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Candidate Expectations Report 2023

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Recruiting Brainfood - Candidate Expectations Webinar

SmartRecruiters webinar October 2023

Cronofy

Adam Bird

Insights on the experiences that candidates tell us and the strategies TA teams need to action to meet their needs.

SmartRecruiters Integration

SmartRecruiters

Karin Philippczyk

Marqeta

Marqeta Inc

Stephanie Baysinger

Webinar in partnership with SmartRecruiters: How to deliver the experience candidates want

Adam Bird 0:01
Great. Well, thank you both. Thank you for, for coming with us and welcome everyone to this the webinar that Cronofy doing in, in partnership with with SmartRecruiters. And really what we're focusing on here is, I guess where this came from is we so Cronofy, did some research around candidate experience and been doing it for a number of years. And then we saw SmartRecruiters did a wonderful eBook about a kind of broader candidate experience opportunities. So it was like we were partners, we should actually talk about this stuff. So before we kind of press on actually start talking about it, I'd love to introduce our two speakers today. Karin Stephanie. Karin, would you like to make a stamp?

Karin Philippczyk 0:42
Yes, absolutely. And thank you, Adam, for partnering on this webinar with us. And then happy to be here with also you, Stephanie. So my name is Karin, I work for SmartRecruiters I've been in the TA industry for, I want to say a little bit over 10 years now, in pretty much all of the fields. So I managed and build a recruiting team for more niche recruiting, which was IT security in Germany, I worked in executive search for a big four. And I also did high volume hiring in India. So pretty much the whole range, that you can see all the fun. And then I switched over to the better side of life, to SmartRecruiters, where I started to be consultants on change management projects, adoption projects, and SmartRecruiters. Essentially, we have the ATS, we're the platform. This is the main part of the business, I would say. But then at the same time, we also focus heavily on the strategy. So we always say people, process and technology. And I'm responsible now as programme manager for the people in the process part and to kind of marry that with the technology all together. I'm really happy to be here speaking about candidate experience, because I feel like this is such a crucial topic, especially at the moment.

Adam Bird 1:59
Thank you. Yeah, you've got quite some experience there. Definitely. Definitely top that.

Stephanie Baysinger 2:04
I don't know if I can. But Hi, everyone, I'm Stephanie calling from Las Vegas, Nevada. So I am in the US. My background is in TA enablement. So part of what I can bring to this conversation is, you know, I am always part of the team building the team and operations that is providing recruiters with the tools with the processes and with the data and the knowledge to empower recruiting teams. So I have had experience both at large global private companies, pre IPO, post IPO scale ups. So all of these different kind of ecosystems where we're the constant is a really, really great candidate experience. So I love being able to thread that through and chat a little bit today about what things I kind of think are universal, and then what things can actually be tailored to where your team currently is and what your hiring goals are. I've been in the recruitment space for same as Karin, like a little bit over 10 years, and just excited to to be with Adam and Karin today to talk about something that I'm really, really passionate about, which is candidate experience.

Adam Bird 3:12
Thank you. Yes, I think it's often that that's, that's one of the key things is the actionable advice for the right sighs team that you are and that that can often be lost in these kind of conversations. I've also realised I forgot to introduce myself. So sorry about that. Adam, a CEO, co founder or Cronofy. What Cronofy does is that kind of we were the kind of technology that powers scheduling and about 70 different applicant tracking systems. And now through an additional set of tooling, our scheduling Assistant, we're providing extensions to SmartRecruiters greenhouse, lever to set up our scheduling there as well. And really, we've we've worked with so many product teams across a range of recruiting systems, and therefore across a range of industries, that we've kind of got this kind of helicopter view of all the challenges and all of the demands that recruiters have around scheduling. So that was our initial kind of motivation for the candidate expectations report is we couldn't find any kind of primary research around actually what is it? It is candidates were going through, there's plenty for recruiters, which fine they're important. But actually are the candidates feel like the people we should really understanding that their perspective. And I think we're kind of new organisations are coming coming around to that, which hopefully is a nice segway to the first question, which is kind of why do we care? Who'd like to take this up first?

Karin Philippczyk 4:32
I can go ahead with this one. And I think it's it's a nice question also for Stephanie, because we've been in the space for those 10 years where I feel like the market has changed so much. I remember first time I was applying to a job it was all about, oh, what do you know about this company and what can you do for us and it was all in this kind of more serious kind of setting of what can you bring to the table as a candidate and I think this has changed a lot. And also our numbers are proving this. I mean, we also when we we're going to show a QR code at the end of this webinar, where I pull all the numbers from but basically talent professionals, they're saying that to 64%, the market is going to change more in favor of the employees of the candidates in the next five years. And I think we've already seen this kind of evolvement from like a employer market to an employee market. And I think one of the most crucial things is that businesses that cannot hide anymore behind their fancy brand name, there fancy marketing, everything is visible, and everything is transparent. And one of the most crucial things is candidates want, more people want more. And in my opinion, they don't want anything out of the ordinary or anything that isn't rightfully so they want to feel not as a candidate, but want to feel the human experience. They want to be valued, they want to be valued in their time, even though there might be candidates that might not be as qualified might not get hired, but they still want to have this human experience that value of them. And I think this is why it's getting more and more important, especially because everything is visible. As I said, we have Glassdoor in Germany, we have kununu. There's a ripple effect. So if you get negative reviews from candidates who are declined, this is going to really impact your business, the candidates are now impacting your business directly by giving negative reviews. And in the report, it also says that candidates that have a negative experience are 185% Less, just imagine that number 185% less likely to be willing to refer someone to that company that they had a negative experience with. And I think this is, this is one of those, those moments where we have to say, Okay, we gotta change something. So it's definitely point one, there's more favourable market for candidates, human experience is crucial. And then also, keep in mind the ripple effect that we have. So those are my like, big three, why do we even care about this?

