It’s a very competitive market out there with top talent in high demand and well courted. How do you differentiate yourself from the competition and become the employer of choice to your prospective ideal candidate?

By speaking to hundreds of candidates we know what resonates is giving the candidate a great experience through the interview process. They need to really feel they know the business and understand why they want to work for you rather than anyone else. How? Some tried and tested methods below.

A Warm Welcome

Make it personal from the start. One of our clients designates an employee who greets the candidate at reception, takes them up to the right floor and to the meeting room, will make sure they have a tea/coffee, introduces them personally to the interviewers, then will show them out afterwards, ask them how it’s gone and get feedback, let them know next steps etc. This brings it all together and works so well in making the candidate feel welcome.

Consider Your Culture

Most organisations will have spent considerable time and money establishing their core values and proposition. How is this reflected to candidates in the interview process? One of our clients prides themselves on the career pathways available and the hiring manager will take time at the outset to have a coffee with the individual and find out what their goals are.

Once they get to offer stage, they can really personalise that conversation by sharing how that can be achieved, practically what that might look like and what they could expect within the organisation. Suddenly it’s a career offer not a job offer and that resonates incredibly well.

Who’s Interviewing?

D&I is so important in creating successful businesses. If you’re looking to attract a diverse shortlist reflect that in your interview panel. People need to see more than just glossy images on the website, they want to understand, as a diverse candidate, what it would be like to work for your organisation. You can’t be what you can’t see.

Timescales

Nothing creates candidate buy-out like being left in limbo. A clear ‘this will take approx. 4 weeks, there will be two stages and this is what they are, then we’ll make decisions by X’ works an awful lot better than a ‘we’ll get back to you’. The candidate is aware of exact timescales and can balance that against internal commitments and other interviews they may be having. Knowing what to expect creates reassurance.

Top Down

Giving candidates exposure to senior stakeholders is a brilliant way to immediately make them feel valued by your organisation. One of the Challenger Banks we work with always makes sure that once formal interviews have been concluded, the preferred candidate has the opportunity for a half hour chat with the Commercial MD.

A number of candidates have commented that they wouldn’t even know who that person was in their organisation never mind take the time to get to know them, and it differentiates their environment from large institutions. It works for the MD too as they have a good line of sight of talent coming into the business rather than them just popping up on day one!

Work in Partnership

Best success comes when our clients invest the time in providing real clarity on their requirements and provide insight into the talent they want to attract. We can then utilise that insight in our search, introducing candidates with the right cultural alignment as well as the right technical expertise.

There are a number of ways to achieve a strong candidate experience, so it is important that there is a consistent, joined up approach across the business to ensure consistency of talent coming through.

If you’d like to talk more about how this could work in practice, please do get in touch.

For more information email kprince@crsltd.info