More than half of all candidates have major fears about the job hunt, learn the specific pain points and how recruiters can help.

In a recent study of 1,000 working professionals, CV library found that 55 percent are scared of key elements of the job hunt.

While seeking new employment may always entail some level of pressure and anxiety, hiring teams can boost the candidate experience and better evaluate applicants by identifying common pain points and doing their best to alleviate unnecessary tension.

To help you out, this article will reveal the five most stressful parts of the recruitment process, with simple tips for making candidates feel at ease to perform their best.

1) Being rejected…

For over half of those surveyed (55 percent), being rejected for a job they really wanted is what scares them the most. Of course, no one likes rejection, especially if they were excited about working for you. But, it’s sadly part of the hiring game.

As a recruitment professional, you should be well adept at letting people know whether they were successful or not with a professional rejection letter. If it’s the latter, make sure you always give constructive feedback, so your candidate can learn from the experience.

What’s more, doing so ensures that they’re left with a positive view of you and your company, helping to boost your employer brand at the same time.

2) Attending interviews…

Our research found that 42 percent of professionals fear attending interviews. Again, this is only natural. Yet, it’s still important to keep this fact in mind. After all, someone who appears extremely nervous at an interview may not be showing their full potential.

Help your candidates feel at ease by giving them as much information before the interview as possible. Make sure it’s clear where they need to go, who they’re meeting with, and what they need to wear and bring.

On the day of the interview, welcome them into your workplace and offer them a hot or cold drink. Anything you can do to make them feel comfortable will ensure that the interview is as productive as possible.

3) Completing an interview test or task…

In addition to the above, a further four in 10 (40 percent) worry about having to complete a test or task during an interview.

However, don’t let this put you off having this as a requirement. For some jobs, you need to understand your candidate’s skills through practical tests during the interview.

Just be sure to not make the task too esoteric. Ask yourself if it’s reasonable for a person to be able to perform this task before having worked at your company as you don’t want to put them off or make them question their abilities.

4) Speaking to recruiters on the phone…

Interestingly, we found that one-third (35 percent) of job hunters worry about having to speak to recruiters on the phone. So, be conscious of this when you’re calling candidates.

It might sound silly, especially as you call different people every day as part of your job, but some individuals find speaking to potential employers daunting.

Again, make them feel at ease by giving them a good overview of the role and don’t go in with any hard-hitting questions too early on.

If you get the sense that they’re nervous or don’t want to talk right now, suggest that you call back and conduct a phone interview at a time that’s more suitable for them.

5) Video interviews…

Finally, we found that a further 34 percent are scared of video interviews. But don’t let this put you off organizing them! There are many benefits of video interviews and they’re great for speeding up your recruitment process.

Instead, reassure candidates that this is a great opportunity for each party to find out more about one another, before coming in and meeting face to face.

Make sure they understand how to use the technology and remind them that the format will be just the same as a normal interview.

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Overall, it’s clear that there’s a number of elements that could be holding candidates back during the recruitment process. As a hiring professional, it’s your job to make these individuals feel at ease, especially if you want to find the best talent for your roles.

Follow our advice above and take these insights on board, and you’ll stand a better chance of boosting your hiring efforts.

At Optimizely, building a TA strategy around “understanding and sharing others’ feelings” lead them to be named number four in Silicon Valley’s best places to work—and it didn’t cost them anything.

Lurie returns to Hiring Success 19 – Americas, February 26-27 in San Francisco!

In talent acquisition—a profession that is people-centric by nature—it’s easy to forget that employees drive business success, especially when pressure to boost efficiency and cut costs dominates conversations around company priorities. However, a little empathy goes a long way, with examples of how Facebook or Pandora adopted more inclusive hiring practices for the better being well known. And the results show that employees and candidates value these practices now more than ever before. According to Businessolver’s 2018 State of Workplace Empathy study:

• Ninety percent of employees are more likely to stay with an organization that empathizes with their needs.

• Eight in 10 would be willing to work longer hours for an empathetic employer.

• More than two-thirds of employees in tech, healthcare, and financial services reported they would be willing to take slightly less pay for a more empathetic employer.

The report highlights that 68 percent of CEOs say that the state of empathy at US companies needs to change, up eight points from last year. But executive leadership is unsure how to facilitate that change, with 45 percent of CEOs reporting difficulty in demonstrating empathy in their daily working life.

Couple that with the fact that 92 percent of the employees surveyed who believe that empathy is undervalued, and it seems that today’s workplaces need a holistic reboot. To speak more about culture at large organizations, and how empathy can—and should—play an important role in the hiring process, we invited Sandi Lurie, Senior Director of Global Recruiting at Optimizely, to chat with Luke Lightning, Chief Evangelist at Good&Co, at our Hiring Success conference in San Francisco.

