How to manage candidate relationship easily while recruiting?

When it comes to hiring candidates for a job opening, recruiters have the responsibility to ensure good candidate experience and initiate a positive relationship with the students during the process. Lack of a good experience leads to students declining the offer or expressing negative feedback among their peers which creates a bad impression of the company or brand name. This decreases the chances of hiring top talent from campuses or meeting your hiring requirement.

Lian Shao, a human resources and organizational behavior lecturer at the University of Washington Foster School of Business expressed that “Companies that don’t focus on improving the candidate experience journey could actually end up harming their employer brand. That’s because it’s now much easier for job seekers to share their poor experiences in global online forums.” True to his words, it is indeed very easy for students to post their opinions on various social media platform. This will hamper the brand name in the long run.

Statistics also show that talent are 4 times more likely to take offer from a company that provides them with constructive feedback.

From clear and concise job description to asking good interview questions, providing timely feedback, and making them feel comfortable throughout the session – everything is  important for managing candidate relationship. Companies that adhere to such practises are the ones that successfully hire top talent for different job opportunities and are also able to meet their recruitment numbers on time.

Best practises to follow to manage candidate relationship   

Discussed below are the best practises that the recruiters must follow in order to have good relationship with the applicants and make the whole process comfortable for them.

• Creating awareness about the company’s brand and policies: Your brand name is your identity and to be recognized by students and colleges, you need to create strong branding. This can be done by writing about your company, policies, culture, visions, etc. on various social media platforms of the company or post on the college’s website for students to access and learn about you. It is important for the students to know about the company to believe they are being hired by a good firm and will get an opportunity to grow in the field of their interest. Thus, branding is as integral to a company as is recruiting.
• Having proper communication with applicants: Proper communication with students and colleges is extremely important to improve your chances of hiring the top talent. Whether it is about your campus drive or the status of application of the applicants, communicating all essential  information is necessary to create a positive relationship with the candidates and win their trust.
• Asking relevant question in assessment and interview: In the process of testing an individual’s  knowledge and skills, the assessment tests designed by the companies may either be too difficult to attempt or too irrelevant to the skills they wish to assess. Similarly, even in the interview rounds, the panel may ask irrelative and unimportant questions that can make the students feel incompetent and uncomfortable. The company must focus on avoiding such negative experience for the candidates and build a good relationship with them during the recruitment process.
• Communicating the exact requirement: It is necessary to communicate exactly what the company is looking for in the students before they visit the campus for recruitment. A clear and concise job description should be created mentioning whether the company requires skills such as problem solving ability, coding knowledge, good communication, etc., for the job opening. You can avoid discrepancies in this way and make your recruitment process efficient and transparent, building a good relationship with the candidates in the process.
• Informing the exact recruitment process: Informing students about your recruitment process, that is, the position you are hiring for, the number of assessment rounds you plan to conduct, your criteria for shortlisting candidates for interview, and details about when you plan to roll out the offer letter to the shortlisted candidates leads to a positive experience for them and gives you an opportunity to build a good relationship with them.  
• Automating the process and making it more transparent: Automation is a boon to recruiters since they can cut down their manual efforts required for various processes and focus more on conducting the recruitment drive following the best practises to improve their talent pool and hire the top performers. Automation also helps them to update and share immediate feedback with the students so that they do not wait for long hours to know whether they are selected or rejected. The HR can manage candidate relationship in an easy and efficient way by incorporating automation in their recruitment process.  
• Providing precise and timely communication: The HR can provide precise results, share the next steps in the recruitment drive and schedule, and keep the students updated about everything – venue for assessment tests, results, timings and venue for interview, etc. Such precise communication helps to build a trust on the recruiters and create a positive attitude about the company in their minds.
• Valuing candidate’s time: Just like your time, candidates time is precious too. Being punctual with the various rounds, conducting interviews at the scheduled time, and providing results as quickly as possible leads to a good experience for the students. Also, by not keeping them  waiting too long for the results the HR is able to build a good relationship with them.
• Being nice to the candidates: Welcoming students with a wide smile immediately puts them at ease and makes them feel secure. In addition to it, if the HR is able to offer snacks, meal, or beverages as appropriate, based on the time being spent by the candidate in the process, can also lead to a positive candidate experience and create a good relationship with them. It is a good practice to make students feel important and worthy of attending your recruitment drive and give them the assurance that working for you will definitely enhance their career. In fact, the students who do not get selected for your job opening are also your brand ambassadors, and it is extremely important to treat them appropriately as well.

Managing candidate relationship is definitely a tough task for the recruiters, but if done right, it will lead to significant increase in the talent pool, give you an opportunity to connect to many candidates effectively, and build a positive brand awareness among them. Apart from fetching you the top talent from the campuses, you will also get to work with a great, robust team that will put in a lot of efforts to improve the productivity of your company. Visit us at https://pod.ai/employers and avail our services to conduct a smooth campus recruitment.