5 Ways to Build a Great Candidate Experience in 2020

As the world is hoping towards a better future post the pandemic, organizations have already started strategizing on how to redirect businesses that will match the new normal of working from home. If you are on the same page, remember that in this era of social distancing, your new business plan calls for a primary focus towards the talent acquisition team.

Why do you need a unique candidate experience strategy for 2020?

The gap in the physical distance in some organizations’ teams has created a sense of disconnection between its employees. It is important to keep your employees and potential candidates engaged in fueling business productivity. But since in-person communication has become restricted only to virtual platforms, the traditional method of improving a candidate’s experience may be less than optimal.

When you had a physical office space where the entire team would work together, developing the employee experience was easy. Simply planning a team lunch or an annual entertainment event could result in engagement among employees. 

Sadly, the outbreak of COVID-19 has taken away such fun opportunities, pushing organizations to resort to alternative solutions to make their candidates feel valued. Thus, while you strategize your business plan for the remainder of 2020, emphasize on building a candidate experience that understands and solves modern human resource challenges.

It is important to create an exceptional candidate experience to replace all your previous employee engagement plans. To maintain and grow business output, here are five tips to make your employees happy:

Transparency in communication is the key

Curiosity does increase when you can’t see what is going on. Similar is the case with your employees, and it is your responsibility to keep them updated on the planning and progress of your company. If you want to maximize your employee productivity, you need to make them feel to be a part of it. Thus it is vital to communicate clearly not only with your existing workforce but also with your potential candidates. 

Attaching relevant resources to the virtual job interview invite can help the aspiring candidate with information on how to prepare for the interview, organizational structure, company culture and expectations, and job details. This will create a positive candidate experience right from the beginning and will also help you hire the best candidate.

Invest more time on newly hired employees 

It is important to nurture the candidate experience from the first stages to build a long-lasting relationship. To be able to retain your valued employees, you must also offer what they need and expect from you. Planning a virtual welcome party for your new team members will help them get to know each other and different teammates. 

Also, to make a candidate feel like a part of the team, celebrate new hires on social media since you will not be able to welcome them in person. Those who are working remotely for the first time might need a little guidance to be able to work smoothly using different technical platforms that help employees work from different locations. 

Make sure you run your newly hired employees through the entire system, including the work culture and clarify doubts, if any. If possible, provide them with a virtual office tour to help the new candidates understand the company culture.

Send personalized gifts 

The secret behind any booming business is pleased employees, and most modern-day organizations believe that. At the same time, some companies announce the best employee of the month and give them some gifts on their special days to express gratitude. 

Unfortunately, employees who are getting hired during this crisis are deprived of such opportunities. To make up for this, you can send selected candidates a welcome virtual gift to encourage them to be a part of your organization.

Take advantage of technological progression.

Though organizations were not completely ready to embrace the work-from-home culture, technological advancement in the last few years has helped us somewhat cope with the situation. 

Integrating such technically advanced platforms in your system will help you streamline your communication system and deliver a flawless candidate experience. Select the technology that best suits your business objective and enhance candidate experience during and after the hiring process.

Add a human touch

Automating the work process using innovative technology will obviously rationalize the entire social-distancing process of hiring new candidates. But remember not to overdo it with algorithms and bots. Offering a hyper-automated service to your potential candidates will make them feel out of place, no matter how technologically advanced they are. 

Thus, the inclusion of personal interaction to show that you care, will not only engage them more but clear away any residual doubts.

Successfully building a great candidate experience can offer long-term benefits to your talent acquisition team, even after the pandemic is over. To optimize the outcome of your hiring process during the challenging year of 2020, you can adopt the suggested ideas into your system and modify them accordingly. 

Understand that there is a mutual crisis that both you and your aspiring candidates need to overcome by respecting each other’s time, energy, and attention span. Implement an “open-door” policy where you can become more approachable. Allowing for an all ears approach for your potential candidates will encourage them to express their queries and opinions freely. This is necessary, due to the recent disruption in the traditional hiring system.

You can generate weekly status via email updates for all candidates to help them track their application process and conduct regular communication audits. This will aid performance checking of the talent acquisition team and build a better candidate experience while adding value to the recruiting process. 

Moreover, to build trust and real engagement within the potential candidates, try to maintain consistency in the hiring process by sticking to the promised job offer and other related information on the career page like important dates and rewards.