Both Luke and Sandi turn conversations around human capital into discussions about people and what motivates them. At Good&Co, Luke and his colleagues design personality assessment tools “to help companies seamlessly add the right talent to high-performing teams without sacrificing productivity or sabotaging chemistry.” Their mission is simple: to create happier, more productive workplaces.

Sandi Lurie’s impressive CV boasts major tech companies like Salesforce, LinkedIn, Google, and Medallia before her current role at Optimizely, where she oversees the business’ global recruitment function. According to Lurie, hiring is “a team sport,” with recruiters as the captains, “responsible for candidates’ emotional experience.”

This is why Optimizely recruiters participate in interview training programs that teach them to “start at a place of yes, so candidates walk in knowing that we want them to get the job.” Lurie explains that Optimizely aims “to build long-term relationships that result in a hire,” but even in those cases where the team rejects a candidate, “we want to own the decision whether we make a hire or not.”

To this end, Lurie and her team constantly refine the company’s hiring process to maintain a high level of empathy. Each year, Optimizely conducts surveys to evaluate its success in building relationships and offering a positive candidate experience. According to Lurie, some of the findings aren’t all that surprising. “It’s all about their experience and how nurtured they feel through the process,” she says.

However, what was a revelation to the team was how positive experiences didn’t require expensive gifts or swag on an employee’s first day. “We didn’t have to spend a dime,” explains Lurie. “Our success was really about training the teams to be prepared for interviews and how the recruiters prepared candidates.”

With candidates and recruiters primed before an interview, more time can be spent discussing what the candidate brings to the organization. “We talk a lot about culture add rather than ‘fitting in’,” says Lurie, as “‘fitting in’ doesn’t create a diverse workforce.”

This attitude towards company culture reflects a larger shift in recruiting strategies across organizations, many of which move away from biased concepts like “culture fit” towards diversity and inclusion efforts that improve company image—both internally and externally.

As companies look to make better data-driven hiring decisions, Lurie argues that “right now, the data we need is really the human experience data.” From what Lurie and her team have gathered through experimentation and candidate feedback, attracting the right talent comes down to how applicants view the hiring process. What matters, Lurie claims, is empathy.

“Candidates are not looking for an efficient experience,” she says. “They are looking for a compelling experience.”

Employees’ investments in their organizations extend far past the commitment of most other stakeholders.  Employees invest most of their waking hours, and their intellectual capital, to forge their livelihoods. They hope to reap more than just a salary: they look to increase their value as they add value; they seek meaning and connection in their work; an employee’s association is a source of pride.

Potential employees, or candidates, are unique stakeholders. They are often members of the local community. They may be customers. They often are connected to other stakeholders, especially employees.

Those who want their human capital (employees) to drive competitive advantage think about their employer brand and pay close attention to the candidates’ experience in the hiring process. In this post, I offer a candidate experience mission statement:

We treat applicants as potential employees. We make it easy to find our openings, learn about our company, and apply for jobs. We describe our openings clearly, describe our hiring process, and let applicants know where they stand. We provide feedback to help improve job hunting skills, even if we decide not to hire someone. We value our employees and are committed to hiring the best to join us.

 

Guy Kawasaki, in his book, The Art of the Start, promotes the advantages of a mantra over a mission statement. Here is a mantra (maybe a bit long) that is easy to remember:

Applicants are people. Be kind, but honest. 

 

EndNote Commentary (this is a gut check—consider yourself forewarned):

A mission statement is nice. But, I often wonder, as I give applicants feedback on how they can improve their resume, or their interviewing skills, (for which they thank me profusely) why this is so hard for companies to do? I think it is because they are afraid of being sued for discriminatory hiring practices. But, if you hire fairly, basing your decision on knowledge, skills and abilities that are related to the job, you have nothing to fear. And, giving applicants feedback can indicate what a great workplace you have, where expectations are clear and feedback is frequent and fair. Of course, you have to have that kind of workplace, don’t you??

Pat Sharp, The Talent Architect blends strategy, technology tools, and assessment tools with marketing magic to create unique talent solutions. Past and current clients include: Motorola, Deloitte, TiVo, and Cloudscaling. Photo Credit EmpowerPeople

How can the Candidate Experience be Improved? Attend ”SmartUp: Candidate Experience” on Aug. 8 to create discussion with CEOs, influencers and candidates.

Panelists will be Co-Founder and CEO of Simply Hired Gautam Godhwani, Founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters Jerome Ternynck, HR and social media Author and Consultant Jessica Miller-Merrell, 2 Job Seeking Candidates, and of course, The Talent Architect Pat Sharp. Get your SmartUp Ticket Today!