Adam Bird 7:13
Yeah, and I think actually, there was some research it was a few years ago now, but one of the broadband providers in the UK discovered they were giving a poor candidate experience, and they were churning their broadband. And so it was like directly hitting their bottom line, it was it was amazing. Stephanie, how about, you know,

Stephanie Baysinger 7:31
that that is such a good point. And, you know, I've seen the degree of transparency to Karin's point, just skyrocket from, you know, working at a brand where we can kind of control how a candidate interacts with us what they see what they don't see. And that's completely just different now, even after a decade with Glassdoor and reviews and friends of friends like the market right now, which I think a lot of folks in this industry know like it is, we are seeing applications, and we'll talk about applications in a bit. But by the 1000s per job, I know my network is quite small, I share with my friends where I applied, what that experience was, like, who, you know, what I recommend someone else apply there, like that actually happens in my day to day life. So take that to the degrees of connection you might have in your network, like why do we care? It's, it's, it's about your brand, and what people might be saying about you. And for those that are on the call, like, I know, we also have to kind of lobby or sell why we need budget or resources for these types of tools. And so another reason why I care a lot about it in my ops role is connecting that to the business impact. So Adam, exactly what you said there are numerous examples around there, especially if you're currently working for a b2c type company where your applicants live or breathe or interact with your brand as consumers, it can make a really big hit on the bottom line. So relationships with your customer support team, your sales team, your marketing team, can help you kind of triangulate some data to help you with how to have a much stronger candidate experience. And so connecting that to actually the business case and your profits and your your revenue stream can be really important too for the brand and might be a stretch. I'm always around to help talk about any of that. But I don't want to lose sight of the fact that in our industry right now connecting this back to business revenue, can help all of us on the call, kind of get the tools and the support that we need to help give candidates that experience that they expect.

Adam Bird 9:40
Thank you. Yeah, I think actually, with this kind of thing, I think about putting my current employer hat on, and that actually I want the best candidates. That's it. That's sort of like the foundation of my business is that the best people want to work at my company and I can encourage them and convince them that we are the best place for the next stage of their career. If I'm giving them a bad experience, or then they're just gonna go somewhere else was it the US labor bureau of labor statistics are saying, January this year was the lowest month of employment since May 69. There are just so many, so many jobs, and so few candidates. So it's an absolute fight. And one thing we saw from our our count expectation report is that communication was like the number one thing that candidates as the number one most important thing in the recruiting process, just communicating with candidates, I saw a stat on LinkedIn the other day about ghosting and number of people that just cast just get ghosted. It's like, they've, they're not going to stick around. You've lost them. That's it, they're gone. And to your point, they're going to be far less likely to even engage with you again, and you've kind of lost that person from your talent pool. So I think there's so many. Yeah, the candidates and afar from the position get back to your point current around it. early days, when we were first looking for jobs, we were ooh did we have to work hard to convince. Definitely flipped is it's a seller's market. So yeah, I think there's there's there's all sorts of reasons. But I think, certainly I think Stephanie's point that linking it back to the business and obstacles is, is critical, because that's how you get the CFO, CEO to actually listen to the fact that recruiting is a strategic function. So there's about caring, we've talked about a couple of reports, I think what I'd be interested to do is run a bit of a poll. So what I'd like to know is, how are you measuring candidate experience today? Really, so hopefully, that poll should appear any minute? With my, the kind of QI Elves? I think there you go. So would be really great. If you could could fill that in, it's really just to kind of understand how do you know whether or not you're actually giving candidates good, bad experience. And we'll kind of, we'll leave the poll up for a bit as we kind of, we talked through the lesson, we'll kind of, we'll share the results at the end of the next section. So moving on, as we have shorter time, right, let's talk about the pre application experience. What is the pre application experience? Talk to me,

Stephanie Baysinger 12:21
I kind of consider it. Everything that a candidate can find about your organization. Before they even know if there's a job open. You want someone to be you want it, you want it to be sticky, you want someone to go search for potentially, you know, working at your company, it's everything they see, and everything you put out into the universe, before they actually click apply for a job.

Karin Philippczyk 12:46
And I think to this, I think we can even go a step further. It's also everything they cannot see. So you're just Mindlessly scrolling through LinkedIn, or through through Instagram. I mean, I'm still millennial, I still use Instagram. But you scroll through it, and you see this ad coming up, and then you see negative comments below it. Or it's just like the things you don't even really consider because you're not looking but you still kind of you heard it before. And I think this is already where it starts. Because it's just it's not just a nice job ad that you put out there. That is the pre application experience. It's everything that is out there. If you find it, or don't find it, if you subconsciously said, I think this whole entirety of like what is happening, not just this job ad because a lot of I think a lot of our customers actually they think, okay, pre application experience for nice job site of a nice job description, click on the button. It's easy, perfect pre application experience. That's that's not it, you got to curate a whole experience around it to make it to make it good entirely. So for me pre application experiences, everything's definitely said and plus everything you see necessarily as an employer put out there in the world.

Adam Bird 14:00
Yeah, I think what's what we see within this change in the kind of the sales world as well is that people kind of pre inform themselves so much more before they'll even speak to someone before they'll even consider applying for something because there's so much information out there. And we're putting that out there all the time, I'm sure was a quick look at what the what is the status quo right now? Yeah, talk me through where, what you're what you're both seeing. Obviously, your employees don't do this at all, but what are you seeing in the market?

Karin Philippczyk 14:33
So I think in market a lot now is about company culture, company values. And I think this is an important it's a really important factor. Actually, we have 77% of global workers, they feel the company values and the purpose are really important to them to selecting employer. The status quo, though is and I think Stephanie is going to touch upon this a little later, is that if there's a discrepancy. You can't just put out there culture and values and then not inherently have them in the company. This is the discrepancy that makes your pre application experience just really, really bad if you say we have a lot of transparency within it, but then you don't show the candidate any transparency within the process. So I think this is really out in the market that that false sentiment or sentiment of, of safety of companies saying, Yeah, we have values, but do you live them? Are they are they actually? Are they actual values? Or are they just buzzwords you put out there in the market. And I think that's a little bit, unfortunately, the status quo at the moment.

