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Why you Should Measure Candidate Experience and how to Design your Candidate Experience Survey.

Are you getting ghosted by your candidates? A phenomenon many employers are experiencing, leaving recruiters and hiring managers shocked and frustrated. Have you ever wondered why this is happening? No, it's not because it's an employee's market, an assumption too often made.




According to Indeed.com, "77% of job seekers say they've been ghosted by a prospective employer since the U.S. onset of the pandemic last March" (Threlkeld, 2021). Candidates are "modeling" the behaviors of employers since for the longest time, these employers have had the upper hand in designing the hiring process focused on creating a great hiring manager experience, and little emphasis is placed on the candidate experience. It's no wonder that the popularity of candidate ghosting is increasing, and 28% of job seekers have ghosted an employer, up from 18% in 2019 (Threlkeld, 2021).


👨🏻‍💼 Employer: "I'm shocked that this candidate is a no-show! 😲🤯💥"

👨🏽‍💼 Candidate: "It's been 3 weeks and I have not heard back from the recruiter 🤷‍♀️"


According to a LinkedIn poll conducted last year, 93% of applicants say that they were ghosted by the employer either “after an initial in-person interview or after responding to a request for additional information” (Marcellus, 2020).

Ghosting has become all too common.


Let's be civil


Regardless of the interview outcomes, employers and candidates can both be civil throughout the process. I should elaborate that the interview process goes both ways. Candidates are interviewing employers for the job as much as the employers are interviewing candidates for the job. The key to discouraging employer or candidate ghosting is ensuring communication through every stage of the process. Recruiters should be reaching out to keep candidates informed, while candidates should also take the initiative to follow up throughout the process.


Employers can do more


If you are experiencing candidate ghosting, lower offer acceptance rate, high candidate remorse rate, or working towards being an employee-centric employer, it's time to develop a process to measure candidate experience. How do you go about designing your candidate experience survey? Here are some steps you can follow:


  1. Outline and communicate the values of candidate experience to your stakeholders. You need their buy-in, and you need to let them know what's in it for them.

  2. Define what candidate experience looks like for your company. The experience should align with the culture of your company. Remember, your candidate's first experience is an informal introduction to your company culture.

  3. Identify gaps between the current and defined experience. This is where the candidate experience survey comes in handy. Surveys are still one of the most economical and scalable ways to get real-time feedback! In addition, look to your HR analytics that points to your candidate experience (e.g., offer rejection rate, candidate remorse rate, etc.)

  4. Once you have identified the gaps, you can now create an action plan to improve the hiring process.

You can download our worksheet, including our candidate experience survey questionnaire here. Check out our video to learn how to use this template.


How we can help


We help employers customize and automate their employee lifecycle surveys.


Respect is the basis of any relationship! Your paths might cross again in the future as a job seeker can be your future customer, supplier, vendor, brand ambassador, or employee.


Retainify is an employee engagement and development software that offers a unified solution that allows you to track employee sentiment and measure engagement in real-time. Proactively identify issues that are preventing them from being their best at work. Improve business outcomes by improving the employee experience, and enhancing company culture one feedback at a time. Turn Feedback into Action.


Questions of Feedback?

Contact Us: hello@retainify.com



 

Citations:

  1. Threlkeld, K. (2021, February 11). Employer Ghosting: A Troubling Workplace Trend. Retrieved November 12, 2021, from https://www.indeed.com/leadershiphub/impact-of-covid-19-on-job-seeker-employer-ghosting

  2. Marcellus, S. (2020, August 31). ‘Ghosting’ is not just for lovers. These job applicants say 'cruel' and 'selfish' employers do it too. Retrieved November 12, 2021, from https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ghosting-is-not-just-for-lovers-these-job-applicants-say-cruel-and-selfish-employers-do-it-too-194351837.html


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