Considerations for delivering an exceptional candidate experience during business disruption

A significant focus for many organizations right now is managing through unprecedented workforce conditions resulting from the response to COVID-19.

As Talent Acquisition priorities are disrupted, it is critical to recognize the deeply human impact the employment process has on candidates.  It is also important to keep in mind that often your candidates are your customers, and their candidate experience informs their decisions to engage with your brand as a consumer. This requires an effective candidate experience to provide personalized, proactive and timely communications with accurate and transparent information. 

Below are key candidate experience areas to consider for a long-term positive impact:

Respond, Recover, Thrive

What should we do in the short term to RESPOND to the COVID-19 crisis?

1. Communicate immediately with all active candidates – Active candidates, particularly in interview and offer stages, need immediate information about their status and changes in recruiting timelines. Recruiters will communicate quickly, clearly and often even if all answers are not yet known. 
2. Update your messaging in the marketplace – Messaging that may have been appropriate during a talent shortage may no longer resonate positively. Review and update automated communications, job posting content, career website, social media and recruitment marketing campaigns. 
3. Simplify your hiring process – Simplify your application and selection process to incorporate relevant status updates and virtual tools that can speed hiring and help improve the overall candidate experience.

Thinking about the next 90-180 days, what are some things that could help us RECOVER?

1. Invest in developing and nurturing critical talent pipelines – Critical talent may be available from sources that were previously not fruitful. Develop messaging that resonates, then build and maintain relationships to help ensure a healthy talent pool for critical positions and to be ready as talent demands accelerate.
2. Look for opportunities to improve the experience – As application volumes increase or decrease based on your business, continue to identify and implement opportunities to improve the end-to-end candidate experience.
3. Monitor your employer brand – Evolve messaging as recovery progresses, and monitor perceptions of employer brand through feedback tools and monitoring social media. Evaluate recruitment marketing spend and reallocate as necessary.

How can we best prepare to THRIVE in the “next normal”?

1. Create agile, candidate-focused processes that help improve the experience, quality and speed of critical talent hires – New expectations, technical capabilities and methods of identifying and connecting to talent offer opportunities to evolve the experience through agile processes that help deliver quality hires with speed.

Deliver a candidate experience that differentiates you in the market – Be aware of significant and lasting changes to your business and the expectations of candidates. Take the time to understand how they might change the employment value proposition. Adjust your marketing and communication strategy to be relevant in the “next normal”.

Source: Deloitte, by Kevin Moss, Sona Manzo, Nicole Brender a Brandis