Stephanie Baysinger 15:36
And to add, like, to kind of tweak this to like, where I see a big opportunity is in the talent communities. You know, I've, I've always had those on my wish list to build a lot of companies that I've been in, I've seen when they're done well, and I see like, just a really big opportunity. So for those on the call that, you know, we'll talk later about application volume, communication being so important to candidates and where you can actually control a bit of the messaging that goes out could be in things like talent community. So I'm kind of seeing right now in the market. It's a really beneficial place to help nurture a brand with candidates by building out these communities. And I see that as a really big opportunity right now that you know, if if you haven't thought about those if they're not on maybe your your wish list, and might be something to kind of noodle on with your teams after this call?

Adam Bird 16:29
Well, actually, let's just, let's go to the next slide. Like what should we be doing? Do you want to guess? What could teams be doing? To? To actually action that Stephanie.

Stephanie Baysinger 16:40
Yeah, I think it's around understanding, like kind of what I talked about at the beginning, like, what are some of your company goals? Are you in a hypergrowth stage? Are you looking for specific pockets of talent, if you don't kind of know what that is, this is kind of the call to action to go seek that out. Because that will help you put together a really strong plan for what parts of the candidate experience you want to invest in. So I just talked about, you know, a talent community, those can be great for teams that are seeing a huge influx of applications that know they want to nurture and source within a talent pool that has already kind of signalled interest in your company. Other things to be doing are, you know, knowing the type of talent that you're looking for in your pipeline, so that you know who to move to a talent community and who you actually want to move forward in the process. We talk a lot about Adam, you, you kind of talked about the importance of communication for candidates. Something that hit home with me when I was reading through the report is, you know, I got curious about like the definition of communication. And there's so much nonverbal communication, kind of what Karin and I were just talking about everything in your brand that's kind of out there is all this nonverbal, something you might not have control over or you due based on what you write. But you're signalling just all of these messages. And so really taking an audit of what you're putting out there and what your job descriptions look like what they're saying, your your employees LinkedIn profiles, what they're saying what they're projecting what the brand, and Glassdoor is projecting all these nonverbal pieces, if we know communication is the number one thing that candidates are looking for, I would challenge all of us to not just think of that as like what you say to them on the phone, or what you put in an email, it's actually communicating all of these nonverbal things throughout your whole process.

Adam Bird 18:33
Thank you, Karin what you're seeing is, it's good.

Karin Philippczyk 18:37
Um, so for me, I think I think kind of ties into what Stephanie also said, with the with the CRM with the talent community. And I like to think of the candidates as consumers. For me, there are 100% consumers. And as we all know, if we ever ordered something, you fall into a talent pool, because you receive all those subscription emails, if you just ordered a sweater or something. So I really see also the CRM and the talent communities piece is really, really strong. But what I also see is definitely the technology. So just imagine we're staying with the same example you're looking for a sweater, you're you're like scrolling on your phone, the filters are not adaptable, you can't really you know, the order process is difficult because you can pay by PayPal and all this and, and users and consumers are just they're expecting the best of breed when they when they shop online. And it's the same for jobs, they shop online for jobs. And this is why we need a good technology. We have a whopping like 92% of candidates who click an Apply button and never actually apply. They don't fill out the application. Why? Because the technology is not good. It's not up to par and it's not up to expectations. If I cannot parse my resume if I cannot connect LinkedIn, if I have to upload again all the information that's already my CV, your pre application experience is broken. That's not how it works anymore. I think the expectations are way higher. And I know Adam, you're gonna give a couple interesting stats to this one, later on for the candidate expectations also for interviewing, but it's the same that goes hand in hand with Self Scheduling or scheduling altogether. If there's a whole back and forth. Without technology and the support of the tech, then the pre application experience is just not good anymore. And if I now think about how do I pay for my sweater, can I pay it by PayPal? Or is it really complicated? It's the same for how can I apply? Is the application process a hassle? Well, then I'm also expecting like the interview process to be a drag to the offer process being like, oh my gosh, like, do they actually do our thing and print out and by fax or by I don't know, mailing? So I really think we have to do better. And it's crazy, because two thirds, I mean, two thirds of candidates actually seen opportunity for a better experience when they apply to roles, the candidate see it. So if they see it, maybe and this goes hand in hand with us, like, how do you evaluate candidate experience? The question we asked earlier, just ask them, What can we do better? And I think this is also something that's crucial. But for me, definitely a candidate is your consumer. And that's how it's going to stay. And this is also how you should treat them.

Adam Bird 21:27
Yeah, it's a really interesting point around the expectations, you're setting expectations that this is actually what it's going to be like working in that company. And did you talk before principles, values, etc, being excluded by the companies, that you say there's one thing, but then it's a very long form, and it takes ages and communicates with you. There's a dissonance there a disconnect, which is you're just going to put people off. So anyway, let's Oh, we just stopped the poll, which is great. Before we look at what we what we think you should measure. So postare surveys is the primary way people are measuring candidate experience. Be interesting, I think, I don't know if you have anything on this Karin around, whether or not the hiring surveys are filled in. It's like a success bias there where like, if you get the job, of course, I'm going to fill in the survey.

Karin Philippczyk 22:17
Yeah, I also know of companies that actually, they give you kind of like a bonus, if you fill in good reviews. I didn't know how valuable it is to actually get feedback from from the candidates you hired. Obviously, it is if it's anonymous. So never never put a name down. That's the first rule. But then what I think we kind of forget as the candidates that we have rejected, which is usually the 80 to 90%, and the 80 to 90%. They're loud in the market, if you're not good. So I would make really sure that if you have a good pre application experience, you are in contact with those candidates, and they're more than happy to help you to improve your process. They will give you feedback, I think most companies don't invest enough to kind of get that feedback from rejected candidates, because they're like, Okay, they're gone, we don't have contact to them anymore. And that ties in so nicely, and I'm so happy you said that's definitely with the talent communities. Because if you had someone that applied, you can move them into the community and reach out to them and be like, Hey, you were your candidate before? Would you be happy to fill this out and help us improve our experience. And I think this is why it's so nice to have a talent community of candidates who applied who were rejected. But there might be a good voice on the market for you to kind of carry that, that voice of like, this is actually a positive, there was a positive pre application experience.

