Candidate experience is no longer a catchphrase but a full-blown area of focus under the talent acquisition umbrella that enormously affects an organization’s employer brand and its ability to attract top talent.

The candidate experience is the way talent feels about your company throughout the hiring process. Every interaction you have leaves a lasting impression. A stellar candidate experience leads to engaged applicants, positive word of mouth, and a higher offer acceptance rate, while a negative one can push great talent away.

Role of candidate experience in recruitment

When we talk about the benefits of a good candidate experience, it is not just the candidate who is benefitting from the good experience, but it is also the company that gets a positive impact on the entire workforce. Here are three ways that a good candidate experience can improve the entire talent acquisition process:

1. It improves retention of applicants

According to one of the studies done by Indeed, it was discovered that applications with 45 or more screening questions will result in the loss of at least 88.7% of applicants who are thought to have promise for the post.

Making the application process as simple as possible is one of the first actions that must be made to enhance the candidate experience. Once the application process is simplified, it will be easier to find the top applicants faster.

2. Make sure the first impression will always remain the best impression

One of the most popular types of work that individuals are interested in is gigs. Indeed, it has been noted that the number of persons choosing gigs has increased by roughly 15.8 percent compared to the previously noted numbers of 10.1 percent in 2015, according to labor experts Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger.

Additionally, it is observed that among these individuals, at least 40% hold advanced degrees. The businesses must put in more effort if they want to rank among the greatest places to work in this competition. This means that businesses must make sure that the top candidates receive the best candidate experience through the applications provided.

3. Raising the bar of brand awareness level

Companies frequently seek to raise brand awareness through a variety of organic methods, but it is challenging to do so even after successfully reaching a sizable number of individuals. According to a Software Advice survey, however, it was discovered that when a candidate has a positive experience, roughly 71 percent of the applicants are prepared to buy services. This indicates that a positive applicant experience will enable brand awareness to rise to a higher standard.

Top candidate experience metrics

Improving the candidate experience is a top priority for many hiring teams.

But as the saying goes, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. We’ve identified the top candidate experience metrics to focus on during each stage of the hiring process to ensure a positive candidate experience.

1. Application Completion Rate

Over the course of several years, 500,000 employment applications were examined by Recruiter.com's click-to-apply ratio. These applications were accessible on desktop, mobile, and a number of significant application tracking systems, and they covered more than a dozen different industries. According to the data, 10.6% of job applicants finished an application with fewer than 25 questions.

Candidates are more likely to take the time to continue the process if you are in tune with them.

2. Application Abandonment Rate

The percentage of applicants who begin your application process but never complete it is known as the application abandonment rate.

Take the number of applicants that abandoned the application process, divide it by the number of applicants who started filling out an application, then multiply the result by 100 to determine your abandonment rate.

According to Glassdoor, this figure is over 80% for the majority of businesses. Therefore, 4 out of every 5 applicants are lost by employers during the application process.

Even while an abandonment rate of 80% is typical, it's still not ideal.

The easiest thing you can do is shorten the application process to reduce your abandonment rate. The most qualified candidates are employed, time-constrained, and busy.

3. Time to Fill

This is the total number of days in the calendar that it takes to recruit and hire a new employee. This is frequently determined by counting the days that pass between the approval of a job request and the candidate accepting your offer. Time to fill can be affected by a number of variables, including supply and demand ratios for certain positions and the efficiency of the hiring team.

It's a wonderful metric for business planning and gives the management a realistic picture of how long it will take to find and hire a replacement for an employee who is leaving.

The time it takes to fill a position can be extended for various reasons beyond an inefficient scheduling or interview process. Candidates cannot always begin a role within the typical two-week timeframe for various reasons, such as relocation, contractual obligation, etc. This is why it’s always best to track the time it took from the day the position was open to the day an offer was actually accepted.

4.Candidate Net Promoter Score

One of the most challenging candidate experience metrics to monitor, net promoter score (NPS) is also one of the most important.

A NPS measures a candidate's likelihood to refer your business to friends, family, and coworkers. Additionally, it often has fields where users can provide feedback.

One common challenge is simply getting enough candidates to complete the survey. Some companies offer a gift card reward for doing so.

Choosing the ideal moment to ask candidates to complete the survey is another challenge. If you ask for feedback prior to rejecting or accepting a candidate, they can withhold their frank opinions out of concern for losing the opportunity.

If you ask them later, they might be less likely to complete the survey because they're already preoccupied.

While there is no one optimum moment to ask candidates, keep in mind that timing might have an impact on your comments. After someone applies, if you receive a lot of negative comments, you know your application procedure needs improvement. If the feedback you receive at the end of the process is overwhelmingly negative, you may want to reevaluate how you communicate rejections.

Regardless of how you look at it, obtaining honest feedback is a great method to find areas where you can grow.

5. Cost of a Bad Candidate Experience

The applicant experience has a substantial impact on whether or not candidates apply again, recommend others, and make purchases, according to a report by the Talent Board. The bottom line of your business will be negatively impacted by a poor candidate experience.

Calculating the overall number of applicants for your open positions as well as the number of applicants who were turned down will help you start quantifying the cost of a poor candidate experience. Then, take into account the average customer spend in dollars and the 11% general applicant resentment rate, as per the Talent Board's study. This will assist you in identifying potential lost clients and income, which is the first step in determining the effects of a poor candidate experience.

6. Statistics of your Career Site

60% of job seekers still consider corporate career pages to be the most crucial resource when researching new employment options.

Make sure you're advertising a user-friendly, SEO-optimized career website that gives applicants the chance to sign up for job notifications as well as the ability to stay in contact with your employer brand through various content efforts.

Establishing a team-wide consistent practice is what creates a fantastic applicant experience. However, you cannot enhance the candidate experience without monitoring these metrics because they will assist you to demonstrate your performance, enhance your employer brand, and identify any issues with your hiring procedure.

Your ability to track your progress will also assist you in creating a business case for further investment into improving your overall recruiting process.

Final Words

That’s all on this list. Track these six metrics to ensure a good candidate experience in your organization. As easy as this sounds, this is just one of the many things your HR team has to measure. Given your team’s hectic schedules and tight deadlines, measuring and analytics can easily take the back seat in the long run. To ensure this does not happen, and to increase the ROI on all your recruiting efforts, it is best to use an ATS that automates tracking these metrics for you.

What are your top candidate experience metrics?

Top Candidate Experience Metrics to Ace Your Recruitment Game