• Ask How They Feel About the Company’s Mission and Values
• Invite Them to Stay in Contact Via Email
• Ask How You Could Improve Your Hiring Process
• Find Out If the Job Description Matches Reality
• Ask About Recruiter Responsiveness
• Check the Potential for Repeat Application
• Include a Word Association Section
• Make Space for Candidates to Leave Comments
• Find Out How Likely the Candidate Would Refer Your Company
• Inquire How the Candidate Learned About The Position
• Include Recruiter Rating
• Ask If the Candidate Felt Comfortable Asking Questions

Ask How They Feel About the Company’s Mission and Values

One item to include in your candidate experience survey is a question that asks how the candidate feels about the company’s mission and values. This will help you get a sense of whether or not the candidate is aligned with your company’s vision, which is key to finding someone who will thrive in the role.

Ryan Stewart, Webris

Invite Them to Stay in Contact Via Email

At the end of a candidate experience survey, you should always include an offer to subscribe to future offers and opportunities with your business. By entering their email, a candidate can stay informed of happenings in your company and apply again in the future. This creates a larger pool of candidates, benefiting both you and the potential candidate for future endeavors.

David Aylor, David Aylor Law Offices

Ask How You Could Improve Your Hiring Process

Asking this question provides insight into the candidates’ expectations throughout the process and can also help you understand their overall experience. Learn how your organization can continue to enhance the candidate experience and implement these changes accordingly. Listening to your candidates’ feedback will encourage them (and their colleagues) to apply for future opportunities at your company.

Benjamin Farber, Bristol Associates, Inc.

Find Out If the Job Description Matches Reality

One area which the candidate experience survey should attempt to clarify is how closely the initial job description matched the information presented during the hiring process. Some companies can be too eager to attract candidates, leading to misleading job descriptions being posted. The result of this is that unsuitable candidates can be tempted to apply for roles that do not match their experience or qualifications.

Alternatively, they may go into the hiring process with lofty expectations that cannot be fulfilled within your company or the role they will be expected to fill. The job description should read as close as possible to the position you are looking to fill. A misleading description will waste time for both the employer and the candidate and will come with a financial cost. If your candidate experience survey implies a mismatch, action should be taken to correct the description.

Morgan Taylor, Sourcery

Ask About Recruiter Responsiveness

A must-have question on a candidate experience survey is: how responsive were our team members when you reached out to them? One study showed that 50% of candidates said they turned down a job because of a poor recruitment experience. 

Understanding communication between candidates and HR or recruiters is essential to this goal. The great thing about this question is that it is likely to provide a concrete answer, but it leaves room for elaboration.

Soumya Mohan, Poised

Check the Potential for Repeat Application

Find out whether your candidates are open to applying with you again. It matters who the candidate partners with during the recruiting process, so as a company and brand, we do not take that decision lightly. We work with companies and candidates to put our best foot forward, especially since their success is our success.

From applying to interviewing to getting hired, the entire process can be quite daunting, especially for someone who is new to the process or has been in the process for some time without any luck. For them, the experience can make the world of a difference, so it is important for us to know if our candidates had a good enough experience to come back and work with us again in the future.

Ryan Nouis, TruPath

Include a Word Association Section

Candidate experience surveys give companies an insight into the efficacy of their recruitment process. They illuminate which processes are working, and help you identify potential areas of improvement.

One of the most beneficial things to include in your candidate experience survey is a word association section. Simply ask participants to share three words that summarize their overall impression of the experience. For example, you might receive answers like “Fast”, “Difficult”, or “Frustrating”. Participants may choose to elaborate in a separate question. This is easy for candidates to fill out, and gives you a bird’s eye view of how they perceive the experience as a whole.

These responses can be monitored over time to keep a pulse on candidate sentiment and identify emerging patterns, such as frequently re-occurring words. This feedback can offer a sense of direction as you improve the process, and present a clear idea of how candidates feel about your changes.

