Jeff Sonntag
Recruiter and Recruiting Systems Administrator
Mapping your candidates’ journey is about gaining an in-depth view of their feelings, expectations and thoughts as they go through your recruiting process, just as if they were consumers and you analyzed how they interact with a service you provide. Candidate journeys are experience-based, shedding light on pain points such as feeling neglected, not seen or not valued.
Despite the uniqueness of each organization’s recruiting process, let alone the intricacies that may arise as we delve into specific roles, there are two starting steps to creating and improving your candidate experience journey map.
Get in your candidates’ shoes. Try to anticipate what they may expect from the moment they first come into contact with your employer brand to when they become new hires or are informed of the decision to not move forward with their application.
- Do they need more visibility, clearer information or quicker response times?
- Were the information requests too many, not relevant or very time-consuming?
- Are your candidates free from the hassle of back-and-forth interview scheduling?
- Do your candidates undergo a positive, bias-free interview process?
Next, ideate how to meet their needs and expectations and bring those ideas to life. Schedule automated emails and make sure to include an update on the application status. Combine the information requests to minimize them and use gamification when possible. Empower your candidates to schedule their own interviews with self-scheduling tools. Train your recruiting team, implement automatic pre-qualification, work with anonymized profiles if possible and rely on dashboards and reports to develop an inclusive recruiting experience.
Mapping your candidates’ journey is not a one-off initiative but an ongoing task. As your business and recruiting objectives evolve, you should revisit your processes, remap your journey and iterate as needed to reduce your candidates’ pain points and ensure a positive experience.
