Introduction

Have you ever thought about putting yourself in your candidates' shoes? If you're looking to improve Candidate Experience, we recommend you start with an inside-out audit of your current recruitment process.

Most active job seekers spend hours applying for jobs, and it's safe to say they've had their fair share of candidate experiences. With 52% of candidates stating a negative Candidate Experience pushed them to declining at least one job offer, embracing a candidate's perspective on your recruitment process is the way to go.

And while we always say that "what you cannot measure, you cannot improve", collecting candidate insights should only be the second step in your mission to improve Candidate Experience. What's the first? Auditing your existing setup.

In this article, we'll share a 6-step checklist to help you audit your company's own hiring process, identify the steps of the candidate journey that are letting you down, act on them and attract more qualified candidates into your talent pool.

Understanding Candidate Experience

If you landed on this page, you're probably aware that there's room for improvement in your current hiring process. But before we get into the nitty gritty of improving Candidate Experience, let's agree on the basics: what is it and why should you care?

Already know all this? Great! Skip to the audit checklist here.

What Is Candidate Experience and Why Is It Important?

Candidate Experience refers to the way a job seeker perceives a company's hiring process (and thereby the company itself), from the very beginning to the very end of the candidate journey. It begins as soon as a job seeker considers applying for a job at a company and ends after the onboarding process.

When it comes to measuring and improving Candidate Experience, your candidates' perspective is important for every step of the hiring journey. From looking through the career site, submitting the job application, getting through the interview stage (whether they're online or in-person interviews), through every communication touch point you have with the candidate, until they accept your job offer and get fully onboarded in their new role.

And while an unsuccessful candidate's journey might end as soon as they exit the recruitment process (i.e. they're rejected, decide to withdraw or don't accept your job offer), the way you treated them will linger in their perception of your company for years after.

That's why understanding the implications of a negative Candidate Experience is key to establishing a strong Employer Brand, building a successful talent attraction strategy and protecting your revenue.

The Pros of Prioritizing Great Candidate Experiences

1. It strengthens the Employer Brand and promotes a great company culture.
2. Happy candidates become ambassadors of your services and future open roles.
3. 78% candidates believe that a recruiting process is a reflection of the company's culture. A positive experience will make qualified candidates more likely to accept your job offers and less likely to withdraw their application.
4. When a candidate's experience is exceptional, it's likely your teamwork is also exceptionally aligned. Prioritizing Candidate Experience means that your hiring team takes ownership of the recruiting process, their communication skills are 100% and the relationship with Hiring Managers is flourishing.
5. Even though more companies are beginning to see the benefits of using the candidate journey to create a lasting positive impression, the majority of recruitment processes out there are subpar at best. As hiring teams continue to struggle to attract and hire qualified talent, improving your Candidate Experience is bound to help you win candidates from the competition.

The Cons of Neglecting Your Candidate Experience

1. Your business and future hiring abilities are at stake. 59% of job seekers admit to actively deterring their friends and family from applying for a job at companies with poor Candidate Experience, while 42% take it as far as severing the relationship with the company's products or services.
2. Ignoring candidate feedback won't just reflect badly on your ability to hire the right candidates, but also on the satisfaction of your current employees. Difficulty attracting candidates, decreased job offer acceptance rates and lengthy time-to-hire will slow down on team expansion, impact employee satisfaction and possibly contribute to stress, or even burnout.

Are you not convinced yet? Give our Ultimate Guide to Candidate Experience a read for even more reasons to start prioritizing your candidates' experience.

6 Things to Consider in a Candidate Experience Audit

Now that we've established the power a smooth candidate journey has over your hiring success, it's time to put your critical hat on and look at your recruitment process from the inside out.

Follow the steps to see where you can improve to start attracting and hiring your dream candidates.

Or submit your details below, and we'll get our team of Candidate Experience experts to audit your career site, job application process and Glassdoor reviews for free. We'll book a meeting to give you a list of actionable tips to follow to start getting more job applications, strengthen your Employer Brand and improve your Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS).