Adam Bird 23:47
Right? I need to stop being interested and start being a host. We need to think about timing. So what should we be measuring? Do you want to pick up some highlights here about how we can measure the pre application experience, anything that sort of you want to sort of call out?

Karin Philippczyk 24:04
For me, it's always measure what matters. So don't even collect all this data, if you're not going to do anything with it. This is why keep it simple. Pick out one that has the most optimization value to you. So if you're you're maybe you don't have engagement, so maybe double check your social media engagement. If you continuously like put a lot of effort into your campaigns, so for example for the talent communities that Stephanie mentioned, then maybe look at the open rate is it actually interesting what you're sending out. So measure what matters, keep it simple. You can measure everything but are you actually going to use it. This is always my first advice to customers and we have a lot of measures that are possible. Just pick out the one that is right for you.

Adam Bird 24:50
Stephanie anything you want to add I

Stephanie Baysinger 24:52
think that is as perfectly said I will not add to that. That was absolutely perfect.

Adam Bird 24:58
Thank you. Right Okay, so we done the pre application, all the stuff we have, in many ways as a recruiting team is quite hard to control. Now. Now we're in the recruiting teams domain, we're into the into the application experience. So let's, what's the status quo right now? We've talked a bit about this already. So this what we're seeing in the market? Is this what people are doing, is this, what candidates are experiencing? What's your feel for what's out there?

Stephanie Baysinger 25:29
I think Karin had something like that is just so important with this is that what you're, it's 2023, what you're putting out there in terms of your application experience is a brand of what what candidates would expect as employees in your company. So clunky application processes, you know, processes where you're kind of duplicating information from your resume back into, you know, data fields, lengthy questions that aren't going to be used, this is a signal of like, how your recruitment teams or whoever's in charge of that, how they value time, how they value the data that they receive. And I think that sends a really strong signal on what kind of company they could be joining. So kind of taking, really putting yourself in the shoes of a candidate, if you haven't even applied like after this call, go and apply, go through the process yourself, and see what that feels like. Again, I'm really bad about it, I don't do it every once in a while. And we just set a goal to make every quarter go through and apply for the job and figure out what could be redundant, what is duplicative? What you know, even, you know, what kind of legal requirements are are there. Now, in certain regions here in the US, we have a lot of legislation around pay transparency, New York is passing laws on how we have to define how AI is used in our processes are those up to date, and those all signal to candidates, what kind of environment they might be joining, you're you're kind of the first the first entry point for a lot of people into your entire company, which is a big burden to bear. But it also can be really, really empowering to kind of be front of market and how you present that to candidates.

Adam Bird 27:10
I think that's a really important point about the data capture, because we're kind of, we have this idea that, Oh, we should capture it just in case, it might be useful. And to your point Karin around measure, measure what you're measuring, just capture what you need, you can act upon. But also we're living in a world where privacy and personal data privacy is super, super important. So the the less information we can take from Kansas, the better and the less we have to manage and maintain from a security compliance perspective. So I think there's a win on in many ways, because you're shortening the process, you're not taking anything you don't need. And you're making your company more compliant with legislation. Sorry, Karin, what would you like to add to this?

Karin Philippczyk 27:49
I think that's, that's pretty much spot on. I think we all agree on this. And especially with all the data that's being captured from us, I think we were pretty free and giving out information a couple of years ago, because it was all so new and exciting. And we didn't know what like terrible things people could do with our data. And nowadays, it's getting more and more restrictive. I see that people want to don't want to put out too much, too much of their privacy. Obviously, there's like Instagram, Tik Tok etcetera, you put out stuff that you want to put out, but you don't want to be forced to do it. And I think we really have to consider this when we when we ask for candidate data throughout throughout the whole process, and exactly as Stephanie said, like, Do we really have to send them everything as a candidate? Or what do we do with the data?

Adam Bird 28:41
Certainly, one thing we've seen as well from candidates is, there's an expectation, it's like this post pandemic kind of cliche almost, but by two thirds of candidates told us that they expect more use of tech for employers in the process, you know, that they understand that this is a this is an arduous process for everyone. And anything you can do to streamline it is expected. But I think more importantly, was the kind of 56% US candidates said responsiveness was the most important thing. Now the US might worked surprise the most impatient nation. But the but you're still talking about it. And the idea that people will apply and don't hear is just gobsmacking and not even just an auto response, but very quickly after some human response from from from a recruiter basically buys you some time for that and makes you makes the candidate feel okay. Actually, whilst I understand technology in the process, actually, someone is looking at this, actually, as someone has received and acknowledged my my application. So actually, I'm gonna give them a bit more time because they've done and so you you can use tools at your disposal to give yourself more time I think

Stephanie Baysinger 29:57
that is not I know this is not a conversation Should on automation, but you're hitting on a really good point of as more things in our process as talent acquisition professionals can be automated. Ideally, it's opening up more space for the personal connections, we can't scale or automate everything, automate the things that you can so that, you know, your report is showing exactly what Yes, I'm moving. Candidate expect? So use that, hopefully, you know, additional time that the automation is providing you to build those personal anecdotes or personal connections that you know, the technology can't automate today.

Adam Bird 30:38
Well, it always astounds me recruiters for me my experience recruiters are people people. Yeah, they don't get into recruiting to do admin. That's, that's the way down on their list of things to do. So actually use the tech to free up the time to do the bid, you actually are really good. I love doing.