Aaron Gray, Agency 101

Make Space for Candidates to Leave Comments

To thoroughly measure the candidate experience, you need to give them space to say the things that they really want to say. Your line of questioning, as thorough as it might be, may still have blind spots. This could leave the candidate without the opportunity to speak candidly about their full experience, which may even warp your final impression of the recruitment process.

You need to give candidates space to voice their concerns, observations, and complaints. Only then will you be able to adapt your methodology and attract more candidates. By including a simple text box at the end of the survey, you’ll ensure that no stone is left unturned in giving the candidate a platform with which to speak. That way, you can make full use of their feedback and discover exactly what your candidates want to see. It’s as easy as asking, “Do you have any other comments?”.

Max Wesman, GoodHire

Find Out How Likely the Candidate Would Refer Your Company 

One of the most important items to include in a candidate experience survey is to ask the candidate how likely they are to recommend your company to other candidates or to other people in general. Candidates who have had a negative experience with your recruiting process are unlikely to recommend your company. Of course a deeper understanding of why or at what point the candidate developed a negative opinion of the organization but asking if they would recommend your brand gives you a general overview.

Sharon Terera, Afrolovely

Inquire How the Candidate Learned About the Position

A candidate experience survey is important to understand exactly what you’re trying to accomplish with each one of your questions, as well as with the survey as a whole. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach you can take, but there is one thing that you need to ask on each candidate experience survey to determine your brand awareness.

To get insight into how a candidate feels about your brand, simply ask from which channel they heard about the position. This question will give you insight into how your brand is perceived, as well as whether or not that perception is positive or negative. If a candidate mentions multiple channels, then you’re hearing a variety of opinions about your company. 

To explore more you can ask “What made you most interested in applying for this position?” This can help you determine how you position your brand in the candidate’s mind as well as how you can better communicate it to them.

Adina David, Paperjobz

Include Recruiter Rating

One item you can include on a candidate survey is a “Rockstar Rating”. This question measures how well your recruiters are providing great candidate experiences. 

Here’s an example of this in action: “On a scale of 1 to 5, which of the following would best describe your recruiter overall?” 

5 – “My recruiter was the best I’ve ever worked with! They really went above and beyond.”
4 – “My recruiter was great! They were helpful and responsive.”
3 – “My recruiter was okay, but they could have been more helpful and/or responsive.”
2 – “My recruiter was not great. They seemed inexperienced and/or might need coaching.”
1 – “My recruiter should not be recruiting.” 

In addition to evaluating candidate experience, this question can also be a morale boost. Recruiters who often achieve high ratings will take pride in being “the best recruiter their candidates have worked with.”

Preston Sharpston, Parallel

Ask If the Candidate Felt Comfortable Asking Questions

One item to include in your candidate experience survey is a question on whether the candidate felt like they were able to ask questions during the process. It’s important for candidates to feel like they can ask questions about your company, its culture, and the role you’re hiring for. This can help them decide if it’s a good fit for them, which is important for both their happiness and yours!

Anup Kayastha, HeightComparison

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The post 12 Things to Include In Your Candidate Experience Survey first appeared on Jobvite.

So, just how can you better use data to transform your talent acquisition function? Take a look at three top ways that your talent team can use recruiting data and key talent acquisition metrics to evolve your candidate experience and hire quality employees.

#2: Hire and retain higher quality talent

A data-driven approach and the right recruiting analytics can help you analyze where candidates are entering the funnel so you can better nurture relationships and set your new hires up for success. When you gain insight into your talent funnel, you can deliver a better candidate experience that drives recruiting results, and that leads to more engaged employees who will be engaged in their roles and stay at your company longer. Understanding potential pain points based on data and identifying opportunities in the hiring process can help your talent team better find, attract, and nurture top talent.

You can also use recruiting data to source and hire a better quality of candidate. Talent acquisition technology can help to match potential applicants with roles they are best suited for based on necessary skills, experience, certifications, or other key characteristics. Plus managing expectations at every stage of the recruiting process can help you deliver quality candidates to hiring managers, a smoother, more engaging onboarding experience, and ultimately happier employees.

