What is candidate experience? A recruiter's guide

In today’s competitive job market, candidate experience plays a pivotal role in shaping how job seekers perceive and engage with a company during the hiring process. 

From the initial application to interviews and beyond, every touchpoint influences a candidate’s view of the organization. While the importance of a stellar candidate experience was widely acknowledged during the candidate-driven job market, shifting economic conditions present new challenges and opportunities. 

As companies face a larger pool of active job seekers, those that focus on refining their candidate experience will gain a competitive edge, attracting top talent and strengthening their employer brand. 

In 2024, candidates still value clear communication and feeling respected during the hiring process, but the rise of AI-driven technologies has added a new dimension to candidate interactions. 

Concerns about AI’s impact on jobs are growing with 79% of candidates wanting transparency about AI’s role in hiring, making open communication essential from the outset. Businesses must prioritize clear communication and adapt to these evolving expectations in their hiring processes.

A global HireVue survey of 3,376 candidates found that over half have no plans to leave their current roles, highlighting the ongoing preference for stability amidst a complex job market. Explore the key elements of candidate experience, learn best practices to ensure a smoother, more engaging process for job seekers, and ultimately ensure the success of your hiring strategy.

What is candidate experience?

Candidate experience is how candidates perceive and interact with the hiring process. A stellar candidate experience was necessary for hiring teams as they battled for the best talent during a candidate-driven job market, but what about now?

We’re seeing a shift from candidates feeling empowered during a tight labor market, to those same people feeling defeated, or even hopeless, as economic shifts affect morale and openings.

The current landscape presents a real opportunity to put the human in human resources—remembering that candidates aren’t non-scarce resources to shuffle in and out. They are people with hopes and goals, and offering a candidate experience that is smooth and efficient is one way to show you value them as people first—not just employees. 

Best practices for candidate engagement 

A great candidate experience isn’t just about prospective team members, it  has the potential to strengthen the loyalty of current customers and create new ones while simultaneously increasing the depth of your talent pool, and helping you land the best talent.

When evaluating their experience:

• 67% of candidates have turned down a job because the hiring process was poor.
  
• 62% of job seekers cited poor communication as the top reason for a lousy hiring process, while 46% said it was due to a lack of transparency and 32% said it was due to a lengthy hiring process.
  
• 55% of respondents said a quick, transparent hiring process was the #1 hiring characteristic that would draw them toward a company.
  

Key components of candidate experience

It’s clear candidates are craving a positive candidate experience—one rooted in communication, speed, and transparency. HireVue offers AI-driven solutions that answer these concerns. 

• Engage: Boost response time, unlock recruiter productivity, and connect with candidates 24/7/365 through conversational AI and text automation.
  
• Screen: Say goodbye to outdated phone screens and hello to data-driven insights. Confidently identify and prioritize top candidates fast.
  
• Assess: Minimize bias by assessing for the skills and competencies that actually predict success—instead of resume review (which invites bias into the process). Combine with interviews for a unified experience that takes less than 20 minutes.
  
• Interview: Drive better hiring outcomes with flexible on-demand and live interviewing that integrates with your ATS. Conduct high-quality interviews and capture feedback at scale. Plus, get rid of scheduling headaches and slash time-to-hire with automated self-scheduling, invites and reminders—so you can focus on candidates, not calendars. 
• Hire: Make offers fast. Expedite hiring without compromising quality. Provide a faster, fairer experience with HireVue.

Learn more about ethical AI in the hiring process at our AI + Hiring Hub.

The benefits of a great candidate experience

While engaging every applicant, building a strong company culture, and simplifying your application process all work to improve the candidate experience, that’s not all—they also boost your bottom line

Recruiting automation empowers companies to aggressively compete for the top talent by finding the best candidates faster, and by drawing from a broader, more diverse pool.

Additionally, recruiting technology eliminates tedious tasks such as interview scheduling, which reduces cost-per-hire through significant time savings.

Plus, when you make a positive impact on candidates during the hiring process, employee retention skyrockets, saving thousands per person in employee replacement costs.

How do you measure candidate experience?

To measure candidate experience, you’ll need to survey your candidates and monitor change over time as you tweak your hiring process to improve. You can also monitor varying responses at different stages of the hiring process.

We recommend keeping candidate experience survey questions as short as possible, preferably one simple question. Ideally, your AI recruiting software will have candidate experience surveys and analytics built in.

One way to measure candidate experience is with a net promoter score (NPS) or customer satisfaction score (CSAT). By measuring it over time, teams can adjust their hiring processes to ensure they are meeting candidate expectations.

Read the full Smartlynx Airlines case study here.

Bottom line? A positive candidate experience matters just as much as a positive recruiter experience. With HireVue, you can have both. Request a demo today.