Candidate Experience is Employee Experience

The candidate experience is broken. There are market-dependent times when we seem to do better. But based on my conversations with people currently in the job market, things are not looking good.

Why do we care?

You know all the obvious reasons for why we should care about candidate experience such as employer brand impact, candidates as customers, etc., but as I was thinking about candidate experience in the context of human-centered design, it occurred to me that the candidate experience is in essence a preview of the employee experience. Yet, we often treat them separately due to our siloed HR structure. But when you think about it from the candidate’s perspective, it’s really a continuum of their experience with an organization.

So, I thought for today’s article I might summarize some of the main pain points I am hearing from candidates and offer a few human-centered tips for how you might address them.

Candidate Pain Points

Transparent and timely communication

I hear repeatedly that candidates do not receive updates of their status or worse are being ghosted. In a time and age where communication templates can be easily added to an ATS, this is simply not acceptable. From the point a requisition is created to when it is closed, there should be standard protocols in place regarding timely candidate dispositioning and communication. It is one of the simplest things we can do for people, so they feel valued and as though we respect their time. I also believe that every candidate that has been interviewed should receive the courtesy of being provided with personal feedback.

Thoughtful selection process

We all know hiring is ripe with biases. In a recent research report , HR analyst firm Gartner found that significant differences exist in the hiring experience of various demographics. One finding from their research around interview preparation stuck with me: Men are significantly more likely than women to be prepped for their application process. Seventy-one percent of men but only 59% of women received at least one type of prep support, such as a projected timeline or step-by-step guide to the process, or practice or preparation materials in advance of their interview. Latinx, Black, BIPOC and Asian candidates are likely to receive more application assistance than white candidates but are less likely to interact with the hiring manager and more likely to interact with the recruiter. Because the hiring manager is typically the most important decision maker in the hiring process, this lack of face time clearly demonstrates inequity.

A little bit of selection process planning up front can go a long way. Some questions to consider: Who will be part of the selection process and how are they involved? Are they aligned around the key requirements for the role? What is the structured selection process we will follow to minimize bias? What preparation guidance will we provide to ALL candidates?

According to behavioral research, here are some science-based insights that can help with de-biasing your hiring process:

Debiasing screening and assessment

• Review your job descriptions for gender-coded words. Ensure job descriptions have feminine coded JD language. It increases female applications significantly.
• Focus on what is predictive of good hires. Most predictive assessment methods include work sample tests and general cognitive ability tests. Least predictive assessment methods include reference checks, years of experience, and years of education.
• Remove the opportunity for implicit bias to impact us where possible. LinkedIn and resumes provide ample traps for unconscious biases so anonymizing resumes is key along with having at least 2-3 people review each resume.
• Make sure information is structured and optimized for decision making (e.g., structured decision making through candidate ratings based on pre-set criteria)
• Assess your screening tech for bias in AI : “When people talk about the future of work, they don’t talk about algorithmic gatekeeping.” (Coded Bias Documentary)

Debiasing interviews

• The problem with interviewing: people think they are good at interviewing; Fact: people are not very good at interviewing; there is no accountability in interviewing
• Unstructured interviews are prone to confirmation bias, peak end effects, affinity bias, halo/horns effect
• Elements of structured interviews: Every candidate gets asked the same pre-determined questions, the interviewers take notes and score answers to each question, there is consistent measurement
• You want to have multiple interviewers in the early interview rounds. The crowd is smarter than any individual (3+ interviewers optimal).
• The optimum number of assessment events is 3-4, less is not accurate enough, more has diminishing returns
• Interviewers’ brains get tired: Schedule diverse candidates in the morning or first thing after lunch
• Follow inclusive virtual interviewing best practices

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Representation matters

If you are trying to increase your slate of diverse candidates, then representation among the interview team matters. According to research we conducted as part of our #HRvsRacism Talent Acquisition Hackathon, this is key in attracting diverse talent. One person we interviewed put it this way: “I think it’s important to have people of color on interview panels. Just having a few people on the panel can make it feel more inclusive. It’s exhausting if you feel you are the only Black person in the company." (Black Product Manager, Tech, 32, she/her)

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A Human-Centered Approach to Hiring

A few years ago, I published an article in ERE on how design thinking might humanize Talent Acquisition. Many of the points I made then still apply, including insights from an ideation session with Talent Acquisition professionals on how we might re-imagine job descriptions for better job/fit accuracy.

In general, we can take a page from human-centered design and its associated mindsets:

• Empathy: Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a candidate – what might they feel as they embark on this process? How would you want to be treated if you were the candidate? I do believe that Talent Acquisition professionals should frequently test their company’s hiring process as a mock candidate and truly experience what it’s like to go through the process.
• Co-Creation: Talent Acquisition has more stakeholders involved than any other HR function. This means collaboration, alignment, and relationship management are key skills for delivering a positive candidate experience from start to finish.
• Curiosity: We should always ask ourselves how we might improve the candidate and hiring manager experience. This means to frequently ask for feedback and measure impact of our activities.

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What do you think? How do candidate and employee experience intersect? What candidate pain points resonate? Which ones would you add? Which human-centered hiring practices have you experimented with that the community might benefit from?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Design Thinking for HR is a biweekly LinkedIn newsletter that aims to inspire HR professionals to experiment with the human-centered design framework. The newsletter is curated by?Nicole Dessain who is an employee experience consultant, design thinking workshop facilitator, and Northwestern University instructor. Nicole is currently writing her first book about Design Thinking for HR. Join the Early Readers’ Community here .