It’s that time of year again, when organisations and people start to think about recruitment and job hunting.  A few years ago, after securing my last permanent position, I wrote about the candidate experience.  About how often, it leaves much to be desired.

On returning to the job market a few years on….  nothing much has changed.  More companies are doing good social stuff.  You can get an insight, to some extent, into an organisation’s culture through sites like Glassdoor, but that’s about all that is new.   Much of the bad stuff I experienced still seems to be hard wired into the system.

Applications that take hours to complete, pointlessly requiring you to type in information that is already available on a CV.  Systems that are supposed to upload the information from your CV into their database but which never work properly.  Poor communication.  Lack of any sort of real feedback.  Clunky Applicant Tracking Systems.  Entirely automated processes lacking any sort of human touch.

If you haven’t heard from us in 14 days……..

A black hole of applications and expectations.

The candidate experience is an opportunity.  It is your employer brand.  It is your opportunity to engage with someone who may come and work for you….  or certainly talk about you.  A consumer of your products or services perhaps.   It is the start of that thing we call the employment life cycle.  So why do so many get it so wrong?

Perhaps, in 2017, we could do better.  So here is what I think the candidate really wants.

Candidates don’t want to have to create an account for your ATS.  Most likely, they want to apply for one job and only one job.

If you have a system candidates want it to be easy to use.

Candidates would like the ability to engage with the recruiter.  Just for question or two. A live chat, an email address or even a Twitter handle.

Candidates would really like their time not to be wasted by advertising jobs that don’t really exist, or haven’t yet been fully thought through.

Candidates very much want an email (or something) to tell us that they aren’t being considered.  An email at the start of the process saying that they will hear in so many days if they have been successful simply isn’t good enough.  If people take the time to fill out what are often lengthy applications, the very least a company do is automate another “thank you but no thank you” email.  It’s just one more button to press after all.

Candidates don’t want to have to give you loads of personal information at the first stage.  Of late, I have been asked for my National Insurance number, sexual orientation and marital status as part of an initial application. There did not appear to be a ‘actually that is none of your business’ option on the drop down menu.

A question I have always asked recruiters is this: when did you last apply for a job at your place?  When did you last go onto your careers site or ATS from the outside, and experience it as a candidate does.  When did you last review your careers site to see if it is interesting, useful or easy to navigate?

If the answer is either ‘never’ or ‘not lately’ then just go do it. Challenge every part of the process.  Is it necessary? How will it make people feel?  Is it adding value – and to whom?  Is it more about the candidate, or you?  Too many recruitment processes are designed with the recruiter and the organisation in mind – not the candidate.  In my last HRD role, we launched a new recruitment system.  Applying for jobs with candidate eyes was how we refined it; how we made it work for both us and the people who were interested in working with us.

Applying for jobs doesn’t need to be a dispiriting experience.

What candidates want is really quite simple.  A straight forward, user friendly application process.  A little bit of timely communication.  The opportunity for some personal interaction.  Just because you can automate every single bit of the process doesn’t mean you should (nod to David D’Souza). Finally, some useful feedback.

That’s all folks.