Welcome to Chapter 4 of our ebook, which is probably the most practical chapter yet. In this article, you'll find tips for creating successful Candidate Experience surveys, learn about different question types, and get survey examples and templates for different stages of the recruiting process.
Why Designing a Good Candidate Survey Matters
Advantages of Implementing a Candidate Experience Survey
A well-designed Candidate Experience survey can be a game-changer for your company's recruitment strategy. Surveys provide otherwise unknown insights that can be used to improve the hiring processes, increase the quality of hire, and strengthen the company’s reputation. When candidates are asked thoughtful, relevant questions, they feel respected and valued—whether they get the job or not.
This positive experience often leads to a stronger Employer Brand and a higher likelihood that candidates will recommend the company to others. For the company, it means actually getting that meaningful feedback that can help you improve the process to reduce drop-off rates and decrease the overall cost per hire.
The Consequences of Poorly Designed Candidate Experience Surveys
On the other hand, a poorly designed survey filled with irrelevant or vague questions can do more harm than good.
Irrelevant questions can frustrate candidates, making them feel that their time and opinions aren’t truly valued. As a result, candidates might leave with a negative impression, potentially sharing their experiences on platforms like Glassdoor or LinkedIn damaging the company’s reputation.
A badly designed survey will fail to contribute useful insights, making it difficult for the hiring team to identify and address real issues in the recruitment process. How can you know if there are issues like delays in communication, an unclear interview process, or misleading information in the job description without asking the right questions and measuring Candidate Experience?
Having an irrelevant survey doesn’t just waste time and money, it also can cost the company valuable insights, reputation, and, ultimately, the chance to attract top candidates.
5 Tips for Creating a Candidate Experience Survey
1. Give Candidates the Option to Remain Anonymous
To encourage constructive and honest feedback, respecting privacy and ensuring confidentiality is a necessary step.
Candidates might worry about how their answers will affect the application process and the reputation within your organization, so having the option for an anonymous response is one of the steps you need to take to create a successful candidate feedback survey.
Starred surveys offer 4 different anonymity settings for you to choose from:
- Respondent data is not anonymous: Feedback is collected non-anonymously.
- Respondent data is anonymous: Feedback is collected anonymously.
- Opt-in: The default is set to non-anonymous, but the respondent can choose to answer anonymously by ticking the checkbox at the bottom of the survey.
- Opt-out: The default is set to anonymous, however, the respondent can choose to answer non-anonymously by unticking the checkbox at the bottom of the survey.
2. Personalize the Message
Making the survey feel more personal starts with customizing its design to include your company’s colors and logo, a simple but effective first step.
To take it a step further, personalize the email invitation and the survey for each candidate. Including details like their name, the role they applied for, and their application stage creates the positive impression that the survey was made just for them. This simple touch will significantly increase the likelihood of them completing the survey.
Here is an example:
"Hi John, thank you for applying to Starred for the role of Product Owner. We really value your opinion and would like to ask for feedback on your interview experience!"
3. Limit the Number of Questions You Ask
Too many questions can drive the candidates away. In fact, 47% of consumers say they're most likely to abandon a survey if it's taking them too long to complete it. One simple way to test your survey length is to put yourself in the candidate's shoes. If you lose interest in the middle of your survey, chances are they will too. We recommend keeping the survey short and simple, asking a maximum of 5-7 questions per survey.
4. Use a Mix of Question Types
Use a mix of question types to gather well-rounded feedback. Closed questions help you spot trends and quantify responses, while open-ended questions uncover specific focus areas. To simplify the process, tools like the Starred Comment Analysis can automatically analyze qualitative feedback, providing sentiment and topic analysis.
A best practice for this tip is to always include an optional comment box for each question, as you can see here:
5. Find the Right Time to Send the Survey
Timing is everything when it comes to sending your survey. Sending it at the right moment can significantly increase your response rates, prevent negative word-of-mouth by giving candidates a place to vent, and give you the most accurate insights. We recommend sending the candidate satisfaction survey shortly after the last step in the hiring process, while the experiences are still fresh in the job applicants' minds.
However, sending the survey too soon can lead to a biased picture of your Candidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS). In our 2023 Benchmark Report, we examined the cNPS against the time passed, and it uncovered that responses are initially more positive, rapidly become more negative, and finally stabilize between the two.
