Experience is key. Communication is critical.
Have you ever had someone share their experience about a restaurant or shop that has influenced your decision to check it out or steer clear from it? Think about a time when you have had a sub-par experience while dining or shopping. Did you share your experience with anyone, or post a review on social media?
Now think about your candidate experience. What would a candidate have to say about their experience when looking at your organization’s careers site? Would they find it easy to navigate and search for opportunities? How many clicks does it take for them to land on the careers page from your company website? What would they share with their friends and family about the amount of communication they received during the hiring process? If they were turned down for an opportunity, what would they have to say about that? Does that make you think… were they ever even informed that they were not the candidate selected to move forward for the job they applied for? What about the interviewing experience - are candidates pleased with the amount of communication that they receive during the assessing and interviewing process? Do candidates receive feedback during their application journey with recruiters, hiring managers or peers about the opportunity that they are being considered for? What about once a candidate is hired and officially an onboardee/new hire in your organization – is the communication and engagement continuing?
SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting can assist you in ensuring that candidates have a great experience when visiting your careers page.
Key number one: Engage
Career Site Builder acts as the spine of your candidate experience. Career Site Builder provides the ability to truly engage with candidates. Keep your candidate experience engaging, fresh and up to date with your organization’s message and branding. Think about where you may be able to add in realistic job previews, employee testimonials, promote your organization’s messaging. This can all be accomplished via some of the features within Career Site Builder You have the ability to manage the verbiage and content on your careers page - all via self-service capability.
Key number two: Communicate
Effective communication is critical to any relationship. Candidates like to know where they stand as they are being considered for opportunities. You can keep candidates informed via several communication methods:
- Emails can be sent to candidate to them informed throughout their journey.
- SMS/text messages can also be sent to candidates. (This does require a contract with a partner via the SAP Store)
- Message Center allows for communications to be sent from within the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting experience. This is a great time-saver for those that are working with candidates as it alleviates the need to toggle between an email program and the recruiting system. This also provides visibility to other Message Center users – so that recruiters can see the communication activity that candidates might be having with other recruiters in your organization.
- Candidate Activity Dashboard provides recruiters the ability to monitor candidate actions as they may update their application, save an application, even abandon an application. This feature provides insights as to when more high-touch communication is needed, prompting recruiters to reach out to candidates directly to keep them engaged.
Key number three: Retain
Talent pools provide the capability to organize your talent. Talent pools also allow recruiters to keep candidates informed via email campaigns Email campaigns can be sent to candidates in an effort to communicate myriad things; opportunities that match their skills and interests, recruiting events that you will be attending, even as a way to promote exciting news about your organization in an effort to keep them engaged. As recruiters, we all desire ways to nurture relationships with silver medalist candidates that we know would make a great addition to our organization. Utilizing the power of talent pools within the CRM/Candidate Relationship Management functionality allows you to market, communicate, and retain candidate’s interest in your organization.
Key number four: Be Consistent
Interview Central provides the ability to collect interview feedback from the interviewing team. This allows for recruiters to have a solid understanding as to why a candidate was/was not selected for an opportunity. Candidates are eager to receive feedback along the way – and if your process includes providing insight back to candidates, the Interview Central functionality may be a great starting point for your organization.
When using a feature like Interview Central – this not only benefits the organization, but also contributes to a positive candidate experience, which can lead to being a significant differentiator in attracting top talent. This fosters transparency and professionalism in the hiring process and improves the overall quality of the talent acquisition process.
Remember, a positive candidate experience can have long-term effects. Candidates who have great experiences, even if not hired, are more likely to recommend your company to others and consider future opportunities with your organization. Creating a candidate-centric approach will help you stand out in a competitive job market and attract the best talent for your team.