Karin Philippczyk 30:59
Absolutely. And I think if we if we start just thinking about this processes, as he says, like, they barely receive a thank you note after they apply it. So it's 58% say only 50% say they have received a thank you note after they applied, which is insane. I ordered something from Amazon like huge global enterprise, like whatever I ordered, I always get a thank you note, but I don't get one. Once I like, I like made my resume I sent this in I spend time getting to know the company and then I don't even get to think you know, but I get one when I ordered a sweater or I don't know, something else. So it's just crazy to me. And it's, as you say, like, what, what time do we have to spend with the candidate? So where are the touch points? And I think this is where Stephenie you said, sometimes we have to apply to our own roles, because then we feel like we're the touch points that we actually need the human connection. So I want to have the application, the pre application process should be automated. Ideally, we'll have a chatbot that just responds to you know, the simple, the simple questions like where is it located? Is this role still open, etc? I can apply? Okay, what is the first time I want to speak to a person? Well, maybe even when I'm past the screening that all the hard facts in my CV are correct? Well, okay, this might be the first time. So I really think we have to think about those touch points where we actually need a human to discuss, I don't want to discuss with a chatbot, how my contract is going to look like or my bonus or my variable. This is not the point where I want to speak to machine. This is the point I want to exchange and kind of see also the reaction of my counterpart. And then just a quick comment also to like all this data connection, that I see still a lot in the market, a lot of companies are still asking for CVS. And for some blue collar roles, I get my head, I'm like, Why the hell are you asking for a CV, this person is going to deliver a parcel, this person needs to have like the understanding of the language. They don't have to go through a huge written test. They don't have to why? Why do you need a CV. So in my head, I'm always like, measure what matters and collect what matters. Because if someone is applying for a social media role, maybe just look at their social media, maybe collect their their, how many followers they have what they put out there in the market. So I think there's so many aspects where we can pretend improve this whole experience. But namely, it's like, valued at time. See which process you can automate, what's the tech and where you need the human touch points. And then don't ask them for too much, because then they're just not gonna apply it all together.

Adam Bird 33:38
I think it's interesting, you both kind of brought up the human touch, because actually, this is where our research kind of flips on its head. So whereas us candidates, responsiveness was like 56% of like, the most important thing, actually human touch for candidates in the US only 18%. But said it was important. Whereas actually, France and Germany were like 54 53%. And so almost there. There's like, almost like this kind of diagram where you got expectations of automation and responsiveness and expectations of human touch. And I think what we're saying is you can, why not have both, that you can use technology to really end in especially in a market where candidates have low expectations of human touch. If you can turn around and say we'll actually provide the human touch and the responsiveness, then you're going to be so much better than everyone else.

Karin Philippczyk 34:27
Yeah, exactly. And I think I love to serve as like speak your candidates love language. So if they if you realise like they need more,

Adam Bird 34:36
can you repeat that speak your candidates?

Karin Philippczyk 34:38
They're kind of the candidates love language. So how do they like to communicate? Do they need more help today? Maybe it's an older candidate that doesn't you know, is not super comfortable with the tech, give them the option of like, here's a chatbot but also give them the option to call you up and ask those questions in person. And I think this is where we need to be a little bit more mindful. We'll have you know, inclusivity because some, some people may just not feel comfortable with tech, other people are really uncomfortable speaking to a person directly, maybe in a first call. I mean, I don't I don't respond to anyone calling me if I don't know what to call the number. So why would why would someone like why would someone call me or your company call me I just applied there, I'm not going to pick up my phone, like I expected WhatsApp or an email. So really kind of try to understand candidates out there in the market. And don't just brush them over one, one criteria and say they're all the same, because they're all going to be different.

Adam Bird 35:38
Stephanie anything more to add before we move on?

Stephanie Baysinger 35:41
I mean, I think it's to your point enemies have recruited for people, people. So don't lose that art of the individualised experience for a candidate where you can put that in there when we get to offers like that can make all the difference.

Adam Bird 35:53
Yeah. But yeah, I think yeah, candidates love language is a new is a new phrase for me. And I think Lina in the chat as is agreeing. So. So what a measure you talked about, was it 92%? Don't complete applications.

Karin Philippczyk 36:10
Yeah. 92% isn't that crazy? They click on apply, but they don't complete the application. I think this is why application completion rate is high up there. But then at the same time assessment completion rate, so if you have a role open that doesn't require a full application, but maybe just an assessment of you know, I don't know some sort of thing. Yes, I can deliver this or Yes, I can do like basic math, or Yes, I can fill in like a timesheet, etc. Give them an assessment. Why would you give them a see like the task to fill in a CV? I'm all for hiring for skills. If you haven't realized yet, so I'm all for assessments and stop asking for letters of motivation. Because I mean, ChatGPT writes a better one. And I would say, I wouldn't ever do it myself anymore.

Adam Bird 37:01
But I do think I do see people starting to experiment with like, SLAs, around time to recruit first real contact from a recruiter. Yeah, that's a really, just to kind of just a common sense check for the team. Are we actually giving this? know we're delivering the human touch. Where are we with this and just starting to measure and see that data is, you can then start to see actually, well, hold on. It's like five days. That's no good. Yeah, we should do. Anyway, we've done.

We're so over time, it's just too interesting. Right? Interview experience. So poll, it's poll time, how long does it take you to schedule your interviews today? So that poll is going to appear very quickly in the chat, thanks to the QI Elves. So I've just realised it's a very British TV reference, which no one's gonna get. So I'm gonna stop saying that. Right. Okay. So the status quo, the candidate experience, for interview. Just definitely anything you'd like to share on the kind of interview experience?

Stephanie Baysinger 38:07
Yeah, when one point of view I'll just throw out for everyone kind of taking my ops hat on, I've worked really internally a lot with with our interview teams, taking all of this and flipping it internally. What are your interviewers seeing the power of tools like auto scheduling tools, it's for the candidate, but I know this is a candidate expectation webinar. But hear me out like when you can automate things for your interview teams as well, like, what are some of the norms you have across your business? What can you book over? What do interviewers know about your scheduling tool? What kind of expectations on you know, communication and time just like a candidate with your interviewers, it's really, really important, especially in my operations, kind of roles that I've had and where I've seen this, the why on that is, when you can reduce all this cognitive load for your interviewers, they show up better for your candidates. So the automation, actually, you know, pays it forward and how people are going to show up for your candidates providing them with a better experience.