Remember, the recruiting and onboarding process is where talent acquisition teams set expectations and deliver initial impressions with candidates. This process should include providing things like accurate role descriptions, realistic views of the company culture, and information about remote work flexibility. Give candidates everything they need to decide on your company and the role, and leave them with an experience that confirms they are making a good decision in moving forward your organization. Nobody wants to start at a company and find out that their expectations of the role, management, and company culture were wrong.

#3: Improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in your organization

Candidates want to know that a company prioritizes DEI in their organization and will offer a supportive workplace culture, where they can show up authentically and genuinely contribute to the company’s success. When your recruiting team focuses on improving DEI in the hiring process and uses data to make informed decisions, candidates are more likely to consider your company as a place to work.

In fact, Jobvite research shows that 49% of candidates ask about a company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs during the interview process and 44% say an organization’s commitment to DEI is a key factor in accepting a job offer. Recruiting automation and AI add efficiency and help reduce bias by streamlining tasks like candidate sourcing and screening. Expand the diversity of your talent pools and improve engagement by analyzing the candidate and employee experience.

Consider sending candidates a quick survey about their experiences throughout the hiring process and use that data to improve your recruiting practices. Ensure you collect feedback from candidates who both go through your entire process as well as those who drop off along the way. Getting feedback from candidates who are not hired is a great way to uncover how you can improve your experiences for applicants.

The post Three Ways Data-Driven Recruiting Leads to Talent Acquisition Success first appeared on Jobvite.

Employers have had to adapt quickly to this reality to meet the growing list of expectations from candidates, and some have even opted to outsource their recruiting processes to improve the candidate experience.

We were joined on May 17 by an expert panel of data scientists and talent professionals across the Employ brand to discuss the findings of the 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report and uncover how they apply to the job market today. These leaders and practitioners dove into the motivations of job seekers, examined their impact on the hiring market, and provided key insights into how the motivations of workers today impacts tomorrow’s labor market.

What Today’s Candidates Expect from Employers

#1: Compensation is the top priority

In the tight labor market, candidates will continue to stay in the driver’s seat. It’s no surprise that salary has been on the minds of every candidate considering a new role. Job seekers are well-informed and know what they want from employers. And according to the 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report, candidates indicate compensation is a top priority in selecting a new role.

53% of job seekers said compensation was a top factor in looking for a new job.

Strategic talent teams recognize candidates appreciate transparency throughout the hiring process. So be open about the salary or hourly range for a role from the outset. If your company can’t compete on salary, at least compete on speed, and with transparency and responsiveness.

A whopping 82% of candidates reported that they wanted compensation listed in a job description.

Candidates don’t have weeks to waste in your hiring process for something that doesn’t pay nearly enough. Just like how recruiters screen applicants for roles, candidates are screening open positions that meet their needs. Manage expectations from the beginning, regardless of where you can fall on the pay scale.

#2: Work-life balance that values flexibility and remote work

Workers today need flexibility that matches their lifestyles. The shift in the job market post-pandemic has shown that most candidates want the option to perform their jobs remotely. Not only that, but they want to choose the hours that work for them. And the companies that provide this level of trust and flexibility to their employees will build the most engaged and productive teams.

Candidates are searching for organizations that offer a culture of trust, flexibility, and support. Offering remote work and flexible hours gives them the opportunity to create their own work-life balance. It also shows that your company culture is built on valuing and accommodating employees first.

Set the expectations for remote work policies at the beginning of the application process and reiterate them during each step. Whether or not your company is offering remote work for roles, candidates need to be informed so everyone can make the best decision for their needs.

Pro Tip: Add remote work flexibility policies/opportunities into your job descriptions to offer transparency.

#3: A seamless, positive candidate experience in every interaction

The right talent can be difficult to find, and even more difficult to convert from a candidate into an applicant. That’s why a world-class candidate experience is more important than ever to attracting and converting top talent. Candidates are busy and want an easy, intuitive application process that matches them to the right roles quickly.

