Acquiring Top Talent Requires An Excellent Applicant Experience

One of the greatest challenges facing companies today is recruiting and retaining top tier talent. Creating an excellent interview experience can dramatically affect a candidate’s decision about joining your company. When candidates have an excellent interviewing experience, a top tier candidate feels compelled to consider your offer.

Steps you can take to ensure this:

1. Provide Interview Training
Everyone must be aware of the importance of interviews and creating a positive experience for candidates. A candidate gains impressions about your company from every interaction starting with the application process to the manner in which a final decision is communicated. Personal interactions with receptionists, interviewers, and hiring managers will all influence the comfort level that candidates have with your work environment. Train your interviewers to listen and respond to candidates’ unique concerns and to avoid relying solely on scripted questions.

2. Develop An Organized Process
You need a systematic hiring process. This means that you identify clear goals for hiring and communicate these to your hiring team. Even a small start-up needs a process so that everyone involved in the hiring process understands their roles and your expectations of them.

3. Don’t Rush The Process
Your hiring managers need time to source candidates, review resumes, and check credentials. Your interviewers need time to establish a rapport with candidates to be better able to distinguish the personal attributes you are seeking. Interviewers should record their impressions immediately after concluding a candidate interview, so interviews should not be scheduled closer than every 30-45 minutes.

4. Communicate Frequently
Communicating in a timely manner is essential to create a good experience. You should personalize your communications with your top-level candidates. Inadequate communication is a primary reason that candidates withdraw applications or move on to other companies. You can minimize confusion and frustration by defining a clear process to your candidates, sticking to the schedule, and consistently communicating each step of the way.

5. Provide An Exceptional Closing
Be sure to congratulate your chosen candidate for applying and follow up immediately with a written, personalized job offer. Explain why this job and your company are a great match for the individual’s skills, interests, and priorities. If the hiring manager is the person communicating the job offer, consider having one or more of the other interviewers also call the candidate. Follow up quickly if you do not hear back instantly. Your top talent will be impressed to see how eager you are to have them.

6. Hold Hiring Managers Accountable And Reward High Performers
A lot of the hard work in sourcing, vetting, and managing the interview process happens with your hiring managers. They are key to an efficient hiring process. You can hold your hiring managers accountable by tracking metrics associated with each step of your hiring process, and a web-based dashboard tool can provide real-time data that enables oversight without micromanagement. Trust your hiring managers to help you find the right talent for your company, and reward those that perform the best. BullseyeEngagement has recruitment metrics dashboards and rewards management solutions that easily facilitate these critical steps.

7. Provide A Positive Onboarding Experience
Once your candidate has accepted your offer, provide a positive onboarding experience that sustains a high level of enthusiasm. This will reinforce to your new hire that he or she made the right decision and will accelerate integrating your new colleague into the culture and fabric of your company.

8. Have An Employee Retention Plan
After expending the time and effort to hire great talent, you need a plan to retain them. A talent management program is critical to employee retention. Employees want to stay and work for a company that offers them opportunities to grow both professionally and personally. An effective talent management program encourages frequent communication among all levels of the company and enables employees to participate in charting their career development. BullseyeEngagement offers the most comprehensive software solution available to facilitate your talent management program.