In recruitment, so much emphasis is placed on attracting and sourcing the right candidates that effective candidate communication can fall by the wayside.
But, if you don’t interact with applicants at every step, you risk losing all the high-quality candidates you’ve sourced. A recent study by CareerPlug found that 52% of job-seekers have declined a job offer because of a negative hiring experience.
Because recruitment involves more than just finding talent, you need to retain them for the long run with effective communications. But what is effective communication in recruitment? It’s timely, personalized, proactive, transparent, and, in some instances, automated.
In this article, we’ll walk through eight strategies for effective candidate communication that will improve candidate experiences and help you fill roles faster.
Candidate communication is the strategy of communicating with candidates as they progress through touchpoints in your recruitment and hiring process. It involves providing timely status updates, communicating delays, responding promptly to concerns, and delivering constructive feedback.
When Cronofy asked job-seekers what frustrated them most in the hiring process, a majority (37%) said a lack of responsiveness/poor communication, followed by a lack of transparency (17%).
Image source: Cronofy.com
The last thing you want to do is frustrate high-quality applicants, as it provokes them to seek jobs elsewhere. Plus, there’s every chance they’ll go on to tell others about their poor experience with your company, which is bad for your reputation.
But when you provide transparent, consistent, and personalized communication, you:
Improve candidate engagement.
Ensure that candidates feel valued and informed.
Speed up the time it takes to fill roles.
Reduce the cost of hiring employees.
Improve the quality of your hires.
Create better overall candidate experiences.
So, what communication strategies can you implement to boost candidate experiences and fill roles more effectively and efficiently? Here are our top 8 tips for improving candidate communication in your recruitment process.
At what points in your recruitment process do you contact and engage with applicants? These are your primary touchpoints, and by mapping them out you can clearly strategize when and how to communicate with applicants to boost candidate engagement and experiences.
Every recruitment process is different. But, generally speaking, these are the five main stages in a typical recruitment pipeline and the types of communications that occur within them:
Pre-Application Phase
This is where curious potential candidates subscribe to your email list, opt-in for SMS notifications, connect with you on social media, or reach out with questions about vacancies.
Here, you want to prioritize proactive, timely communications by automating welcome emails and job alerts, directing candidates to your latest job openings, and responding to their questions.
Application Phase
After candidates send an application, respond with an acknowledgment email thanking them for applying.
Depending on the length of your process, you might also send a follow-up email after a week or so. This reassures candidates their application is still under review, alleviating feelings of stress or anxiety.
Change in Status Phase
Let candidates know when their application status changes. If their application is rejected during the pre-screening phase, you should contact them with your sympathies as soon as possible. Similarly, if a candidate is shortlisted for an interview, make sure to promptly let them know.
Interview Phase
Reach out to candidates you’ve shortlisted for an interview with clear details of what to expect. Confirm the date, time, and location of the interview (including what communications platform to use if you’re conducting a remote interview) before scheduling it in.
Make sure to open the door for two-way communication by making it easy for candidates to ask questions, reschedule interviews, and receive updates.
Post-Application Phase
Once you’ve made your decision, you need to communicate your job offer to your chosen canadidate/s — and reach out to those who didn’t get the job with a timely, polite, (and preferably personalized) rejection letter.
Candidates value transparency. It puts their minds at ease, gives them time to prepare, and establishes trust. And, it communicates that you foster a workplace culture of honesty, openness, and respect.
In fact, 17% of candidates surveyed in the aforementioned Cronofy study revealed that having a lack of transparency was their main cause of frustration.
Start by sharing the closing date for applications on your job listing. Once the candidate has applied, share your hiring timeline for the remaining phases of your recruitment process, including realistic timeframes for screenings, assessments, interviews, and final decisions. In the case of delays, ensure you update candidates as soon as possible.
You need to implement relevant keywords into your job description to attract potential candidates. Tactics like SEO can help you do this — just view an SaaS SEO case study on organizations who boost their website traffic using SEO.
But be warned. If your job description isn’t true to the actual job role, you’re going to lose high-quality talent. 26% of candidates admit to declining a job offer because the job description didn’t communicate accurate roles and responsibilities.