Adam Bird 39:06
Yeah, recruiters are very much they're kind of this nexus between the candidate and the hiring manager. And SLA is around that. It's very, and they've got jobs and demands on their time and fragile bodies, and all these things can go wrong in the process. And it's to making that as easy as possible to enable you to deliver is super valuable. I appreciate we've just jumped straight into what we should be doing about it. So let's just do that. Yeah, let's let's we all know how bad it is right now. Karinanything you'd like to talk to us about?

Karin Philippczyk 39:39
Yeah, just a little bit around again, the human touch and the value of the candidates. Because we see that the top three reasons that candidates actually withdraw from in active recruiting experience, and I'm really speaking not from the process. I want to say this, it's a recruiting experience. It's not a process Since you're not moving a parcel, you're moving a candidate into an experience. And the top three reasons why candidates withdraw, actually, they're saying my time was disrespected during the interview process. I think Stephanie this goes hand in hand with what you're saying, like, help your interviewers or hiring managers to show up, like, with already, you know, motivated and having their head free from all the admin stuff. And this also helps to respect the candidates time a little more. And then the second reason is that the recruiting process took too long. And that's a little bit I think, a little bit if he feels like, what is too long. There are some candidates that they might need, you know, week between two interviews, because they just need to recover. Maybe they're stressed about it, maybe they have to prep something, there's a lot going on at home. So just like, kind of gauge for candidates give them multiple options to schedule. And this is why Adam I'm not saying that because also, we're partnered but this is why Cronofy, obviously allows like the self scheduling app. And I think this is if the candidate says the entire day recruiting process took too long, but put the power in the hands of the candidate and say, Okay, you schedule the next interview, you reschedule if you don't feel well today. And I think this also kind of gives a feeling of human touch because we give them the power we give them those decision processes themselves. And I think this is really, really crucial for candidates today in the market. And then one more point I just want to touch upon is structured interviewing. If candidates say they were not respected during the recruiting process, it's it's a lot or that time isn't valued. It's a lot of times because we're still asking basic, I'm gonna just gonna say dumb questions. If I still ask for your five weaknesses, your five strengths, what do you want to be in five years? I will drop out of an interview process to be quite honest. You need a structured interview, and you need to ask smart questions. If you don't know how to structure your interviews, because you have never done it, then just start really simple. So company values. Is that a fit? Yes. No technical fit? Yes, no. And we actually seen with one of our customers call Yeus in EMEA, that they reported a 25% increase in first year higher retention, just by structuring the interviews, because they learned so much more about the candidates, it was so much more in depth, and they actually valued the candidates so much that this information that they were given, they could use it, and this improved retention by by 25%, which means just crazy. I mean, that's a really good number. But this is why for me structured interviewing is high up there on the list, and then the Self Scheduling,

Adam Bird 42:56
sourcing candidates, it's outrageously expensive from an organisation perspective. And so then if you then lose that candidate, because they weren't a good fit, then you've that you've got to start again, and the kind of organisational costs, I think there's all sorts of it's interesting to sort of talk about the the scheduling process, obviously, this is my specialist subject. But one thing we saw in the report was like half of candidates have left an application process because they couldn't get loan interview in time. But which is bonkers. Just just setting up an interview. And I think there's a difference between scheduling the interview and the interview happening. And to your point Karin where it actually will actually I do need as a candidate I need a week, just to make sure I'm set or I've got to fit around some other work. Yeah, actually, I've got a job. Right now I've got a job, and I've got a fit around that job. But I can schedule it, I can give me a link, I can schedule it in an hour. Brilliant. And I that's that's super responsive, and everyone knows what's happening. But you're putting that power in the hands of the candidate. So I think there's some really interesting waste that people often when they look at sort of time to hire metrics, they look at kind of overall, how can we get the candidate into the interview process through as quickly as possible? And I think kind of slightly the wrong kind of bit cart and horse. In that actually what you want is how quickly can we get the interview scheduled. And so it for candidates who are going straight to the press as quickly as possible, we can support that for candidates who didn't need a bit more time. We can still support that. But it's actually those dead times in the time to hire process. That's where you, you lose just weeks with without anything happening with candidates and candidates do just walk because like I say, as we've said they've got they've got options. Anything else you wanted to add? Stephanie?

Stephanie Baysinger 44:47
Thanks. So no not on this topic. Okay.

Adam Bird 44:50
Great. Well, I'm note we're still, we're still moving on to terms of what to measure. Yeah, we talked about time to schedule cancellation rate, is and interesting one. We see that we can sort of basically just not not turning up for interviews. The other one to measure is rescheduling, which we should upon here was rescheduled by hiring managers.

Stephanie Baysinger 45:09
Yes. Powerful data point I have gone to executives with using and been able to say, one, there's a cost associated this if you don't kind of know the time your internal business is spending, interviewing, that's something that would be a really great measure to have. And then how many times that's rescheduled? A lot of times that is the magic data point, to help an executive or a leader of a function, move interviewing as a visual priority for their team, that one piece of data, a lot of times we get my ass on a slide at a town hall meeting, because I showed how many times we've rescheduled? And that's actually could be what's impacting time to filling the seat.

Adam Bird 45:52
Right? Of course, yeah. Because we're just kicking candidates down the road, and it'd be fine. I've got this other fire that's burning or something. And the reason you got the fire burning is your team's too small. So

Karin Philippczyk 46:05
just one comment on the no show rate. And I think this goes with Adam, what you were saying with like, the SLAs for how long does it take us to schedule an interview? I like to look at the time it took a candidate to schedule. So when did the candidate get back to me, because we do see that a lot. If you send out a Self Scheduling link, and it takes the candidate a long time to schedule. Maybe there's going to be no show because maybe they're not as involved in the process. But I like to monitor that how fast they get back to me also with a feedback or with a question or if obviously, we're giving them a task. How fast do they get back to us and I think the option for them to then reschedule without having a call and find another appointment, but really to reschedule themselves without having this anxious call of being like, oh gosh I've got to call them and cancel. I think if it gives them the option to reschedule without any human touch, I think this is perfect, because this is going to drop the no show rate actually. Because you can reschedule. And as a recruiter, obviously rescheduling an interview will always like person, like probably like they don't want you. But stuff happens in everyone's life. So the first time it was really mindful about it. And I think it's just so much easier if they can just reschedule themselves and actually no show rates are dropping, because they're happier, it's a better time for them. Yeah,

Adam Bird 47:28
you can fit it in around their lives and their work. It just want to put on thread you mentioned around this kind of almost getting a feel for the intent of the candidate or the motivation of the candidate based on their responsiveness. Do you see anything in any tooling that allows you to kind of rather than just your feels?

