Candidate experience is a metric worth measuring. It is also a key component of offering a rockstar candidate experience.
Surveys are a powerful tool for collecting data about your interview process, including cNPS (candidate Net Promoter Score), feedback for interviewers, perception of culture, and more. Be sure to make candidates aware they will be asked to provide a candidate experience survey and let them know their responses will be anonymous.
Provides Feedback
A candidate’s experience during recruitment significantly impacts their willingness to accept an offer and become part of your organization. It also influences whether they will refer other talented individuals to apply for positions at your organization.
Conducting a candidate experience survey lets you discover what’s working and not working in your recruiting process. You can use the feedback from candidates to make necessary changes to your hiring process.
Try sending the survey out as soon as possible after an interview or when you’re notified that you won’t hire them. This will ensure that their experience is fresh and results in more accurate and detailed responses. Also, make sure that your survey is anonymous to encourage candid feedback.
Make Better Hiring Decisions
Candidate experience surveys can help you identify and work on hiring process issues impacting your acceptance rate, interviewing skills, and overall recruiting efforts. The data you collect allows you to make changes within your recruitment process and ensure that your candidates have a positive experience, resulting in more job offers being accepted.
Surveys can also give you insights into why some candidates are rejecting your job offer or ghosting. For example, a survey can show that some of your job descriptions must match the role requirements. A more precise job description can prevent unsuitable applicants from applying for your roles and save you time in the long run. You can also get candid feedback from rejected or hired candidates by sending surveys to both groups.
Build Better Relationships With Candidates
Getting positive word of mouth from candidates is an integral part of your employer’s brand and an effective way to attract more talent. Candidate experience surveys provide a unique opportunity to collect candid feedback from candidates, including how they perceive your company’s culture and values.
Include closed and open-ended questions to get the most out of your candidate experience survey. Closed questions are quicker and easier to answer, while open-ended questions allow candidates to provide more qualitative feedback in their own words.
It’s also essential to ensure the survey is mobile-friendly, as many candidates will access it on their smartphones or tablets. Lastly, clearly state that respondents’ responses will remain anonymous and confidential to encourage honesty. This will help ensure that your survey results are more accurate and representative of the overall experience.
Create Better Interview Questions
Candidate experience surveys provide valuable insights into the recruitment process and can help you identify areas where improvements are needed. Whether making small changes like replacing initial face-to-face interviews with video calls or overhauling the hiring process, you can use the data gathered from candidate feedback to fine-tune your recruiting strategy and increase acceptance rates.
Ensure your survey is anonymous so that candidates feel comfortable sharing candid feedback.
A great way to increase the response rate is by distributing the survey close to their interaction with your company. This will ensure that their experiences are still fresh in their minds, leading to more accurate and detailed responses.
Better Hiring Process
When candidates have excellent experience during the hiring process, they are likelier to become advocates for the company and refer other qualified applicants. This helps companies grow their talent pool and fosters a more collaborative culture.
Conducting a candidate experience survey allows you to identify blind spots in your recruitment process and make changes to improve the candidate journey. It also allows candidates to voice their observations, thoughts, and complaints, which you may have yet to gather.
Be sure to follow best practices when conducting your candidate experience survey, including sending it promptly and making the feedback anonymous. Use questions that are clear and concise so candidates can answer them quickly. Also, include open-ended questions to gather more detailed feedback on specific areas.
