3 Simple Tips for Meeting and Beating Candidate Expectations

A competitive job market is fertile ground for growing candidate expectations. As companies improve their hiring process experiences, some areas in the hiring process which once seemed normal begin to appear sluggish or antiquated to potential applicants. Here are some expectations today’s candidates are navigating the job market with, and what you can do to exceed them:

1. Short, mobile-first application process

With almost 90% of jobseekers applying on mobile, optimizing your hiring process to cater to a mobile experience is crucial.

Response: Make your hiring process accessible on all devices

Is your candidate experience mobile-first? If you're unsure - it's probably not. The bare minimum is to have an application process that is available on mobile, but the next step is to optimize it to a primarily mobile experience, with the secondary availability and focus on desktop. This can be done in partnership with your design team, and in the way you build the content for your hiring process. Short in length and quick to digest is the way to go.

2. Fast hiring decision (and process)

Job security is a big motivator for frontline workers, so providing them with that sense of sureness by keeping their hiring process moving swiftly and providing them with a swift and decisive offer seals a great candidate experience.

Response: Keep your hiring process short and engaging

Ask yourself: are the steps and questions in my process absolutely necessary for finding a candidate who can fulfill the needs of the job? If you were to apply for the job yourself, would you feel propelled through the process and excited for the opportunity? Or would you feel bored and like the questions dragged on or felt redundant?

3. Quick reply from recruiters

Most candidates apply for more than one job at once, so a few minutes could make or break your opportunity to snag a great candidate before your competition.

Response: Utilize automations to keep candidates moving through the process swiftly

First, don’t spend your days sending updates to hundreds of candidates, only to worry that one may have slipped through the cracks. Automating messaging provides prompt updates to candidates on their progression through the hiring process. You also don’t need to be the one coordinating everyone’s calendars. Scheduling software lets a candidate choose the time that works for them from a selection of times that work for you. It’s an easy win-win, and allows both you and the candidate to meet when you are on your A games.

As companies raise the bar in their tactics for attracting potential employees, candidate expectations slowly rise with them. To be sure, hiring has worked without meeting all of these points, and if your team isn’t meeting these expectations, you will still get hires. But it will put your company at a tremendous disadvantage in the job market, and you will risk losing both quantity and quality in your candidates. Staying competitive means staying up to date and not falling behind as applicants’ expectations evolve.