Stephanie Baysinger 47:45
I'm trying to think of ways you could but then I think it goes back to Karin's point of like, okay, what are we going to do with the information if we ask? Yeah, like that's like the power of we get to the offer stage, you know, kind of get jumping ahead of myself, but we can get your questions and a call, helps with the offer stage. How early in the in the experience, Karin, I really liked what you said, I'm going to stop the word process, how early in the experience? Are we understanding candidate motivations. And the earlier we can do that and the more consistently we communicate and double check on it. Hopefully the more seamless the offer experiences, the worst thing is when you get to an offer, and now you're talking about salary expectations, now you're talking about, you know, start dates and cross offers and everything else, like so much of this can be accumulated earlier in the experience. And as I'm saying this out loud, Adam, maybe it's less around, I'm just totally spitballing. But maybe it's less around? How does how does the technology ask these questions? And maybe how do we really use our technology to store the answers to those questions so that we keep it in things like talent communities, maybe a recruiter, you know, hopefully everyone can go on vacation, they're out, maybe another recruiter is handling the offer? Maybe we give another offer in the future, like where are we actually storing that information to help teams understand themes, have that information readily available for comp teams and hiring managers at the point of offer? So maybe we actually do have an answer that's less around what we ask in the technology, but how we store it in the technology right now? Yeah,

Karin Philippczyk 49:29
I do think it's also like what what can the tech do so what I mean everyone's now talking about predictive analytics. So as you say, for the offer process, if you already noticed candidate always takes, you know, three days to respond. Okay, what's our prediction then for the offer, the candidate is probably also going to take at least three or more days to respond to even if they're just reviewing the offer. So I really think it's about the tech supporting us in any way, shape or form. It can also for sorting information where do you do that? So that you have also then the right means to act on it?

Adam Bird 50:07
Yeah. Um, so just before we go on to offer experience, it was a wonderful segway, Stephanie. But I've just realised we need to do the poll. So poll results. So hold that segway. So what we're seeing from the poll, two thirds of people take two to six days to schedule an interview, which you can imagine in like a three interview process, that's like, two weeks of dead time in the time to hire, which is bonkers. And yeah, but this chimes, actually, with what we see, customers who arrive at Cronofy, is normally three to six days, it's kind of what they're seeing, and where their self scheduling tool properly set up and the way it works, and designed to work with the the wonderful messiness of recruiting scheduling in the real world, you get that down to like, on average, about two hours. And that's something that gives the candidate complete control, and gets them through the process as quickly as they feel able to go through the process. And I think that's, that's, that's a really, really important point you brought out Karin. Okay, right. So we're on the last section, and we're, we're almost sort of ish on time. So let's talk about the status of the offer process. So we're saying it takes too long. Stephanie, anything you want more you want to add her to? This is kind of right in your wheelhouse, I think, isn't it?

Stephanie Baysinger 51:28
Yeah, the lengthy process. A lot of it is, you know, for any ops folks, or people who do have kind of the access to your ATS and your scheduling tools, you know, the things that I've been able to do are what is the information, you know, you need at the end, what's the blocker? You know, I've been in situations where we're constantly like, we find that the offer process is really blocked for almost 48 hours with approvals on a comp range, or getting an understanding from finance, if we can hire for this role. Those are questions a lot of times that can be solved and asked at the kickoff, or the beginning of a process with those teams. I know, we talked so much about having a intake meeting with a hiring manager and aligning on expectations on a job description and a seat and you know, what we're expecting in an interview process, but there's other there's other partners in that which is, you know, your comp team, your finance team, your onboarding team, when a start date would be reliable would be reasonable. You can kind of move as much as look at your offer list all the questions, you need all the things your recruiters are filling out. How early can you get that information? Can you auto populate things? Is there a good Slack channel? Are there SLAs. And expectations? That's been a huge one for me is SLAs with partner teams. So yeah, I think that that can help with a lengthy process, which then in turn helps with the candidate experience.

Adam Bird 52:49
And just to sort of do full circle, we talked at the kind of start of the process around sort of transparency and making it clear. Putting the comp, yep, the offer the salary, actually, on the on the job ad sets, everyone's expectations, and you don't get to that kind of final Oh, oh, hold on. I was expecting X and you've said x minus y. I've just wasted all of my time.

Stephanie Baysinger 53:15
So quickly, I don't know why someone asks a question some of the SLA that I've seen in the past, and you know, everyone's unique for their own business. But you know, if you need financial the comp team to approve, we set SLAs that that needs to be done before the end of the next business day. If something is that x percent out of the band, what kind of approvals do you need, if you know a candidate might meet negotiating a new salary really clearly writing out, you know, X amount comp or ratio, we go and talk to the VP of the team, or we need to go talk to the comp team. So really just mapping out scenarios and setting some time limits. A big one is, you know, if someone's out of office or not there who's on the approval, who is their proxy? These all seem very simple. But when you have them on paper, and you have especially we all work in such a remote world, when you have them in a central place for your recruitment team, it makes the decision making process way more even transparent internally.

Adam Bird 54:08
Yeah, I think what I've seen Stephanie was that kind of agreeing that playbook for that role, and there's a template and agree the playbook for the role, also then gets more buy in with the hiring managers as well. Because they are kind of agreeing to order. Okay, all right, fine. I need some I need you to find me some candidates. Okay, this is what I'm agreeing to do in order to find that to allow you to find candidates and ultimately, hire. Thank you for for, for doing my job, Stephanie. And no, no, no, no, I appreciate it. I missed it. So, Karin, anything you wanted to add about this?

