Ghosting is becoming worryingly common in the world of recruitment 👻. You’ve probably felt that frustrating feeling when candidates suddenly have disappeared from the face of the earth. You can optimise your candidate engagement techniques to avoid these situations! Let’s take a closer look. 🕵🏼♀️
It’s quite sympl. (😉) Candidate engagement is the process of involving potential candidates in the recruitment process. You, the recruiter, stay in touch with your candidate from the first submitted application to their first day at work. Continuous communication will make the candidate feel positive about you and your organisation.
But watch out! Candidate engagement should not be confused with candidate experience, which is the overall impression a candidate has of your recruitment process.
Today’s job market is an extremely candidate driven environment. Young jobseekers are looking for a company culture in which they will be recognised and encouraged to grow. It’s important to pause and realise that your candidate probably hasn’t applied for only your vacancy and organisation. If the communication is a bit slow or awkward, it may very much influence the candidate’s preference of employer. Do everything you can to motivate and excite the candidate to work for your organisation! (bye bye competition!).
Candidate engagement has also become essential because today’s ‘modern’ candidates don’t like to be surprised. 🤡 They expect to be kept in the loop during the different stages of your recruitment process. A negative candidate engagement will have negative consequences for your organisation’s reputation. The candidates will share their experience with their friends and family, and some may even take their frustrations online, to Glassdoor, for example. Negative reviews prevent new potential candidates from applying for vacancies with your organisation. You’re better off without any online negativity!
A great candidate engagement is actually very sympl (😉😉):
For candidate engagement to exist, there has to be interaction between you and your candidate. (hence the engagement). Try to stay active on different social media platforms. Create and share fun images, videos 📹, or blogs about your company and ask your followers for their reaction in the comments. Candidates will get a better idea of what your organisation is like, which will encourage that precious enthusiasm to work for you.
Once you have convinced the candidate of applying to your vacancy, you should prioritise staying crystal clear about the entire application process. Give them a timeline of the next stages, and stick to it! No broken promises!
Are you a busy bee 🐝 or just forgetful (no judgement here)? In that case, it may be best for you to use an ATS. A what? Sorry, an Applicant Tracking System. It’s a type of software that supports you with the communication between you and your candidates. It will track where in the process the candidate is and whether they have been informed about it. Nice, right? The software offers a few handy tools as well, like automated confirmation emails, storage of video interviews, and a chatbot that can answer the frequently asked questions. But, be careful not to lose the human touch!
Finally, it is always in everyone’s interest to give and ask for feedback! 💬 Feedback is needed to improve, for both candidate and recruiter. Plus, by asking for the candidate’s opinion, you show that you value their contribution.
There you go, we hope that candidate engagement holds no more secrets for you. Engage and communicate to the fullest (but don’t overdo it!).
