The ultimate guide to creating candidate connection

Because your endgame is engagement.

How do you make your candidates feel (really)?

Attracting quality candidates is always a high priority for employers, though what happens next makes or breaks the candidate’s relationship with your employer brand: The candidate experience. How you make them feel once you have them.

Reckon you’re doing a good job of it?

Strong communication connects

That’s because people are always desperate for information – we all just want to know where we stand. We all want to feel like we belong, that we matter.

Especially now, as we grapple with life in ‘the new normal’ of mangled workplaces where 60% of the team are working remotely at any one time, where uncertainty is high and morale is low. Where COVID-19 has forced job losses on not just temps and casuals serving up espresso martinis on weekends, but in some cases permanent employees who’ve felt safe and secure in their roles for many years (in some cases, decades).

This is indeed a time where your connection and preboarding game needs a steroid injection to ensure that, in the deep and desperate pool of talent, you’re still hiring the best fit for your culture and your needs while showing everyone the best version of your brand.

The candidate connection doesn’t end when the contract is signed or when the rejection email is sent – the candidate connection is brand connection - it becomes employee and/or customer engagement. The very thing you desperately need to survive.

… and candidate connection is?

Consider it like this >

You remember those glorious old days when you were young and you’d head out for drinks with your mates, secretly hoping you’d meet your Prince Charming so you could start planning your wedding and the rest of your possibility-filled lives together, and then by chance, you see him across the room and then time seems to stand still, and suddenly you’re in a golden field sheltered by a clear azure sky. A gentle breeze blows by and kisses your face, and you watch it caress the stalks of dry grass, making them dance a slow waltz while collecting dandelion seeds and shooting them into the air. They shimmer in the warm sun, and you feel like you might actually be in heaven because you’ve found the one.

Well, the candidate connection feels a bit like that.

Candidates want to find and join ‘the one’, so they can spend one third of their life working happily ever after. At a minimum, they don’t want to be shoved out the door at 3am without their clothes.

Candidate experience (good or  bad) affects your employer brand

Candidate-centred communication helps you establish trust, confidence and engagement with candidates who may become employees or customers or referrers. Even if unsuccessful, they may be more inclined to apply again in future if they genuinely feel they’re a fit.

But do a shit job? You could lose them as customers, you could earn yourself some negative online ratings, and you could find them telling everyone in their network how unpleasant their experience was with you.

According to the responders of a Linked In poll, 76% said they would warn others against applying for a role after a poor candidate experience. That’s a lot of lost talent, considering 83% of us rely on reviews and recommendations when deciding where to work.

And if you do nothing more than ordinary?

Well, an unmemorable experience is just that – unmemorable.

What’s wrong with ‘the way we do things’ now

There are two main things I see impacting the way recruiters and hiring managers approach their comms:

1. Relationships are too far down the priority list.

Recruitment has traditionally been driven by KPIs, filling orders, and presenting resumes. Internally, hiring managers take on recruitment in addition to their existing role responsibilities and so instead of looking at it for the potential, there is dread and stress due to lack of time and increased demands.

As a result, there’s been little focus on the quality of the relationships and how they’ll play out in future. i.e. employee engagement, candidate resentment and poor brand reputation.

According to Talent Board, the biggest challenge for employers is candidate resentment; when a candidate has such a poor experience they feel compelled to sever their relationship with a company. Worryingly, there’s been a 40% increase in candidate resentment since 2016.

2. Culturally, there’s little emphasis or care for the candidate experience.

And when there is emphasis on the candidate experience, it’s usually about bells and whistles when the basics are still neglected. No one really cares if you provide a personal barista pre-interview if you’ve overwhelmed candidates with an ultra-marathon app process, and then neglected and made them question their worth in the lead up and follow up.

Which leads us to:

3 Ways you’re probably failing your candidate comms

Some common no-nos to get you thinking:

1. You think it’s all about numbers and forget about personalisation

(“omg! How effing amazing am I? I just received 250 applications for my latest role!”)

But then you treat them as though they’re all cattle standing in the field waiting to be stunned.

They’re one of many.

They’re a burden because now you have to send 249 rejection emails (if they’re lucky!).

Young people especially, do not appreciate being a number. They belong to the personalisation generation, much thanks to the Netflixes and Spotifies introducing personalisation into our daily lives,

> consumer demands are changing.

They *expect* a personalised experience from brands. That includes during recruitment.

After all, they’ve just spent an hour on your mind-numbingly repetitive application form tailoring their response to meet your expectations, the least you could do is spend five minutes acknowledging their human existence.