Step 1: Is Your Team Actually Aligned?

The key to delivering on any project successfully (yes, that includes hiring) is communication. When auditing your Candidate Experience, don't forget to include those in the front lines: the Recruiters and Hiring Managers (HMs).

Start with understanding your team's collaboration model:

1. How do Recruiters and HMs prepare for the recruitment process?
2. Is there any collaboration when creating job ads or is it a top-down process, where the HM sends over a list of requirements for the role with no cross-communication?
3. Do you provide any trainings or SLAs for HMs around expectation setting?
4. Do you have a standard job description template that Recruiters and HMs can follow?

Give Your Recruitment Team a Voice

Once you establish the basics, it's time to discuss it directly with the team:

1. Are they happy with this way of working?
2. Do Recruiters feel like they get enough information to provide HMs with qualified candidates for each role they're trying to fill?
3. Do HMs feel like Recruiters understand their requirements well enough to pass on the right candidates?

You'll be surprised how much Recruiter and Hiring Manager feedback can tell you about the recruiting process as a whole, and how it could be impacting your Candidate Experience. They interact with candidates the most and believe us, any cracks in their relationship will reflect on the entire hiring process.

Looking for more questions to ask your Recruiters and Hiring Managers? Find our Internal Partnership Survey Question Examples here.

Step 2: Are Your Job Descriptions Clear and Informative?

The purpose of a job description is two-fold: informing potential candidates about the role and your company, as well as convincing them that working for you is exactly what they've been dreaming about.

Living in a digitalized world, job applicants are exposed to hundreds of job openings every day. With plenty of opportunities out there, your job post is your chance to sell yourself as an employer and demonstrate how your company is different than the rest.

Put your candidate hat on, go to your website and ask yourself:

1. Is the Careers page easy to find (linked in the website footer, "About" page or – ideally – both)?
2. Can you filter through the job opportunities (department, location, seniority, etc.) or is it one endless list?
3. Is there any information on your DE&I commitments, any employee testimonials or a glimpse into your company culture?

Remember that the careers page is the first time many job seekers will see your company as a potential employer – try your best to make this experience immersive and exciting.

Give Your Job Ads a Read

Now, take a sample of your live job postings and see if you're really making the most out of this first touchpoint:

1. Is there a clear and concise description of the company and the role? Ideally, this section shouldn't exceed 300-700 words, so make sure you're only focusing on what's important.
2. Is the language accessible to all readers? Candidates come from various backgrounds, so make sure you're not using any company-specific abbreviations that could misrepresent the role.
3. How is the job title? Use titles that are straight to the point and make sure you're only publishing accurate job descriptions. Avoid using filler words such as "ninja" or "wizard".
4. Is the job ad written with SEO in mind? Brainstorming the role and including any relevant terms will improve the job's visibility and help you attract more potential candidates.
5. Are you using upbeat and active language? Avoid writing in the passive voice to inspire candidates to get started, rather than making the job seem monotonous.
6. Do your job listings help candidates understand what is expected of them in the role? This information will help them make the ultimate decision whether to click "apply".
7. Do you explain the recruiting process? Giving candidates a glimpse into the journey ahead of them will establish expectations from the beginning and make the candidates feel informed.

If you already know your career page's conversion rate, a well-written job description will play a big role in pushing more candidates to pressing that "apply" button.

Keep this in mind when inspecting your job openings and consider introducing SLAs to maintain a high quality throughout all your hiring activities:

1. Write clear job descriptions that accurately reflect the job requirements and responsibilities.
2. Use industry-standard language to provide greater clarity and avoid confusing or off-putting titles.
3. Use the first few lines to pull the candidate in by sharing a bit about what makes the role interesting, exciting, or impactful.

We've also written a more in-depth guide to writing the perfect job ad. Learn how to improve your job postings in 5 easy steps here.

Step 3: Is the Application Process Streamlined?

People actively seeking employment are likely to fill out tens of job applications every week. Unfortunately, many organizations are still not prioritizing the application process as an opportunity to improve their Candidate Experience and snag the top talent from competition.

