Candidate experience can be your #1 Success Tool or it can be your #1 Killer, and everything in between. Makena Staffing is a huge fan of candidate experience and we’re getting better at it every year. It’s a simple formula, we just need to remember, every day, in our rushed, stressed, discombobulated (is that even a word? YES IT IS) day, to slow down long enough to pay homage and respect to the CANDIDATE!
First off, does your job description do any justice to the role? Are you laying out a good read for your candidates? Will they have the open kimono on the gig AND the client? It’s okay today to have fun with your JD and be creative, plus it breeds engagement.
Secondly, do they need help with their resume/cover letter? Is it going to put them in their best light? There are great services available for resume and profile consulting, do some research and start recommending their services for your candidate. Here’s one that we’ve been leveraging and they are quite effective. Great value-add for our candidates. Creative Content Consulting, Keith Grafman. M: (914) 263-2344 E: CreativeContentConsultant@gmail.com
Do they deserve your time on that qualification call to ensure you’ve captured everything possible to showcase them properly? Yep! Why would anyone want to rush through qualification and short sell yourself and the candidate to the client. Give them all the time they need to talk about themselves and their accomplishments and experience, let them tell that story!
Do they want to be kept in the loop, even when hats aren’t flying yet? Yes, they do! I suppose a generated response would do the trick…but really does it? A personal text, email or phone call goes a long way and can realistically take as little as 5 seconds. C’MON people, do we have a sec to spare? Yes, I think we do.
To go far beyond the “candidate” phase, the on-boarded contractor is JUST an important… They are also your living and breathing business development team out there. Several years back as an HR leader, my awesome admin and I came up with this innovative idea to make new hires feel welcomed and at home. We created a Concierge. It consisted of information of everything under the sun they need to know about their first day of arrival, printer access, cafeteria or food court and what to steer clear of, jk, well maybe not, rest rooms. break rooms, IT, etc., and beyond that we outlined all the neighborhood haunts; coffee houses, train stations, grub places, markets, dry cleaners etc. Best idea ever. And yes, Makena implements the same value-add.
Overall, bottom line, what’s that old saying? “Treat others as you’d want to be treated”? and, if you have processes to fix to ensure a great candidate experience, take a peek under the hood and get it done!
