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Despite the slack in the job market, job seekers are still on the hunt and increasingly frustrated with the process.
A lot of resentment comes from not being informed during the process – or not being contacted at all. According to the Human Capital Institute75% of job seekers never hear back from an employer after applying for a job and 60% never hear back from an interview.
This means that your ideal candidate may be waiting for a call (or email or text) that never comes, and they may think negatively about a company for the rest of their lives because of it.
Talent managers are not entirely to blame. each job opening receives an average of 118 applications, according to the interview success formulaand sorting it all out takes time.
See what companies can do to separate the wheat from the chaff without losing great job candidates in the process.
A tedious application experience hurts companies, in more ways than one
Inside Talent Experience Report 2023iCIMS, a talent cloud company, found that the job search process is still a major headache that can cost companies not only good candidates, but also clients.
Of those surveyed, 43% of workers said their last job search was frustrating and long, with 72% saying they expected the job application process to take three weeks or less.
Job hunters aren’t shy about sharing these frustrations: 18% of respondents said they would post a review on Glassdoor if they had a bad interview experience, and 14% said the same about a bad application experience. That’s a problem, as 36% of workers find Glassdoor reviews to be an accurate source of information about a potential employer, according to the iCIMS report.
CDLjobs.com suggests trucking companies ask for referrals to fill the ranks of their drivers. The site also recommends that a carrier’s website has up-to-date content that showcases functions to give potential candidates an idea of the work environment.
iCIMS also found that 56% of employees are less likely to be a consumer of that brand if they had a bad experience applying for a job there.
“What we’ve believed for a long time is that these experiences can really impact a company’s bottom line,” said Laura Coccaro, Chief People Officer at iCIMS.
The process also takes longer, which can fuel resentment. According to a recent report by The Josh Bersin Co., Jobs now take an average of 44 days to fill, up from 43 days last year. Some can remain free for three months or more. Good candidates “aren’t going to wait,” said Josh Bersin, the company’s CEO.
The solutions lie in technology — and more people
In any recruitment process, candidates should stay informed. This could be an email from a recruiter thanking them for the application or an automated email or text message depending on the type of job they are applying for.
“You don’t want to leave candidates in the dark,” Coccaro said. Just an acknowledgment of an application and updates at different touchpoints during the process can make a big difference.
Companies can also use these touchpoints to send updates to candidates that include content about the company, such as videos, so they can learn more about where they hope to work.
This can be done with technology and automated processes. Depending on the task, these same technologies can be leveraged to play a larger role in the process or handle it almost entirely.
Bersin pointed to the success of McHire, McDonald’s AI-enabled talent recruitment platform. When deployed across 1,450 locations in the UK and Irelandreduced hiring time by approximately 65%, while these locations also saw a 20% increase in candidates applying.
But for many positions, especially in areas where talent is in short supply, the human touch will matter, especially for candidates who may not be a good fit for the open position right now but could be for another in the future. “That makes a huge difference. If you don’t have a recruiter or enough recruiters, or you have a part-time HR manager doing that and 50 other things, they’re not going to have the time,” Bersin said.
Companies are learning this the hard way, he added, trying to get by with fewer resources, resulting in them not having the right people and either filling the job with the wrong person or none at all.