WP Job Openings
With a limited amount of time in the hands of the recruiters, it’s a rush to find the right candidate and close the open position. As always, the only sure way of knowing which shortlisted candidate best suits your organization is only towards the closing stages of the recruitment process.
However, amid this rush, the candidate communication aspect is something that most recruiters sacrifice. This is mainly due to the notion,” The candidates will wait to hear from me”. Yes, it’s true, but how long will they wait?
Due to the failure of not keeping the candidates in the loop, certain compromises will have to be made which can result in the hiring process being extended. In order to avoid making such compromises, we will explore how to enhance candidate communication at all stages of the recruitment process.
What Exactly Do We Mean by Candidate Communication?
By candidate communication, we are referring to mainly two things:
- Who all
- How often
Let’s take the first aspect “who all”. In the recruitment process, do you take time to contact all the candidates or just the shortlisted candidates? If you are someone who aligns with the latter, then this has to change. Even the candidates who are not shortlisted need to know about their status, rather than coming to a conclusion based on the radio silence observed from the recruiter side.
Now, the second aspect, of “how often”. Alerting the candidates right from successful application submission and at various stages is the right thing to do and what all candidates expect. Contacting the candidates as and when you feel the need is not a healthy practice.
So in short, letting the candidates know about their progress at proper time intervals is what we are referring to.
Why You Should Maintain a Strong Candidate Communication
There’s no shortage of candidates, but making sure they are available throughout the hiring process is tricky. Why? Because always remember that the candidates might have applied to other organizations and this opens up two scenarios.
Firstly, there may be candidates who have considered your organization as their first choice but are willing to settle for others depending on the circumstances, and then there are candidates who just want to land the job irrespective of the organization.
But for you, as a recruiter, the candidate with the best talent is what matters. In fact, you may have found a few after the initial rounds or a quick glance at the resumes may give you a few potential candidates. This is where the communication aspect comes into play.
As a recruiter, you should keenly express your interest in all the candidates right from the start itself. This can be easily achieved with an email such as, “We are currently discussing and evaluating you as a potential candidate and will get back to you shortly”.
What this does in turn is that it prevents the candidates from fully committing to other organizations, till they have heard back from you. This also increases the number of candidates you can tap into. The more you do this throughout the hiring process, the better your chances of hiring the right candidate faster and not losing them to the competitors.
How to Establish Proper Candidate Communication Throughout the Recruitment Process
The proper way to establish strong candidate communication is to take each part of the hiring process and analyze what’s the best course of action that can be applied there.
1. Incorporate Automation, But Only to Some Extent
The benefits of automation in the hiring process are vast, but not all utilize it to its full potential. But at the same time, it can impact the candidate experience if you don’t watch out. Now, the automation you can incorporate is to send out timely status updates to the candidates.
With this in place, you no longer have to worry about individually alerting the candidates during the various stages. This can easily implemented in your hiring process with our job board plugin WP Job Openings.
But then again, you must add the human element to the automation process. You have to predefine the mail content and make sure that the mail that is sent out addresses the candidates by their name. All this customization and more is available in our job board plugin.
2. Understand the Difference Between Feedback and Rejection Mail
There will be many rejections during the hiring process. There will be rejection at the very start, then after some rounds, and so on. Depending on which stage the candidate was rejected, an appropriate email should be sent.
But will you send feedback or a rejection email? How do you decide which one? If a candidate was rejected during the screening round, you could send a rejection email stating that they have not been shortlisted, citing the appropriate reason.
But if a candidate has done a few rounds, a rejection mail won’t suffice. They are entitled to a feedback mail. They need to know where they lack, and this is something that cannot be automated. Here, provide them with a detailed feedback letter that provides insights on how they can improve themselves.
So always remember that the communication aspect should also be maintained for the rejected candidates.
3. Unforeseen Circumstances
Sometimes, things go awry, resulting in the hiring process being delayed. But are the candidates made aware of this? If they are not, by the time you resume the process, most of the candidates will have moved on.
So, the communication aspect in such situations should also be considered. Communicate to the candidates about the delay and when the hiring process will resume.
4. Room for Improvement
Irrespective of how well you think you have nailed the communication aspect, trying to get feedback from the candidates is important. Each and every candidate will have their own opinions and providing a good experience to everyone in the first go is impossible.
Even with time, it is impossible, but what is possible is reducing the number of factors in the hiring process that can lead to a bad communication experience. For this, you need to reach out to the candidates. This could be achieved through an online form, Q&A, and so on.
Wrapping Up
Communication is an important part of the hiring process that can have valuable benefits but often gets overlooked. Maintaining this aspect is crucial and can make the hiring process a lot better for both parties.
