HR Pulse

The Why, When, What and How of Candidate Experience Survey

You may be under the impression that you provide a great candidate experience –even your team may feel the same –but, do you know that for sure? Have you tested it out? If you want to find out how great the candidate experience was, your best bet is to ask the candidates themselves. A candidate experience survey can do the job.

And thanks to technology, there are ample online survey tools available that can make a rather time-consuming task, simple and easy.

The survey can reveal points that you’d never have guessed your candidates face. Small things like no parking space, no drinking water, etc. may have ruined the candidate’s experience. But these small things can cause big harm to the reputation of your company.

Candidates with bad candidate experience, especially the rejected ones can take to social media to share their experience with your organization. That can put you in a bad light and cause massive damage to your employer brand and Net Promoter Score.

So, let’s dig deep into the why, when, what, and how of candidate experience survey.

Why Survey

Here are reasons why you should ask feedback from candidates:

1. Build meaningful relationships

Recruiting is all about relationships. Meaningful connection with your candidates is crucial for your recruiting success.

Many candidates have a lot to say about the recruiting process, but don’t do it because they feel that it’s not their place to speak up. So, give them a platform to voice their opinions by actively seeking their feedback.

2. Make them feel valued

Asking feedback is one of the best ways to make anyone feel valued and important. Your candidates are no exception. By asking their feedback, you show them that you value their opinion and that you have plans to improve your recruitment process so that candidates have a better experience.

3. Improve and evolve your recruitment strategy

Candidates are the best people to give you first-hand feedback about your recruitment process. And why do you need this feedback? Because…

• You need to hire great talent.
• You need to create brand awareness.
• You need to build a good reputation.
• And most importantly,
• You need to grow and stay competitive.

So, to do all that, your recruitment process has to evolve, and the candidate experience survey is a step you take to refine your recruiting strategy.

When to Survey

The candidate experience starts as soon as the candidate applies for an open role at your company. It continues throughout the interview process and ends either with an offer letter or a rejection letter.

Candidate experience surveys at each stage of the hiring process reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring process. This helps you to refine and improve your hiring strategy.

What to Survey

• When setting up your candidate experience survey, choose questions that reveal:
• Candidate satisfaction levels
• Highs and lows of your recruitment process
• Opportunities to improve your overall candidate experience

How to Survey

Begin with comparing online survey tools to find the one that’s best suited to your needs. Once that’s done, this is how you should go about with your candidate experience survey:

1. Inform your candidates about the survey during the interview.

2. Respect their privacy. Carry out your survey with a reliable survey tool that maintains candidates’ personal information confidential and anonymous.

3. Respect the candidate’s time. So, keep it short.

4. Offer a small incentive. Thrown in something for them. A coupon, voucher or a gift card should help. A simple thank you note too goes a long way.

5. Use both closed and open-ended questions. Open-ended questions may consume more time, but they give a better insight whereas closed-ended questions are quick to answer. Keep a healthy mix of both for better balance.