In reality, nailing this step has a huge impact on how job seekers perceive your brand and – ultimately – how likely they are to apply for a job at your organization. When 93% of candidates report unclear application instructions as the primary cause for a bad Candidate Experience, going through the application process yourself will definitely help you identify areas for improvement.

Make it Easy for Job Seekers to Apply

Writing clear job descriptions is one thing, but forcing them to go through an endless job application process is going to deter candidates from hitting "submit". In fact, reducing the time it takes to complete the application process to under 5 minutes will boost your application conversion rate by 365%. How can you pass that up?

This is the first official step of the candidate's journey and a perfect opportunity to improve your Candidate Experience. The job search process is often exhausting, so give your candidates a reason to celebrate it:

1. How long does it take you to complete the application from start to finish? If it's more than 5 minutes, you've just hit the jackpot on the reason why your career page doesn't convert.
2. Do you give the candidate the option to upload their CV, only to ask them to fill out all the information manually again? This is a complete no-go and a huge reason for low cNPS at the application stage.
3. Is the application form relevant for the job opening? For example, if potential Product Designers need to upload their portfolio, does the process allow for multiple file uploads alongside the CV?
4. Try filling the application out on your mobile phone. Can you easily attach the CV through DropBox or LinkedIn Easy Apply? Are all the type fields optimized or is the "apply" button half cut-off?
5. If your application is on the long side, is there a progress bar they can refer to? Can they save their progress mid-application and complete the process when it suits them better?

Most qualified candidates don't have to spend ages on job hunting. Using a more candidate-centric approach in every stage of the hiring process will make candidates feel like you are genuinely interested in their profile, helping you hire that top talent faster.

Identified the application step as something you need to work on? Learn how to improve your candidate application process in 4 easy steps.

Step 4: Is the Interview Process Fair and Candidate-Centric?

For many, the interview stage of the hiring process is the most daunting. Whether it's a phone screening, culture interview or a case presentation, most candidates view it as a stress-inducing experience.

How you approach the interview preparation, the communication around it and the feedback afterwards (especially to those who don't make it to the next stage) can easily make or break your Candidate Experience and, consequently, your Employer Brand.

How Is Your Candidate Communication?

This one is difficult to evaluate objectively without collecting candidate feedback, unless you ask an undercover auditor to listen in on your interviews. In the meantime, ask your hiring team to consider:

1. Do applicants know how many interview stages there are in the candidate journey from the start? This way you can adjust candidate expectations and give them plenty of time to prepare. Plus, with preparation comes the confidence that will make it easier for you to assess their fit.
2. Do you include a detailed agenda in the interview invitation? A clear outline will allow the candidate to prepare exactly what you need to know and, ultimately, save you time.
3. If you're including a case interview in the process, do you share all the requirements and resources ahead of time?
4. Are you good at replying to candidates in time? The longer you take to schedule the next steps, the higher the risk of losing the candidate to competition.
5. Is there a framework all your Recruiters and Hiring Managers follow to keep the same high standard through every interview process? Predictability is key to a consistently high cNPS. Make sure you have ways to identify the weaker links in your hiring processes.

Read about how Deliveroo used Starred to reduce their time-in-process by 30% by introducing company-wide interview SLAs.

Don't Forget About Constructive Feedback

If you want to improve your Candidate Experience, there is one thing that's even more important than the interview process itself: how you reject and deliver feedback.

Whether we're delivering or receiving it, rejection is the most uncomfortable part of any job search. But there are ways to soften the blow and deliver the bad news with respect.

Recruitment is a lot, we get it. Sometimes things fall through the cracks and you forget to reach out to a candidate. But 76% of candidates say that getting ghosted by a recruiter makes them feel worse than not hearing back from a date, so even if the news is bad, you should try your best to deliver it.

