What is best practice when creating a candidate journey in 2020?

Do you want to know what best practice is when it comes to your candidate journey in 2020? I recently held a HR webinar on best practice candidate journey creation in 2020, and so I wanted to share what was discussed with you here today.

Having been joined by HR experts from around the UK, the webinar on Wednesday 19th August was a practical session with lots of hints and tips, as well as an example candidate journey to study.

Before I get started, if you would like to find more HR resources featuring recruitment best practice, take a look at all of 360’s previous webinars here.

What is a candidate journey?

A candidate journey is all the different steps a candidate will take, from when they apply for a vacancy through to their ultimate start date with the organsiation and onboarding into the role.

It’s important to get right, as every candidate is a potential customer. By keeping your candidates happy, you are also keeping your customer base happy too. This is also the first impression you make on your new employees, so a positive experience can actively improve retention.

The candidate journey can be broken down into a number of stages, which I covered in depth during the webinar:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Application
• Interaction
• Completion

The last stage can be broken down even further, depending on how successful the candidate was and their potential for future value for your organisation.

How do candidates find your roles?

There are numerous ways that candidates can find the roles you are recruiting for. Knowing the different ways that a candidate can apply will influence the first touch points you have with these candidates.

In terms of your candidate journey, we focused on the most popular, with more details in the webinar. We particularly covered the following:

• Job boards
• Agencies
• Social media

Social media is a very interesting recruitment channel that you may want to look into further. While it’s relatively new, social recruitment campaigns can be a powerful tool when it comes to hiring top talent and promoting your employer brand.

What to do now you have a candidate’s attention

Once you have the attention of your target audience, they will be moving into the consideration phase. As such, it’s time to think about what content you’re sharing. Remember that 90% of candidates want to know the key benefits of working for any organisation before they even apply, so providing these details at this stage is key.

You should also review the sort of content candidates are engaging with at this stage, from your employer-branded videos to your careers site as a whole. Check in particular if your content is engaging, that’s it is relevant, and that it prompts candidates to find out more.

If you would like to find out more about creating a best-in-class candidate journey in 2020, including the best candidate application methods to use, how and when you should be communicating with applicants, and an example of an ideal candidate journey, check out the rest of the webinar here. You will find the recording and slides for our latest HR webinar.

First published on the 360 Resourcing website here.