Without enough results coming in from your Candidate Experience surveys, it’s impossible to confidently evaluate your candidates’ experiences and your recruitment process. But to get these valuable insights, you need a decent feedback response rate. It can be done by optimizing your conversions at two key points: the click-through rate of your feedback invitation, and the survey completion rate.
Chapter 8 is all about tips and strategies to increase survey response rates by optimizing your survey for click-throughs and completions!
Understanding Survey Response Rates
Response rates ultimately impact how much data you have to work with, and can make a world of difference in terms of data collection, quality, and your end results. They can also indicate how engaged and connected your respondents feel with the feedback process. A low response rate would mean they’re more disconnected or the survey wasn’t relevant enough for the candidates to participate in.
In the introduction, we mentioned the optimization of two key aspects: invitation click-through rate and survey completion rate. But what are these metrics and how exactly are they related to increasing survey responses?
Invitation Click-Through Rate
The invitation click-through rate measures the percentage of candidates who open your feedback invitation and click the link to begin the survey. This metric reflects how well your invitation grabs attention and persuades recipients to engage. A higher click-through rate means that your invitation emails are effectively capturing interest and prompting action.
Survey Completion Rate
The survey completion rate measures the percentage of participants who start your survey and complete it. It is calculated by the number of completions compared to the number of openings of a survey. A low completion rate often signals issues such as overly long surveys, unclear questions, or a lack of motivation to finish. By addressing these challenges, you can ensure that survey respondents remain engaged throughout the survey process, leading to more complete and meaningful data.
Response Rate Benchmark
Response rates are calculated by dividing the number of surveys sent out by the number of respondents who have answered at least one question in a survey. Understanding how your survey response rate is performing - and where your peers, competitors, and partners stand - is a crucial step to contextualizing your own efforts in gathering Recruitment Analytics data. Seeing that you fall short of the benchmark may clue you into understanding what you can prioritize in order to improve, while noticing that you are outperforming your peers can inform you of competitive advantage.
According to our benchmark data, the global average response rate is 27%, meaning that almost a third of all candidates respond to the surveys they receive.
Breaking it down further by recruitment stage:
- Hired candidates: 52%
- Withdrawn candidates: 23%
- Rejected candidates: 22%
These benchmarks provide a valuable reference point. For example, without this context, you might view a 25% response rate as low, but it actually aligns with the average for online survey responses.
If you see that you are falling below the benchmark it is time to think about how to boost survey response rates. The next section will explain how can you achieve higher survey participation and gather quality feedback.
Read our Candidate Experience Benchmark Report to see more response rate data!
5 Tips for Optimizing Invitation Click-Through Rate
The first step to gather feedback is sending out the survey invitation. For in-depth feedback – the kind that will lead to quality data – email remains the most viable channel for engaging your audience.
The number one problem with email is 'survey fatigue'. The first step to overcoming this is making sure your feedback invite stands out and engages your respondent. Making the experience personal goes a long way.
We have prepared 5 tips for optimizing your invitation emails.
Personalize Your Invitation
Address recipients by name, reference their specific interaction with your company and use a friendly tone. This personal touch helps foster a connection and increases the likelihood of a response. A tailored approach demonstrates that their feedback is valued, making it more compelling for candidates to participate.
To see more examples and templates of personalized survey email invitations read Chapter 7!
Embed NPS Question in Your Email
Is your first question there in the email? No one likes those horrible "click here to start the survey" buttons! Besides being an eyesore, they harm your click-through rate. Embed an engaging first question in your email, such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Including a clickable 0-10 scale makes it easy for recipients to respond and leads them seamlessly into the rest of your survey. And if they only end up answering that first question, Starred offers a feature called "NPS auto-capture". This means that if the respondent leaves the page after clicking on an NPS score in the invitation Starred will capture this data.
Make Your Survey Visually Appealing
Make your invites short, clear, relevant, and visually appealing. Think in terms of User Experience (UX) – does your respondent have to scroll through your email to find your Call-to-Action (CTA)? Making sure your CTA is above the fold and directly in their line of sight will get you more click-throughs. The easier it is for recipients to interact with your email, the more likely they are to provide feedback.
Avoid Spam Filters
Use personalized email addresses rather than generic ones like “noreply@". Especially if you've done the right thing and added a face and name to your invite to personalize it.
You're competing with a billion other emails to get their attention. Don't get flagged as spam – avoid attachments and too many images. The words "feedback" and "survey" already have a bad rep in the spam world, so you've got your work cut out for you. Additionally, adding a recognizable sender name and subject line can improve deliverability and ensure your email reaches the candidate’s inbox.
Be Honest
Be upfront about how long the survey is, this transparency will build trust and encourage participation. Too many companies – or more likely the agencies they outsource their feedback project to – are dishonest here. As well, including the first question in the email can get candidates thinking and increase the likelihood of immediate feedback. When respondents know what to expect, they are more likely to commit to completing the survey.
5 Tips for Optimizing the Survey Completion Rate
So you've checked off the first step – candidates have clicked the CTA in your email and they've landed in your survey. Now, what do they see? The next challenge is keeping them engaged until they finish the survey.
Respondents genuinely click through surveys that aren't transparent in their length, just to see how long they are, leading to inaccurate completion rates and unreliable results. We have prepared 5 tips to keep in mind as you lead respondents to the end of your survey.
Check out Chapter 4 for examples and templates of successful Candidate Experience surveys!
Ask Specific Questions
Stop thinking in terms of that big, yearly survey – something else that needs to disappear from feedback forever. Design surveys around key touchpoints in your hiring process. Avoid overly broad or irrelevant questions, and keep the focus on their specific experience. It will not only result in more specific feedback but also show that you’ve considered the respondent’s perspective, making them more likely to engage.
Keep the Questions Simple
For your candidate to reach the end of your survey, you need to make the survey questions clear and easy to understand. Using double negatives, overly complex wording, or jargon will only derail candidate attention and harm your completion rates. Neutral and consistent phrasing is your best friend here.
- Following the golden rule of gathering feedback can help. Put yourself in your respondent's shoes: Would you enjoy filling out your survey? If the answer is no, it’s time for a rethink.
Follow-up
A gentle reminder email can make a significant difference in response rates, our data shows that 32% of all candidate responses came through reminder emails. Send one follow-up email 4-5 days after the initial survey request, but avoid multiple reminders that might feel intrusive. With Starred's solution, you can schedule automated email reminders to be sent to candidates who haven't responded to your survey. A well-timed, considerate reminder can nudge candidates to respond without creating frustration or fatigue.
Choose the Right Time
Sending the survey at the right moment increases the likelihood of candidates completing it. Our Candidate Experience Benchmark Data showed that surveys sent within 48-96 hours after either a job offer or a rejection interview are most effective and lead to honest answers. At this point, the experience is fresh in the candidate’s mind, but enough time has passed so that they have time to objectively reflect.
Examining the NPS as time passed showed that candidates' responses were initially more positive, rapidly became more negative, and then stabilized at a point roughly halfway between the two extremes. This highlights the possibility that looking at the results sooner than a day or two after sending them out can give you a biased picture of how most candidates felt.
Translate Your Survey
If you’re present in different countries, your audience might speak different languages and some might not be proficient in English. Therefore, it can be an advantage to consider translating your surveys into their native language. Remember, the easier it is for them to fill out your survey, the better your response rate will be!
Starred offers invites, surveys, and "Thank You" pages in 30 languages. Check out supported languages here.