To maybe respond months later and formally reject with the throw-away,

<<< Feedback is essential! >>>

Are you consistently sending rejection emails to candidates? If so, do you make them constructive for a zesty splash of candidate care?

According to Talentegy, 63% of candidates are dissatisfied with communication with employers after applying for a job. Consider that for some, they hear nothing at all after hitting “Apply”, and for some they never ever receive a formal rejection email or response, even after interviews.

It’s as if their application never happened. Burrrrrnnnn.

Here’s a clipboard breaking statistic for ya;

>>>The leading cause (42%) of a negative candidate experience is the lack of response from an employer / recruiter. No one is expecting a thesis, here, but common courtesy is essential. Because coincidentally, the leading reason (58%) for a positive candidate experience is great communication. (source: Jobvite)

It doesn’t get any more no-brainery than that!

2. Your auto-responses are painfully obvious

Auto-responses are the single biggest wasted opportunity to amplify your employer brand and sell your unique culture to potential future employees.

Those un-edited templated auto-emails, while slightly better than silence, are kind-of-an insult. Please spend a moment to consider how a disregard for candidate care affects their morale and relationship with your brand (personal and organisational) – especially now, in post-apocalyptic #worklyfe.

Candidates expect to be acknowledged sincerely. And they expect more than the stale, generic, seen-it-one-thousand-times death knell auto-response.

They especially expect that you’ll populate the template and remove the glaringly obvious [insert position title here] prompts. At a bleepin’ minimum.

3. You ghost your candidates so often you’re translucent

That awkward moment when you ghost them.

Those dreaded silent periods between interviews and offers, and between offers and the first day where you stop talking to candidates and they panic and hyperventilate and think you don’t love them because for years, poor recruiter communication has pre-conditioned everyone to believe that no news means there’ll never be any news because generally there isn’t – but let’s say for a second it’s five weeks* after an interview and the customary email arrives:

“yeah, thanks but no thanks. Please try again.”

Or,

candidates finally get that phone call where you’re all like,

“Hiiiiiiiiiiieee. Congratulations, you’ve got the job. We can’t wait for you to start work with us!”

Candidate: “Wait, who are you again?”

You: “It’s Mary-Lou from ACME Corp! We interviewed you approximately 35 days ago for the position of ‘Jill of all Trades’ and the hiring team have finalised the recruitment process and we’d like to offer you the role.” 

Candidate: “Oh, you. Oh, sorry, when I didn’t hear anything 30 days ago, I assumed I didn’t get the job, so ahh, I’ve actually just started in a new role like, this morning. K, byyyyyye.” 

And if you are so lucky that the candidate is still available and accepts your offer even after all of your silent treatment, I guarantee they will not still be full of love and enthusiasm for their new role. They’re going to think you don’t care about them.  

And that my beautiful friend, is the sprouting seed of disengagement and resentment. 

SO –

How can you strengthen relationships and provide an awesome candidate experience? Communicate often; communicate well.

NOW - for the exciting part >>>

How to fix your crappy candidate comms

We’ll start with the essentials and then move into the ways you can surprise and delight.

Hold on!

Step 1: Map all candidate touchpoints and recruitment milestones

Be strategic by first mapping all candidate touchpoints and major milestones during your attraction and assessment process. You need to ensure the candidate’s experience at each point aligns with your brand culture, values and persona.

For example, you can’t preach “high customer care” if you treat your candidates like shit. You can’t promote “unique creativity and lively culture” if your job ads and campaign comms are stuffy corporate jargon sleep-coma-inducing boooooring.

This is also the part where you’re going to need to dig deep into your candidate avatars. A millennial will likely have different job-seeking habits to an executive, for example. (Check out my ultimate guide to recruitment marketing for more on this.)

Have a think about your candidate(s) journey and map it out.

Here’s a pretty awesome example >

Addressing your current candidate experience

Before we continue, it’s super mega highly valuable to survey recent new hires AND recent unsuccessful candidates for feedback on their recruitment experience. I suggest putting your designer Thick Skin coat on because it might get ugly. Note: It’s not personal. But you need to know where you’re failing/nailing so you know how to improve/replicate.

What are the common problems and recurring issues? What’s being done super well?

Mark these on your map at the relevant touchpoints/milestones, so you can introduce ‘fixes’ to your candidate connection plan.

Knowing your milestones and timelines

When I was a graduate recruiter, I’d send candidates an email update every time we hit (or missed) a recruitment milestone. Why?