“Sort of a funny phrase, when you think about it” he said. “After all, isn’t the hiring process the candidate experience?? Why separate it out from that which it was meant to be to begin with?”

“Maybe,” I recall musing, “The reason we separate it out is because so many companies do such a poor job of focusing on the candidate at all.”  I thought about it a little bit. To a degree, he had a point – the hiring process is what the candidate experiences. Some of it they see directly; others they just feel the impact as they shuffle along the road – waiting – for that offer to arrive (or not).

Truthfully, I think that’s it. Overall, across companies and industries, Human Resources has done a rather shoddy job historically of treating candidates like a valued commodity, or true “talent” they profess to be warring over. If I had to put a finger on it; it seems like many companies don’t ‘discover’ value in the candidate at all until they’re about to put together an offer – and then, my friends, is a little late in the game to begin. Putting that aside for a moment, those who don’t get to the offer stage are left with little- to no- question as to just how much they’re “worth” to employers… a clear message is sent when they simply disappear from view. No warning, no follow-up… just nothing. [Editor’s Note: Always Value the Candidate’s Time. Reply to All Applicants.]

It should be of little surprise that I think social media has made it to where there’s basically no excuse for this sort of experience. I actually thought there was little reason for that experience even before social media hit the scene; but there’s just too many ways to create some stellar candidate experiences with social media that if there WERE an excuse before? It’s certainly gone now. Let’s start at the beginning:

What IS “Candidate Experience??”

Simply speaking, the ‘candidate experience’ is derived from perception. The Candidate Experience is the sum of the perceptions a candidate  through every interaction they’ve had with your brand,  product, employees, communications…

it’s the overall quality of their experience with your organization. If you’re a company dedicated to creating a positive experience, you’re likely scrutinizing every email, phone call, face-to-face interaction, the design of your process, etc. That’s great… but your candidate? Is likely to look at things a little more simplistically.

“How did they make me feel??”

Truthfully, there’s a lot of components that goes into that statement; but that’s what it boils down to.  Candidates want to feel good about what they’re going into and be made to feel like they mattered… even if not ultimately selected. There’s been a lot written about how we’ve failed to do that or the process-driven side of candidate experience; let’s focus on practical things we do (or should) that maybe we could amp up – just a bit – to increase the candidate experience:

Accept that Social is an Advantage in the Candidate Experience, and Leverage It: 

• Don’t be stingy with Social Connections. Most companies already connect the recruiters and sometimes the hiring manager with the candidate on LinkedIn. But why not go a step further and connect other levels of the organization to the candidate as well?

• Share your company’s social footprint. Show where they can find information about your company – good and bad (if it’s out there), and be ready to talk through it with them. Candidates will often find out some about you online. But this is your story; share it with them in your words so that the story is more than what they have come across on their own.

• Connect on multiple platforms. Lead your candidates to your Facebook pages at the beginning of the process and encourage them to interact with others that have “liked” the page AND with employees you’ve also encouraged to participate on the page. Plus, they can see all the available jobs on your company Facebook page.

• Break-up the “quiet abyss.” We’ve all be there – in the middle of a process that’s a little lengthier than we’d like… with No. Update. From. The. “Home Camp.” It’s frustrating – and the largest complaint I’ve consistently heard when talking with candidates.  Social media offers you the opportunity to drop a little line through direct message, inmail, or FB message to a candidate letting them know something you appreciated in their interview, or a strength they have, or just that you (or they) aren’t lost in the abyss. You can make note of the interaction in the ATS to maintain compliance with your company’s policy and complete record-keeping.

• Use Social to Build a Relationship. I save this for last because I believe this is the most important benefit of social in the Candidate Experience. No one says, nor expects, you to come out of the other side of the hiring process as “besties” with those you have recruited along the way; but the fact remains that true “networks” come from forming the basis of ongoing acquiantance with our candidates: providing value when we’re unable to hire, letting them know they were heard, letting them know your time is valuable and well .. being … friendly. Interact with candidates at regular intervals by responding to/re-tweeting something that catches your eye on Twitter, and congratulating their good news that they broadcast over social media. These are the things that pay back in spades in the long-run & show off that you are who you claimed to be in the hiring process!

Social Media has given us the opportunity to stay connected with candidates and show a much needed “humanized” side to what’s often a cold and rigid process. By leveraging the opportunities it provides, we not only improve the candidate experience – “Socially Speaking, of course;” but we improve our company’s lasting relational networks, as well. And that’s a “win-win” proposition that’s worth tapping into!

Crystal Miller creates great Talent Marketing and Social Recruitment Programs at M3 Talent Consulting in Dallas. As an advocate for proactive social media in recruiting, she works as the Co-Host of #TalentNet weekly Radio Chat on Twitter/Focus w/ Talent Net Live. Crystal believes, “Candidate first.” 

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