7 top tips for an amazing candidate experience

Thaisa Money is our first talent acquisition and people operations hire. Having worked across the European businesses of RetailMeNot and Take Eat Easy, she has seen both the giddy heights and crushing lows of being in a startup. Here are her lessons for Geckoboard.

Call me crazy, but I’ve always believed that in Human Resources you should treat people with respect! Someone’s taken the time to apply so I should take the time to respond. Why do so many companies get this wrong?

You don’t need to look further than candidate and employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor.com and AmbitionBox.com to see the impact this can have.

But what about the conversations that take place between friends and peers about their lives, jobs, and careers? These conversations often go unheard by many but are just as important to an employer’s reputation.

To make sure you are on the right track from the very beginning, here are my seven top tips to keeping the candidate experience a success:

1. Use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) — It doesn’t have to be expensive, just a tool that allows you to define the different stages of the recruitment process and track candidates. An ATS will give you and your hiring team full visibility on your hiring pipeline, reducing the risk of candidates getting lost in the process. At Geckoboard, we use RecruiterBox, but there are lots of other products available.

2. Prepare email templates — Templates allow you and your hiring managers to respond quickly and consistently at each stage of the process. Once in place, just tailor the template to each role as required. Even without an ATS, templates save time and effort. Here’s an example of what I mean:

Subject: {{open role title}} at Geckoboard

Message:

Hi {{candidate-first-name}},

Thank you again for taking the time to speak to me about the role of {{open role title}}. It was great to hear about your experience and your career to date.

It has been really tough making a decision about next stages as we’ve had so many excellent candidates come forward. However, after a great deal of thought we have decided to focus on candidates who have a tighter fit to the experience of the business changes and challenges we are about to face.

Thank you again for your interest in Geckoboard. It was such a pleasure to speak to you. And all the very best for the future!

Cheers,

3. Outline each stage of the process — Who will shortlist candidates? Will candidates get homework to submit? What will each interviewer be focusing on when interviewing candidates? What if a candidate needs to be expedited through the process? When the hiring team knows exactly what’s involved at each step, you save time and confusion during the process.

4. Know what you want to ask — Are you asking the candidate about their thoughts on company culture or about technical ability? Make sure you know what each interviewer is asking to reduce bias and check your company is being consistent. Remember, candidates are interviewing you too. You don’t want to make it seem like you aren’t communicating with each other.

5. Catch up regularly with your hiring managers — Momentum on a recruitment campaign keeps the campaign and candidates focused on your company. Topics I cover in these meetings include recruitment campaign progress (use of social networks, referrals, headhunting, agencies and paid adverts etc), quality of applicants in pipeline, feedback on completed interviews, and anything else that has come up.

6. Keep in contact with the candidate — Even if there’s no news, it’s important to let your candidates know what’s happening. Building a relationship means that if your candidate has a choice of offers, you are more likely to have made a lasting impression.

7. Give feedback — Sometimes easy, sometimes awkward, but always valuable for the candidate. It also acts as a validation to your selection criteria, making sure no bias has crept into the process.

Big or small, as a company with endless deadlines, it can be hard to find the time to respond to candidates. Getting ahead is about being prepared and regularly communicating with both your hiring managers and your candidates.

By using these simple steps you can take back control of your recruitment process and keep you candidate and interview experience a success.

p.s. we’re hiring!