How The Candidate Experience Influences Your Employer Brand
Rohit Kapoor
October 17, 2022
Marketing
Whether you’ve worked in recruitment for a while, or you’re relatively new to the industry, we’re almost positive you will have heard of the phrase “candidate experience”. Recruitment leaders are beginning to understand the importance of the candidate experience above all else – whether that’s the experience of those wanting to work at your company, or the experience of those being placed in external roles by your recruiters – and how it can impact your overall employer brand.
As most recruitment business owners already know, having an employer brand strategy is vital to success. Being able to position your business as not only a great place to work, but also a great place to develop a meaningful and rewarding career, is what will help you build your workforce and achieve your overall business goals.
However, if your candidate experience isn’t where it should be, this will directly impact your employer brand, and thus your team and business.
Here’s how you can improve your candidate experience to ensure your employer brand isn’t negatively impacted.
1. Position yourselves well on social media
For anyone wanting to work in a recruitment company, it’s highly likely they’ll take a look at your social media channels before applying or getting in touch. For this reason, it’s important to ensure all your online branding is consistent, your messaging is exactly how you want it, and your employer brand is clear.
Whether it’s on LinkedIn, Instagram or otherwise, ensure every channel links together and those who want to know more about your business will be able to recognise your employer branding straight away. If a candidate doesn’t see what they want to see on your social channels, this could impact their experience of you as a business, and as a result, also impact your employer brand.
2. Make your website a seamless experience for candidates
This might be one for the marketing department, but it’s crucial that your website has a great UI and provides a seamless UX. If someone is looking to apply for a job on your website, but is struggling to find exactly where to do so, or the format of their CV won’t upload, it’s likely that they’ll give up and apply elsewhere.
Ensure there’s no restrictions when it comes to file type when uploading CVs, and make sure all messaging is clear on your website. For example, naming your careers page “Jobs” could be confusing, as this could easily be a jobs page for your external candidates, too. Making the research and application process as slick and straightforward as possible for users will have a huge impact on the candidate experience.
3. Ensure there are various contact details for candidates
Is it like searching through a labyrinth trying to find contact details on your website or social channels? If so, this could restrict the number of applications you receive from potential recruiters who want to join your company.
Make sure you have a clear “Contact Us” page on your website, with a clear section for how to get in touch with your internal recruitment team or HR department about internal job opportunities. If your internal recruiters or HR team members are posting about internal recruitment jobs on LinkedIn, ensure they include an email address and phone number in every post. Making yourselves as contactable as possible will improve your candidate experience, and boost your employer brand as a result.
4. Train your employees on speaking to candidates
Whether your HR Manager is the go-to person for speaking to potential hires, or you have an internal recruitment team that is speaking to potential recruiters who want to join your company, it’s vital that they’re trained in how best to speak to applicants.
Being able to not only sell your company well, but also the role, the team and the career development opportunities is key. Plus, you want them to be able to get as much relevant information out of your candidates as possible. Training your employees on how best to communicate with candidates will positively impact their experience with you.
5. Provide feedback
This one is absolutely essential, and will probably have the biggest impact overall on your employer brand – make sure you provide every candidate you speak to with feedback. If they have interviewed at your company but have been unsuccessful, always provide feedback, no matter how difficult the conversation might be. This may seem time-consuming, but the last thing you want is for an unsuccessful applicant to tell another candidate how poor their experience was when going through the interview process with your company. Word of mouth plays a huge part in your employer brand.
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