Simply, you’re managing candidate expectations and you’re keeping yourselves accountable. A three-month-plus recruitment process is unacceptable in today’s tech-revolutionised, experience-driven world. Additionally, by confirming your timelines with candidates, including when they can expect to hear from you next, you’re doing two things:

1. Letting them know their experience matters.

2. Saving yourself future time and energy responding to phone calls and emails chasing up what’s happening with the role (sometimes from concerned parents acting on their adultchild’s behalf #gradrecruitmentlyfe).

One minute now saves you sixty minutes later.

But you gotta stick to them!

• If your process is delayed, don’t leave candidates hanging. Let them know.

• If your needs have changed, let them know.

• If you don’t know what’s happening but they’re not unsuccessful just yet but you’re still figuring things out, let them know. Any silence longer than a week will spark worry and a follow up flurry.

Step 2: Get hiring managers invested early

If involved in the recruitment process, hiring managers must absolutely be committed to the recruitment timelines (block out their diary!).

Additionally, they’re the ones responsible for employee onboarding and long-term engagement, so get them invested in the experience early, and help them find ways to connect with their potential new team members as soon as possible.

It could be as simple as emailing all candidates shortly before/after interviews to introduce themselves and advise candidates when they can expect to hear from you with an offer.

Or, pre-interview, a ‘meet the team’ video. Or, ‘meet the role’ video. Or, ‘meet me’ video!

Step 3: Thrill them with your thoughtfulness

This is where you can have some fun with the maple syrup.

Here are some mega awesome un-patented ideas to help you thrill your candidates with your thoughtfulness. Work out which ones align with your brand experience, and sprinkle them onto the relevant points in your candidate journey map.

Consider:

1. Chatbots

Use [FUN] chatbots preloaded with helpful answers to FAQs.

In 2018, L’Oreal implemented chatbots and achieved a near-100% satisfaction rate from candidates who interacted with the bot. However, personality and value is everything. My suggestion is to introduce a chatbot specifically for candidate use to help with known application and recruitment-related questions – just ensure you give them a personality!

2. Instructional videos

Most organisations will use a pretty standard recruitment process throughout. Turn your stages into instructional videos delivered by your CEO or HR manager or even a grad / one of your recently hired employees. Max. effect.

Videos humanise your brand experience and help manage candidate expectations… when done well.

For example, how about a video from a recent grad/new hire – “Congratulations on making it to the next stage – video interviews! Here’s how they work and my top tips to help you go pro…”

3. Assessment stage tips and tricks via email

Not into video? Short for time or expertise?

Instead of video instructions at each stage, just stick with a regular ol’ email. Again, these can be pre-written and uploaded into your ATS. Not rocket science, contrary to popular recruiter whinging.

Whether candidates are seasoned job hunters or new on the traps, ideally, you want them performing at their best at each stage, because it’s only when they’re performing at their best that you can determine if they are in fact, best for you. So, help them out, silly billy.

Share insights into what skills, behaviours, values, background/experiences you’re seeking.

What is it you look for in your candidates?

How can candidates best prepare for the next stage?

What kind of candidate will thrive in your workplace/the role/during interviews?

While this might feel a bit ‘spoon-feedy’ – I am coming from a grad recruitment focus where a lot of these younger whipper snappers simply don’t have the experience and are far too stressed about university exams to prepare themselves for the more important job interview.

HOWEVER – in light of COVID-19’s forsaken economic crush and consequently, the millions of jobseekers in the unemployment line, possibly after many years-slash-decades secured in a long-term role, you can do some of the lifting and help them understand more about your recruitment process and expectations.

4. Meet the team / workplace video

Because, who doesn’t want to meet the rad bunch of humans they’ll soon be spending more time with than their cat and lover? Or the story of how your brand came to be?

Make it part of your practice to record a short video of the welcoming team introducing themselves, the role and the workplace in preparation for on-site interviews. I feel it’s valuable at this stage because the candidate is still assessing whether you’re their right fit and in helping them do so, you’re minimising your risk of a no-show, poor hire or candidate renege after offers.

Also, naturally, get the team together to congratulate the successful hire once the contract is signed. Because your candidate experience quickly transitions into your employee experience, and you still want to be nailing this!

5. SMS reminders

While email is the candidate’s preferred method of communication from recruiters, text/SMS has a 98% successful open rate, making it the most reliable form of communication (email averages 20%) (source: Jobvite). Just be mindful that not everyone is warm to receiving sales or recruitment messaging via SMS.

You could consider using it to complement your primary comms channel (usually email).