Image source: Careerplug.com
By crafting a realistic job description, candidates can instantly gauge whether they meet the requirements for the role. It avoids miscommunication, misunderstandings, and mismatched expectations later on in the process, all of which can be frustrating and embarrassing for candidates.
So, avoid the common pitfalls of bad job descriptions and provide specific examples of the tasks, responsibilities, and skills required to fulfill the role. Include a clear job title and be truthful about your benefits and salaries, too.
Keeping candidates in the loop should be a #1 priority.
Provide status updates via your preferred communication channel to communicate where candidates stand in the recruitment process. Include details of the next steps, such as assessment requirements or interview availability.
You should also promptly communicate any timeline changes or delays. If an interviewer is off sick, you have an unexpected volume of applicants, or you’re experiencing technical issues, inform candidates as soon as possible. Apologizing for the delay and providing an updated timeframe demonstrates that you value your candidates’ time, minimizing frustration and confusion.
Lastly, if candidates reach out to you with a question, make sure to respond quickly and thoroughly. Personalize your messages by using candidates’ names and relaying specific details based on their previous messages.
Automate some of your recruitment communications to streamline the process for you and your applicants.
For example, after a candidate submits an application, send an automated email thanking them for applying and letting them know when they can expect to hear from you next. If they make it to the interview stage, you can use automation to identify optimal times and send automated reminders.
Cronofy discovered that candidates want companies to embrace automation in the application process, most notably for interview scheduling (37%), CV checking (27%) and online tests (26%).
Email remains the most popular method of candidate communication, with 39% of candidates naming it as their preferred contact channel. That said, you should consider diversifying your channels to meet different communication needs.
Image source: Engage2Excel.com
Phone calls are great for scheduling interviews. They can be done in real-time to avoid delays and potential ghosting.
SMS and instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp are also valuable candidate communication methods. Their instant visibility and high open rates make them perfect for sending quick interview reminders or time-sensitive communications.
One of the biggest technological HR trends is the applicant tracking system (ATS), a powerful cloud-based SaaS solution that centralizes candidate data and communications.
So, you can manage email, WhatsApp, SMS, and even social media communications from one platform.
Diversifying your channels can grow complex if you’re using siloed systems. Recruitment teams need to manually transfer data and switch between apps, increasing the risk of data errors and loss.
It also slows down the hiring process as teams have to retrieve customer data from different systems manually.
Unifying communications into one platform streamlines workflows. Not only can you update and respond to candidates faster, but you can deliver omnichannel candidate communications. This means that you can personalize conversations across channels, seamlessly and efficiently.
Most ATS and candidate engagement platforms are delivered as SaaS solutions by providers. SaaS solutions differ from PaaS and IaaS — explore some examples of PaaS IaaS and SaaS solutions for an in-depth comparison.
Sending and receiving rejection letters is far from enjoyable. However, a polite, empathetic rejection letter that contains constructive feedback can not only help dull the blow of rejection — it can improve the entire candidate experience.
According to a recent study, finalist candidates who are given specific feedback are 40% more likely to rate their experience highly. And if you relay a candidate's job fit post-interview, they’re 71% more willing to refer other job-seekers to your company.
Include constructive, sincere feedback in rejection letters that you send to post-interview and finalist candidates. Provide insight into how and why you came to your decision, and offer advice if relevant. End on a positive note by thanking them for their time and encouraging them to apply to future roles.
The recruitment process is stressful enough for job applicants without the added frustrations of having to chase you for status updates or feedback.
By being transparent about your hiring process and communicating effectively with candidates, you can minimize frustrating miscommunications and create positive candidate experiences.
So, map out your touchpoints and aim to deliver timely, personalized candidate communications at every step.
Nick Brown - Founder and CEO
Nick Brown is the founder & CEO of accelerate agency, the SaaS SEO agency. Nick has launched several successful online businesses, writes for Forbes, published a book and has grown accelerate from a UK-based agency to a company that now operates across US, APAC and EMEA. This is his LinkedIn.