Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals, October 26, 2011 

A positive candidate experience is one in which the candidate obtains the key information that allows him or her to make a better decision about the job, says Gerry Crispin, co-founder of CareerXroads, a staffing strategy consulting firm.  

With this in mind, there are several things an employer can do to create a standout candidate experience: 

• Find more and better ways for candidates to see, meet, engage, and learn about people like themselves in the corporation—Candidates need to feel a welcoming sense, one that shows them that if they were to come to an organization, they would find people, for example, as enthusiastic or diverse as they are.
• Make it clear to candidates why people come to the organization and why people stay, and make the message consistent—Candidates should hear stories about why people come and stay from hiring managers, recruiters, leaders, and employees.
• Have proof that supports why people come to and why people stay in the organization—More and more, society is sales oriented, so job seekers are increasingly skeptical of “sales pitches” that may be hollow. For example, if a company claims to be diverse and yet only two of 100 engineers are women, the candidate can push back against the claim. Proof of the brand statement builds trust and leads to a positive candidate experience.
• Treat each candidate as an individual—A successful organization provides some sense that it knows who the candidate is, information about the next steps in the hiring process, the capability for the candidate to learn about his or her status, and assurance that the candidate’s privacy needs will be met. The organization starts to treat a candidate as an individual when it makes promises to him or her and then keeps those promises. 

NACE is conducting a workshop titled “The Candidate Experience: Best Practices” on December 1 in Boston.