Karin Philippczyk 54:43
I just hope everyone realises how crucial Stephanie's comment was about the intake meeting. I mean, this is just an intake meeting is not hiring manager recruiter. And intake meeting is the whole shebang. It's the finances there who's going to be on the interview panel? Um, Are we pipelining the candidates who are then maybe expected to get an offer with our HR department so that they can take over? No one's on vacation? Do we know who's going to approve the contract? Is that person on vacation? I mean, it's so freakin crucial that Stephanie just said, I mean, when I when I talk to customers, and they say, Well, yeah, we have an intake meeting, we sent this form to the hiring manager. Great. That's a good start. I'm not diminishing your work. But please, please improve that because this is how we get out of this lengthy process with with the offer altogether. And then I, what I what I always like to work on with my customers is kind of figure out what kind of rolls are you hiring for? So if we're hiring high volume, then yes, obviously, the offer is probably like it's standardised you sanitation? Are they taking over for any questions? If we see this a lot in niche and executive recruiting, the person the candidate wants to speak to their recruiter. So brief your recruiters on labor laws on contracts. Because this is going to make the process a lot shorter. If your recruiter always has to get back to the HR department and ask questions about labour laws about contract about bonus, the comp situation is going to draw it like this is going to stretch out the process. And you'll lose trust with executives, because they expect you to know your job. So definitely look at what kind of offers you're sending out. Is it niche? Is it IT? Is it high volume, and then adapt the different situations to it, and teach your people I mean, just train them. Same thing for interviews, train your interviewers, please. And don't just let them go. Like roam free and ask whatever they want.

Adam Bird 56:41
I think you've hit on you both hit on a point, actually, because what you're describing there is empowering the recruiting team to actually make an offer in a timely fashion. Yeah, absolutely. And back to candidates want responsiveness. So if they're sitting there with several offers on the table, the one that comes back and says yes, they're going to more likely take that one. Yeah, leave any indication that you're not going to be responsive to them.

Karin Philippczyk 57:08
Exactly. And this is why you need such a good recruiting team, because you expect your recruiters to know okay, you they call up the candidate I had to so many times call up the candidate, the candidate says I have another offer, what else can you offer me, and then I can actually go ahead and negotiate with the candidate directly on the phone. Because I know this is my range. This is the bandwidth I have. I know the regulations, I know our comp and benefit programme. So obviously, I'm like really quick to make a new offer. And this is why we need to enable our recruiters if you don't trust your recruiters to do this job, well, then you're doing actually a shit job of training them or you're having you have mishired, this is ultimate This is my just take on it. For not for everything. Obviously, we have exceptions like high volume, etc, where it's just like too much volume coming through. But for for really important niche roles. Definitely you need a good team to do that.

Adam Bird 57:59
Okay, we're almost at the top of the hour. So most important metric. Both pick one.

Karin Philippczyk 58:06
I'll take the offer rejection reasons,

Stephanie Baysinger 58:09
okay, offer rejection reasons.

Adam Bird 58:11
Right? Okay. That's kind of like your survey, isn't it? Really? Yeah. So. So where do we go from here? What do teams need to do take away from this.

Stephanie Baysinger 58:22
Here's my takeaway we covered so much. There's so many steps in this candidate experience. Go from here. And for those that you know, do the survey, pick one thing, one thing that you think is kind of in the red, take some tips and focus on that and then re measure I think where I have gone wrong. Where I've seen teams do wrong, is they're trying to rehash their entire process after a webinar like this. Take one thing and make some improvement on it and watch it work. And then you'll get the buy in to kind of touch the rest of the experience.

Adam Bird 58:55
This Yeah, what's what's the minimum effort to deliver the maximum value? You can do that and then just iterate on there. Definitely, yeah, Karin takeaway, please.

Karin Philippczyk 59:05
Yeah, I'm gonna steal Stephanie's takeaway, but um, I'm gonna go with be covered a lot in one hour, just obviously more to cover. Don't forget the candidate experience doesn't stop with the offer. It continues with the onboarding experience. And it goes on with the employee experience. So so don't forget about these parts. Obviously, we couldn't cover them because it's it's a lot of time. But at the same time, those are important as well. And I'm still going ahead and stealing Stephanie's one, just pick one thing and just optimize that.

Adam Bird 59:35
Well, that's my one too. So. Right. So lots more on these downloads. I think one of the team are going to put links to both of these in the chat. So do download them. Do read them this we just glanced over sort of skirted over. Lots of lots of valuable data there. Thank you really thank you both for your time. It's been fascinating. It's made it very difficult for me as as kind of host to keep everything on time. With that, thank you have wonderful days evenings wherever you are and I hope you are able to improve your recruiting processes.

Companies have been beating the drum of improving the candidate experience for decades. 

Every new shift in society, business, and technology elicits more reasons for talent acquisition teams to refocus their efforts on improving the candidate experience. 

Today, disparate factors converge to make the candidate experience matter more than ever.

In this webinar we want to help you understand how you can transform your standard hiring process into a hiring experience candidates actually stay in! 

How to deliver the experience candidates want

Navigating change is nothing new for talent acquisition teams. One key area of recruiting that continues to evolve is the importance and focus on candidate experience, and aligning what candidates 

 want with the hiring process your organization offers.

Today, disparate factors converge to make the candidate experience matter more than ever.

In this webinar we will help you understand how you can transform your standard hiring process into a hiring experience candidates stay in! 

Backed up by research we’ll look at the 

 experience by giving you hands-on advice on improvements that can be made.

In this discussion between Adam Bird from Cronofy, Karin Philippczyk from SmartRecruiters and Stephanie Baysinger previously with Marqeta, we’ll talk through these three key actions to improve throughout the hiring funnel:

Steps TA teams can take to meet their needs