They expect fast response times from recruiters and prefer to receive prompt feedback through email or texting. And they want to know that their values match the company’s culture before being onboarded. These are only a few of the things that make up the candidate experience.

Strategic talent teams are focused on improving the candidate experience by adopting new processes and technologies that help save time and effort. Talent acquisition professionals agree that providing a superior experience and quickly moving candidates through the pipeline is the key to locking down great talent.

“The quicker you can act, the better experience you can give that candidate.” – Morgan Llewellyn, Chief Data Scientist, Jobvite

 #4: Well-trained hiring managers who communicate clearly

Candidates want to know they will be valued by their employer, and managers are some of the best advocates for the cultural experience at your company. Ensure your managers are well trained in the hiring proces, are quick to respond, and are clearly communicating with candidates and recruiters during both hiring and onboarding.

32% of job seekers that left a job within 90 days cited poor leadership as a key factor in leaving.

Strategic employers have noticed that during times of high turnover, clear communication helps to quell anxiety among remaining employees. The employees that stay end up taking on the extra workload and can burn out without proper recognition or assistance.

“Conduct ‘stay’ interviews with current employees to see how well their needs are being met. – Natasha Molina, People Business Partner, Employ Inc. 

#5: More feedback, more transparency, less ghosting

It’s clear that job seekers are looking for effective communication and transparency from employers. They want recruiters to focus less on things like cover letters, resume gaps, and their social media pages, and work to shorten the feedback loop. Candidates want to have realistic expectations about working for your company and the role that they’re applying for.

They also want an honest look at the daily responsibilities of the role, what the company culture is like, how much the role pays, and what leadership is like. Increased transparency during the hiring process helps accurately manage expectations for all parties and will help find the right candidate for the role.

1/3 of new hires surveyed are leaving jobs within the first 90 days due to factors like misaligned expectations and poor onboarding experiences.

Ensuring that candidates have a smooth transition into your company means that you’ll retain the hard-earned employees that you just worked so hard to hire. Set expectations accurately with candidates about the company culture, management, and the role’s daily tasks. Employers that are proactive from the beginning will be successful in today’s tight labor market.

Work to Create a World-Class Candidate Experience

Miss out on the webinar? Watch it here and be sure to register for future events. Or stay up to date on the latest in talent acquisition with insights from our blog. Learn more about how talent teams are evolving their recruiting programs with Jobvite.

The post Five Key Insights from Today’s Job Seekers first appeared on Jobvite.

Really, the candidate experience includes all the feelings, impressions, interactions, and activities a job seeker encounters and considers along their candidate journey. It’s how a candidates feels they’ve been treated throughout the recruitment process, and how that treatment makes them feel about your organization. Whether positive or negative, they all contribute to the candidate experience.

Think of the candidate experience as the interaction between a candidate and your employer brand. Anytime a potential candidate visits your website, reads content, applies to a job, texts with a recruiter, or interacts with a chatbot, they are engaging with your company. And your goal is to create an optimized, engaging experience to quickly recruit and hire the best talent for your organization.

How Do You Provide an Outstanding Candidate Experience?

A great candidate experience means providing active and passive job seekers with engaging content, a fast application process, streamlined communications, consumer-grade technologies to quickly answer questions, and prompt feedback throughout their experiences. Top candidate experiences include:

• Consistent employer brand messages
• Tailored content and experiences
• Personalized job recommendations
• Mobile-optimized career sites
• Easy job application process
• Easy to schedule interviews
• Automated messaging with recruiters
• Artificial intelligence and chatbots
• Feedback loops at each hiring stage
• Easy to find information

Whether it’s making them feel valued during the application process, providing helpful feedback or communication, or treating them with professionalism and respect after their candidacy has ended, the candidate experience encompasses every interaction a candidate has with an employer.

Why Is Candidate Experience Important?

Candidate experience matters to the success of your organization more than you think. Providing a quality candidate experience allows you to find and recruit top quality talent to impact the success of your business. A solid candidate experience also ensures you can build a robust talent pipeline and employer brand that will strengthen your reputation relative to competitors.

