Whether you’re a recruiter hiring or a candidate seeking a job, you know that qualifications matter. While I’m not here to say that qualifications aren’t important, today’s hiring process includes a new priority for both sides: CX.

For many, CX refers to customer experience, but today, we’re taking a look at candidate experience. After all, experience matters — all across the employee journey, and even before a candidate becomes an employee!

Candidate experience is a term that is getting more and more attention lately, and for the right reasons. If you spend any time on LinkedIn, this statement can likely be confirmed with a few scrolls across the platform. Despite hiring slowing down from an overall industry surge because of economic uncertainty, there are still jobs being created and candidates who are searching for their next move.

Candidate experience with Sogolytics

At Sogolytics, we take great pride in ensuring a positive candidate experience regardless of how the candidate’s journey ends. Why? First, because we care! Plus, every engagement can have an impact on our brand, and we want to ensure that people have a positive association with our brand, whether they become an employee or not.

We are searching to see if a candidate has the skill set to complete certain job responsibilities, but we also want to hear about our candidates’ needs and success stories. Knowing what is important to each candidate helps guide the executive team in meeting or surpassing expectations for its newest team members and staff. As an organization, knowing how and what to provide outside of a paycheck is essential for future growth, retention, and — as mentioned in a recent Forbes article — developing a market-proof recruitment strategy.

At the end of the day, we want candidates to see their growth path for a number of years in our company; personally, professionally, and financially.

Setting expectations

At Sogolytics, there are a few rounds of interviews which provide a foundation for these discussions. Depending on seniority for a vacant role, there could be a different number of scheduled interviews. Each interview assists greatly in distinguishing the best candidates who end up winning an offer. For more junior level roles, expect a minimum of 2-3 interviews. Director level roles through C-Suite positions can expect 4-5 interviews to complete our process before an offer is extended. This is not only for us to ask questions, but also to introduce each candidate to key leaders who could they might soon be working with on the same team and toward the same goals.

Again, we want to make sure a future work relationship is not only a good fit for us, but for each candidate as well.

Of course, we are looking for the best in our industry, so there are any number of discussions with candidates for every position as we continue adding new members. In your first talk with our Recruitment Specialist, we will try to cover as much as possible in our scheduled time. Both of us should have an accurate evaluation on whether to continue the conversations after the initial discussion.

HINT!

This first call (and every call, of course!) offers a great opportunity for the candidate to highlight what they are best at and can bring to the company. We ask for a little bit of research before the meeting, because there will be a chance to take care of pressing questions, priorities, timelines, compensation, benefits, and more.

No ghosting

We do our best to make sure that every qualified candidate we connect with is always up to date on their current stage in our process. While decisions about moving forward are challenging, especially due to the high number of great candidates we connect with, but these decisions are never taken lightly. Candidates will learn updates in a timely manner, whether we need to stop the process or plan to continue discussions in the next stage.

No ghosting. We understand that candidates have decisions to make as well, and we will make every effort to keep communication fluid.

Feedback powers experience

Because experience matters, feedback matters as well.

Keeping this close to heart, at Sogolytics we use our own product, SogoCX, to gain actionable insights on candidate experiences throughout our process. Information voluntarily collected allows us to apply data in our decision-making processes for better control and attention toward the driving factors that create a great candidates experience.

Have questions? Check out our current job postings and connect with me on LinkedIn!