This suggests that candidates with extreme reactions—either very positive or negative—are the first to complete the survey, followed by the others.
How to Design Effective Candidate Experience Survey Questions?
If you’ve been following along since Chapter 1, you’ll recognize these key steps for creating a Candidate Experience survey. If you’re new here, don’t worry here’s a quick reminder:
- Define your goals
- Choose the right tools
- Identify key touchpoints
- Design Candidate Experience survey questions
- Test and roll-out
For a full explanation of each step, refer back to Chapter 1, where you can find more practical details about setting a survey up in a way that will bring you valuable results.
Survey Question Types
Starred supports and recommends the following question types:
Candidate Experience Survey Questions (Free Templates)
Having a different survey template for each step of the candidate journey will result in the most accurate responses, deliver actionable insights, and make the survey feel like a natural part of the recruitment process.
Think about it: Would you rather send one large, impersonal survey at the end of the process, where candidates may have forgotten key details and many questions feel irrelevant? Or would you prefer to send a specific survey after the appropriate stage, capturing fresh, meaningful feedback? We hope you will agree that the second option is way more effective.
To help you, we've created survey questions and templates for each stage of the hiring journey for you to choose from.
Survey Questions and Templates for Rejected Candidates
This survey collects feedback from candidates who were not selected for the role. It helps you understand how they felt about the recruitment process and identify any areas for improvement so that even those who don't join your team have a positive Candidate Experience.
Here is an example of a survey for rejected candidates after an application:
- cNPS: Based on your application experience, how likely are you to recommend applying to (Company x) to others? (Scale 1-10)
- Online application: How would you rate the application process on the following aspects? (Rate the statements on a scale 1-5)
- Career Page: It was easy to apply
- Job Description: The responsibilities and expectations of the role were clear and complete
- Quick Response: I received a quick response to my application
- Feedback: We provided you with a proper explanation of why we did not move forward with you
Find survey templates for rejected candidates at different stages here:
- Rejected After Interview
- Rejected After Assessment
- Rejected After Phone Screen
- Rejected After Application
Survey Questions and Templates for Withdrawn Candidates
This survey helps uncover reasons behind candidates leaving the hiring process. Understanding these factors can highlight areas to refine so you retain strong candidates in the pipeline. In this survey, you have a chance to ask their opinion about all the application stages they went through before withdrawing.
Survey example for a withdrawn candidate after a job offer:
- cNPS: Based on your application experience, how likely are you to recommend applying to (Company x) to others? (Scale 1-10)
- Recruitment team: How would you rate the experience you had with our recruitment team? (Rate the statements on a scale 1-5)
- Screening: The recruiter asked questions that allowed me to highlight my skills and experience
- Communication & Managing Expectations: The recruiting team managed my expectations around the process and timeline
- Feedback: I was provided with a clear explanation of why (Company X) chose not to move forward with me
- Scheduling of Interview(s): The scheduling of the interview(s) went smoothly
- Preparation for Interview(s): I felt that the recruiter prepared me well for my interview(s)
- Hiring team: How would you rate the experience you had with the interviewer(s) on the hiring team? (Rate the statements on a scale 1-5)
- Interview Preparation: I could tell that the interviewer(s) I spoke with were prepared
- Interview Atmosphere: The interviewer(s) provided a safe environment to freely and properly express myself
- Engagement: The interviewer(s) were engaged and interested in me
- Team Overview: The interviewer(s) gave me a thorough understanding of expectations in the role and the culture of the team
- Asking Questions: You had the opportunity to learn about the team and the challenges in the role
- Compensation & Benefits: How satisfied were you with the compensation package you were offered? (Rate the statements on a scale 1-5)
- Total compensation: How satisfied were you with the total compensation offered?
- Equity: How satisfied were you with the equity offered?
- Benefits: How satisfied were you with our benefits package?
- Bonus: How satisfied were you with the bonus range offered?
