9 Reasons Why Employers Need to Focus on Candidate Experience in the Post Pandemic Era (5 mins Read)

Candidate experience is the perception and the feelings of an applicant about an employer and their job application process, which is mainly based on their interaction during the complete hiring process. This includes all the points of contact during the recruitment – starting from the job search, application process, interview process and sometimes till the onboarding process. A good candidate experience is the core of a successful recruiting and hiring.

Why do employers need to focus on candidate experience?

1. Employment rates are coming back to it’s high gradually post COVID 19. Jobs are and will be open for more and the data about jobs and managers are more freely accessible now. The candidates themselves are less limited by geology or language especially since work from home started about one and half years back and the work environment is getting progressively open to the culture of job hopping. In such a competitive setting, each part of the recruiting experience matters. 
2. If the business brand is skewed over various channels, then the job site is quite difficult to explore. Moreover, if the application procedure is long and tiresome, then also it puts the organization behind the contenders who offer a very comfortable experience, with minimum exertion for the candidates.
3. The objective of the recruitment specialists should be to furnish the candidates with the brilliant and inconspicuous journey that they get from all the leading brands. While they currently have all the access to all the technological exposure that marketers do, they don’t generally have a similar group structure, forms and operational help to make everything run smoothly. 
4. The social media has brought about enormous changes, so the candidates are well connected and well informed now. It has been found that 70%of the graduates are put off by somebody else’s bad candidate experience with an organization. Hence, it’s very important to create a good emotional connect and treat the prospective employees respectfully. 
5. It helps in securing the top talent immensely and also shapes an organisation's employer branding. Providing a first class candidate experience gives you an upper hand in the tough competition with other organizations. On the other hand, a poor candidate experience can create a very bad impression on the top talent. They would feel that the company would treat their employees badly too. Therefore, an impressive hiring experience is crucial for making successful placements.
6. A good candidate experience is also necessary because the employers need to attract the best talent in order to achieve their recruitment and business goals. By not understanding the job seeker experience correctly, a good amount of potential candidates might get overlooked. So, a wonderful job seeker experience is very essential to attract the ideal candidates.
7. Each interaction a candidate has with your company during the recruitment process is part of their overall candidate experience. A negative candidate experience will make them feel bad and they would never want to interact with the organisation again. A confusing hiring process or the lack of transparency can lead to frustration and make candidates feel like they have been set up to fail. 
8. You need to consider each progression of the journey, from the very first time a candidate goes through your professional site or your LinkedIn page, to the reviews they read on the employer review websites, to the application they fill out, till the last exchange when you make them an offer or you turn them down. This means building a good candidate experience takes a lot of effort on your part.
9. A research shows that candidates who have a negative hiring experience often report that online which causes serious damage to the employer’s branding. As per Glassdoor reports, 70% of the candidates look up to the company reviews before making a final career choice. Therefore, you need to make the best use of platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter ,Glassdoor , Reviewia etc  to highlight how much you value your employees and the candidates as well. You have to take good care to address the bottle necks that could deter the good candidates from applying.

Summary: A good candidate experience is essential for various reasons as it helps in building the brand health and creates brand loyalty. It helps in attraction and retention of the top candidates. Moreover, it encourages in good referrals. A good and human candidate experience helps companies to build a consistent talent pool, a stronger employer brand and happy brand ambassadors. It is important to always keep in mind that a great candidate experience is an excellent employer brand message to the candidates. Your employer brand can make or break your chances of acquiring the top talent, so it needs to be managed with the right intention. Therefore, you need to take all the necessary steps to ensure you have an employer brand strategy in place with a heavy focus on candidate experience.