We found that 63% of rejected candidates are unhappy about the feedback (or lack of it) they receive, so evaluate your current approach:

1. How long does it take for candidates to advance between stages and receive feedback?
2. If it's over a week, what are the reasons for the delay? Is it because there is no standardized way for your team to make a decision internally?
3. Delays happen and there are good reasons for it too. How good are you at communicating those changes to the candidates?
4. Do you have a process in place to facilitate an efficient way to deliver constructive and personalized feedback to every candidate? For example, identifying common reasons for rejection and corresponding email templates that recruiters can easily send?
5. If you've spoken to the candidate face-to-face (online or in-person), do you give them a call after the interview, or do you hide behind a generic rejection email?

We know rejecting is not easy. Here are some examples of candidate-centric ways to give interview feedback to unsuccessful candidates to get you started.

Step 5: Did You Forget About Onboarding?

Your job to maintain high candidate engagement goes beyond the signing of the contract, all the way into the end of their onboarding period. In other words, pre- and onboarding are their own stages of any successful candidate's journey.

This is your chance to get candidates excited about their new job and set them up for success. In fact, a good onboarding program will increase your employee retention rate by 82% and new hire productivity by 70%. Unfortunately, this step is often neglected.

Welcome New Hires with a Smooth Onboarding Experience

If you're experiencing a low retention rate or see new hires quitting before their probation period is over, a bad onboarding process (or lack thereof) might be the culprit:

1. Are Hiring Managers submitting onboarding plans before their new hires start? Is there a standard way to organize every newcomer's first 3 months at the company?
2. Do you engage with candidates after they sign their contract or is it radio silence from your side until they come into the office on their first day?
3. This is the perfect opportunity to set your newcomers up for success from the start. Do you send the onboarding schedule, along with any FAQs, ahead of their first day?
4. Use the onboarding period to help new hires build relationships with their new colleagues. Do you have a buddy program? How do you introduce newcomers to the company culture?

Are you struggling with candidates accepting your job offers in the first place? Here's how you can improve your offer acceptance rate with candidate feedback.

Step 6: Are You Measuring Candidate Satisfaction?

Every hiring process is a two-way street, and it's our mission to make it enjoyable for both sides. Candidate satisfaction (measured by the Candidate Net Promoter Score, or cNPS) is your key to building a strong recruitment process, and introducing candidate surveys to your hiring strategy is the means that will get you there.

Having access to real-time candidate feedback is a goldmine of information necessary to improve the Candidate Experience. And it's like having a private team of auditors on your hiring journey at all times.

Collect Feedback to Improve the Candidate Experience

If you want to measure Candidate Experience, an automated solution is your best friend. The steps to get started are simple:

1. Outline all your candidate touch points and brainstorm personalized questions for every stage.
2. Use your preferred software to survey candidates throughout the recruitment process and assess the data for patterns and quick wins to improve.
3. Use the cNPS as your guiding metric to monitor your performance over time, but don't shy away from open-ended questions to include a more qualitative perspective to your analysis.
4. Introduce KPIs around the cNPS to keep your team accountable and motivated to make every interaction as candidate-centric as possible.

Sounds daunting? Don't worry, our automated Candidate Experience Analytics Solution is here to help.

We integrate with the world's top Applicant Tracking Systems to give hiring teams an easy way to collect, analyze and improve on Candidate Experience, Internal Partnerships, Quality of Hire, DE&I and Pre- & Onboarding Data.

From survey automation and expert question templates, through digestible dashboards and bitesized comment analysis, all the way to helping you with task prioritization, Starred exists to help you streamline your hiring efforts form start to finish.

Thinking of collecting candidate insights yourself? Great first step! See how we compare here.

Question Cheatsheet: Audit Your Own Candidate Experience

Ready to get started with your audit? We made you a cheatsheet to track your progress:

Conclusion: Creating a Positive Candidate Experience Matters

The link is clear: a positive Candidate Experience is crucial for attracting the best future candidates, creating a positive impression of your organization and making it easier to reach your recruitment KPIs.

Use our tips or book our Candidate Experience experts to audit your existing process and turn it into a sharp competitive edge.

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