One of the most important aspects of running a business is hiring and retaining the right people. As you may know, this isn’t always easy!

While you may be thinking about how to get an open position more visibility online or how to move applicants through the hiring process quickly, here’s something else to consider: the candidate experience.

At CareerPlug, we define candidate experience as the experience a candidate has with you throughout the hiring process from job posting to the job offer, and we believe that a positive candidate experience is absolutely essential for attracting job seekers and getting the best talent to say yes to your job offers.

Because of this, we survey job seekers every year to get their perspective on the hiring process and to find out what they liked or didn’t like about recent candidate experiences. We want to share what we’ve learned with you so that you can create a candidate experience that’s exceptional.

Why candidate experience matters

You might be wondering why the candidate experience is so important. Our data reveals one very big reason: 52% of job seekers have declined an offer due to poor candidate experience.

This means that no matter how much time or effort you’re putting into the recruitment process, if you’re giving candidates a poor experience, over half of them will decline your offer for a job!

The good news? Providing a positive candidate experience will help you improve your ability to make better hires for your team. 76% of candidates said a positive candidate experience influenced their decision to take an offer.

A poor candidate experience can also negatively impact your employer brand. You can think of this like your reputation. Job seekers are curious about what others have to say about their experience with your company, and candidates are often eager to share their experience with others on employer review websites.

35% of candidates said they have left a negative review online after having a poor candidate experience. This is important since over half of job seekers say they wouldn’t apply to a company with a bad reputation.

The data is clear: Creating a positive candidate experience is important for getting top talent to say yes to your job offers. So how do you improve your candidate experience? We’re glad you asked!

Let’s dive in.

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