For example, you could use email to provide all-of-the-details to prepare a candidate for their upcoming interview, confirm their appointment by SMS, and then the day before/morning of the interview send a reminder text with a link to your office on a map and a “We can’t wait to meet you! From John + Jenny ACME”

6. Utilise top tech tools and apps to streamline your process

Technology’s advancing faster than we can keep up. Have you recently researched the top HR tools and apps that help enhance talent acquisition and time management?

You could explore ways to integrate features, like;

• full applicant tracking and communication (including read receipts)

• eligibility qualifiers

• automated follow ups

• task management

• setting up a hiring team

• posting job ads

• video interviews

• online candidate (self) interview scheduling

• background checks

• candidate surveys

• onboarding.

I’m not sure if one exists that does everything super-amazingly! Try starting out with a quality ATS together with a quality task management system (Asana, trello, Monday etc) and work from there.

7. Employee newsletters (email marketing)

My favourite most undervalued underused employer branding communication tool is the humble email / e-newsletter. Newsletters and blogs can provide a valuable insight into workplace culture, values, achievements and expectations.

You could include topics such as employee / role profiles, region profiles, CEO spotlight, industry trends and achievements, and top talent tips.

Not only will candidates feel more informed about your business, they’ll also gain a better idea if you’re a fit.

Step 4: Maintain contact post-interview

And you thought we were done. Ha.

Don’t neglect your candidates post-interview, even when they’re unsuccessful. Silver-medallists, especially the ones you thought were awesome for your organisation but perhaps not that team, or not that role, or not that time, should be directed straight into your talent pipeline pool dam irrigation system.

It seems silly to me that, if a candidate doesn’t fit a particular role, but they are suitable for others, why you wouldn’t keep them engaged. Imagine how much better it is for a top candidate to receive a connected email like this:

Connected Candidate Example Email >

We think you’re amazing! Unfortunately, you weren’t the best fit for our [marketing officer] role, but we think you could [be our next recruitment superstar].

We hope there’s no hard feelings on this occasion - Will you stay in touch? We’d love to keep you in the loop with our company news, employee stories, and latest vacancies you might be interested in. Friends?

instead of…

Disconnected Candidate Email >

Thank you for registering your interest in our recent job vacancy, [insert role title here]. Unfortunately, on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful. We thank you for your time and wish you luck in your endeavours.

Or WORSE,

*crickets*

I’ve heard a lot of crickets in my time. And they suck. Little bastards.

3 big benefits of maintaining contact with your unsuccessful candidates are, that you are:

• providing a positive candidate experience, despite the negative outcome

• securing a pool of potential future talent to fill future roles, short-term vacancies, or even replacements for when new hires drop out or renege (not that I’d expect this to happen if you’ve followed this guide precisely *wink*)

• building your brand as an employer of choice, sharing valuable information and demonstrating candidate care with the very people who have already expressed an interest in working for you. In marketing terms, they are considered a convertible warm lead. As a result, candidates could be more likely to apply again in future and/or even recommend you to friends and family they think might be a match for your opportunities

= reduced time and spend on recruitment, onboarding + training, PLUS reduced disengagement and toxicity from poor hires.

FYI, amigo - email marketing is clever and slick these days.

You can combine automation and personalisation at scale (and with AI) to provide what feels to the candidate like a customised content experience that retains their connection with your brand. Just sayin’.

Remember, you’re being assessed, too

Recruiters and hiring managers aren’t the only ones in control of the outcome.

While you may be the ones lookin’ for the next awesome employee, candidates are researching and interviewing you, too. And just like you aren’t impressed by poor candidate communication or poor social media profiles or ghosts – candidates don’t like that either.

No one’s going to get excited working for someone who doesn’t care about them.

After all, choosing an employer to commit to is a huge life-affecting decision that consumes emotional, physical and career investment.

So, communicate often; communicate well

Connecting early and connecting well saves you time and money and emotional pain that would otherwise be spent responding to unnecessary emails, poor online feedback, brand damage control (usually your PR or comms team extinguishing that flame), and re-hiring to recover from a poor hire.

You can effortlessly deliver strong relationship-building comms through your ATS.

Work through the ideas listed above.

Map your touchpoints and milestones and align them to how you want your candidates to feel.

Approach your communication from the position of ‘helpful guide’ and personalise your ATS email templates, infusing them with your brand’s culture and personality. Dress your updates to impress.

You only need to do this once, but if you do it well, you will re-create the magic of the golden fields, azure skies and heart-fluttering feeling for your candidates that –

They’ve found ‘the one’ in you.

Love this guide?

While it may be tempting to ‘bookmark’ the page and come back later > my money’s on you forgetting. Frankly, your candidates deserve better.