- Reasons for Withdrawal: What made you withdraw from the recruitment process? (Multiple choice with optional comment)
- A different job
- No longer interested
- Terms of employment were not u to standard what I expected
- Culture: I do not feel a strong alignment
- Other: Please provide a comment
Find templates for withdrawn candidates at different stages here:
Survey Questions and Templates for Hired Candidates
This survey is for candidates who were offered and accepted a position. Their feedback provides insight into what they found appealing about your hiring process and explains what contributed to a successful Candidate Experience, from initial contact to onboarding.
Here is an example of a survey for a candidate who was hired for the position. Keep in mind that this is one of the longer surveys as the job applicant has gone through most of the stages in the recruiting process.
- cNPS: Based on your application experience, how likely are you to recommend applying to (Company x) to others? (Scale 1-10)
- Recruitment team: How would you rate the experience you had with our recruitment team? (Rate the statements on a scale 1-5)
- Screening: The recruiter asked questions that allowed me to highlight my skills and experience
- Communication & Managing Expectations: The recruiting team managed my expectations around the process and timeline
- Feedback: I was provided with a clear explanation of why (Company X) chose not to move forward with me
- Scheduling of Interview(s): The scheduling of the interview(s) went smoothly
- Preparation for Interview(s): I felt that the recruiter prepared me well for my interview(s)
- Hiring team: How would you rate the experience you had with the interviewer(s) on the hiring team? (Rate the statements on a scale 1-5)
- Interview Preparation: I could tell that the interviewer(s) I spoke with were prepared
- Interview Atmosphere: The interviewer(s) provided a safe environment to freely and properly express myself
- Engagement: The interviewer(s) were engaged and interested in me
- Team Overview: The interviewer(s) gave me a thorough understanding of expectations in the role and the culture of the team
- Asking Questions: You had the opportunity to learn about the team and the challenges in the role
- (Optional) Diversity & Inclusion: How would you rate (Company X) on Diversity & Inclusion throughout the hiring process? (Scale 1-10)
- Respectful hiring: Do you feel the recruiter and interviewer(s) treated you with respect
- Company values D&I: Based on your experience, do you feel (Company X) is a place that values diversity and inclusion?
- Offer Acceptance: What ultimately influenced you to accept the job offer? (You may choose up to two options, comments are optional)
- Total compensation package
- Position and career opportunities
- Terms of employment
- Culture and people
- Other
- Find the digital template here: Survey for Hired Candidates
Recruitment Excellence Survey Templates
There are many more situations where sending a Candidate Experience survey can provide valuable insights. See our recruitment excellence survey templates below.
Applicant Research Survey
This survey can be used to measure candidate satisfaction after completing a job application at your company. It includes questions about your online application process, attraction and candidate's motivation, such as your company's reputation, job flexibility, salary and others. This survey can be used to understand why job seekers apply to your company, what they think of the first steps of the process and which channels are the most successful in promoting your job positions.
- Find the template here: Applicant Research Survey
Hiring Manager Satisfaction Survey
This survey is designed to measure Hiring Managers Satisfaction. It can be used to understand what hiring managers think about your strategy and how they feel about working with the recruitment team.
- Find the template here: Hiring Manager Satisfaction Survey
Read Marqeta's Best Practices to understand the benefits of measuring Hiring Manager Satisfaction!
Internal Partnership: Recruiter Survey
This survey can be used to evaluate the partnership and communication between recruiters and hiring managers from a recruiter's point of view. The survey provides a fresh perspective on how well recruiters align with organizational goals and collaborate with the rest of the TA team.
- Find the template here: Internal Partnership: Recruiter Survey
Internal Partnership: Hiring Manager Survey
Similar to the recruiter survey, it can be used to understand what hiring managers think about the collaboration with recruiters. This survey can identify how well the two groups work together and pinpoint potential challenges in their partnership.
- Find the template here: Internal Partnership: Hiring Manager Survey
Onboarding Feedback Survey
This survey is sent to new hires and can be used to get insights from new employees about the quality and transparency of your onboarding process. The goal of this survey is to improve the candidate's experience in the first weeks working in your organization.
- Find the template here: Onboarding Feedback Survey
What's next?
We hope you found this article useful and packed with practical materials for you to use! The next chapter of our eBook will cover a very important topic to get the most out of your surveys. We discuss when is the right time to send the Candidate Experience survey, how long should you wait before reaching out and what stages are the most important to measure.