But the problem in today’s recruiting climate is that positive candidate experiences are declining, and candidate resentment is on the rise, spiking 75% in 2021 to more than 14% of candidates. According to Talent Board, the decline of positive candidate experiences “impacts whether or not candidates are willing to apply, refer others, be a brand advocate, and/or make purchases from a consumer-based business.” The impact of candidates having negative experiences not only influences your ability to attract top talent, but can also leave a lasting effect when it comes to wanting to spend money at your organization, too.

So when it comes to achieving better hires, how can you leverage the candidate experience to positively impact your business outcomes? Let’s look at three ways here:

#1: A Great Candidate Experience Helps Build a More Robust Applicant Funnel

Companies typically spend significant time promoting their brand in the marketplace. But if they fail to pay the same attention to the candidate experience, they can erode their ability to attract new talent to the business and convert them to the application stage. Yet with strong employer brand messaging, personalized job recommendations, tailored content, and automated or intelligent messaging, companies can successfully broaden their talent pipeline and better convert candidates into applicants.

In fact, one study from Appcast found an easy to apply process that was five minutes or less enabled companies to increase applications rates by up to 365%. Think if you had this large of increase across your open positions the difference it could make in quickly filling open positions. By acknowledging candidates, companies benefit from an engaged talent pool, thus increasing the number of opportunities for making a great hire. Simply, delivering a positive candidate experience that empowers candidates and makes them feel confident in applying to an open position is a major step in delivering better recruiting results for your business.

#2: A Positive Candidate Experience Enhances Your Employer Brand Presence

Providing a great candidate experience is not that difficult. And that’s why job seekers get so frustrated if they encounter experiences that make them feel unappreciated or robotic. No one wants to spend an hour filling out the same information for an application that was already in their resume to begin with. With the intelligent talent acquisition technology available today, there is no excuse for employers to provide a poor candidate experience. Even companies that receive hundreds of applications per opening can use simple technology solutions to ensure every applicant feels heard.

Remember, when job seekers have a bad experience, they are likely to tell others. According to research from Talent Board, 33 percent of job seekers who have a bad candidate experience will post about it online, where it may come up in search results. However, SHRM reports when you effectively communicate with candidates throughout each step of the hiring process, they’re far more likely to report a positive experience with your company.

Any time your brand interacts with the public, whether with consumers, clients or job seekers, it should seek to provide a positive experience. The Content Marketing Institute reported that 89 percent of B2B marketers believe that brand awareness is more important than sales and lead generation. In short, a poor candidate experience harms the organization by damaging its brand and resulting in lower-quality hires.

#3: A Solid Candidate Experience Helps Improve Your Quality of Hire

So much of the candidate experience comes down one thing — candidates want to be valued. It’s likely that the individuals applying to your organization already feel frustrated, anxious, or stressed. Remember, your candidate experience is not just a process in itself. It is a mechanism for enhancing your relationship with job seekers and also influencing the quality of talent that is coming into your organization.

Engaged candidates also make better hires who will stay longer in your company. One study even suggests more than 9 in 10 senior HR professionals agree that quality of candidate experience directly impacts quality of hire. And the best way to engage them is ensuring they have a positive impression and experience from first look to first day. This is particularly important based on the current labor market with 1 in 3 hires leaving in their first 90 days after joining a company.

Remember, when you communicate consistently, provide a streamlined process, and give candidates what they want and need, you will likely motivate top talent to accept your job offer even before a competitor has a chance to extend one. Simply said, the candidate experience is essential to attracting and hiring better quality talent, and it is within your control to deliver.

Ready to Improve Your Candidate Experience?

If you’re looking to improve your candidate experience, the key is to always keep the candidate at the heart of everything you do. By nurturing each individual and prioritizing candidate engagement at every step of their journey, you’ll be well on your way to building stronger relationships with top talent that will deliver results for your business.

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The post Three Ways a Great Candidate Experience Delivers Recruiting Results first appeared on Jobvite.