The New Year’s Hiring Resolution You Need To Make

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What’s not to love about New Year’s resolutions? We’re all about giving life a red hot go and joining that gym, signing up for that course & committing to those exxy vitamin supplements.

Among the health and ~personal development~ goals, career resos always have a place on that list. Our goal this year? To improve the candidate experience here at PEDESTRIAN.TV. Here’s why you should care (hint: it could cost your biz a solid $6 million) and how to go about it. 

While it’s the norm to dedicate time and energy delivering the best possible service/product to our customers, what about people applying to work with us? In The Candidate Experience Study, research by Future Workplace and CareerArc, it was reported that 60% of job seekers had a poor candidate experience when applying for jobs. That means ignored emails, un-read resumes, not enough info about the position – you get the picture. 

For businesses, this could mean a shrinking talent pool, a negative perception of your brand and even loss of revenue. Founder and CEO of Ph.Creative Bryan Adams wrote for Inc.com that in 2015, Virgin Media had 7,500 customer applicants who were so put off by their candidate experience that they decided to cancel their Virgin contracts, which equated to a loss of $6 million in revenue per year. Ouch. 

Candidate experience should be up there with any other marketing exercise when it comes to creating positive interactions with your brand. Indeed, according to LinkedIn Talent Solutions’ Australia Recruiting Trends 2017 report, 82% of talent leaders in Australia agree that employer brand has a significant impact on their ability to hire great talent. 

Pimping your candidate experience could be as simple as keeping peeps up to date on the status of their application, or as all-out as the folks at software giant Atlassian, who have created videos to show applicants what it’s like to work in a certain team and move to a new city. According to Lydia Abbot‘s article on LinkedIn’s Talent Blog ‘How Atlassian is Out-Caring Competitors With Its Unique Candidate Experience’, they also offer virtual office tours, send welcome packs for candidates and their families, and even have relocation concierges to help employees moving to new cities. It’s pretty freakin’ impressive. 

Harness that Jan energy and start with implementing these bad boys: 

• It all starts with the job description: Before you hit submit, stop and think. Have you clearly outlined exactly what this position entails, and what you’re looking for? Does the JD also include info about your workplace culture, company vision, values, perks and more? An easy way to show this is to include links to your company’s showreel or any other jazzy videos you might have lying around- all the visual fun, none of the extra paragraphs.  
• Let me get back to you: But actually. Respond to all candidates, including unsuccessful ones. It’s respectful and creates a positive interaction with your biz, whatever the outcome of their application. Get some template emails happening and copy-paste away.  
• Definitely next week: Which leads us to, set timelines for getting back to people. Reviewing applications takes time, so if people are following up, give them a realistic timeframe in which you’ll get back to them, and stick to it. Calendar reminders will be your friend here. 
• Feed it on back: Helpful feedback on an application is worth its weight in gold. If you can, provide a brief explanation to your shortlisted applicants on why they were unsuccessful this time. 
• Get fancy: Why not chuck an Atlassian and send your candidate a bottle of wine after making an offer? Anything to sweeten the deal.  
• First day feels: While they might not be a candidate anymore, first (day) impressions really do last. Make sure your newbie’s desk is all set up, welcome them with a morning tea, pair them up with a buddy – anything that’ll make ’em feel welcome and valued <3