The Importance of Candidate Engagement

Something that should be a given within the recruitment industry but isn’t always carried out to its full potential is candidate engagement. Whether an applicant is successful or unsuccessful as well as all the way through the hiring process, potential employees should be kept in the loop in regards to the progress of their application. There are a multitude of benefits to implementing a successful candidate engagement solution and is something that all businesses should look to add to their recruitment process.

Responsiveness 

In the modern day, you seldom get a candidate who only applies to a single role. Many people – especially those who are more skilled – may send their CVs in for multiple roles. As such, more desirable candidates are frequently hired relatively quickly and may be inclined to accept an offered role right away, especially when under financial pressures. There’s also always the possibility that an applicant will entirely lose interest in a role if left waiting too long and will not accept the role even if offered.

One of the best ways to ensure your hiring process has adequate response times is to use an ATS to streamline candidate sourcing, interviewing and onboarding. By using an ATS you can also contact a large number of candidates quickly allowing for you to keep them updated on every step of the process. Another great alternative is to provide a timeline where you inform applicants on how long the recruitment process may take and roughly when they may hear from you.

Modes of Communication 

Different applicants will have access to different devices and as such may prefer to be contacted to different mediums. A great way to push candidate engagement is to be willing to communicate across a range of mechanisms; email, telephone, text and social media – a courtesy that will likely be appreciated by many applicants. By being adaptable with your contact mediums also allows certain demographics to better engage with your business based on preferences.

Adaptability is key to attracting top talent and even if the applicants for a role are happy to use your regular mediums, a willingness to offer a range helps to build a positive brand image and positions your business in a far more favourable light.

Role Information 

An important form of candidate engagement is the creation of a job spec. If done poorly, you will likely end up attracting the wrong type of talent for the role and may not get a great deal of success in finding a competent employee. Even after having written the job spec, it’s important that the recruitment team successfully engages with inquiries to ensure that applicants have correctly understood the role and are indeed qualified to apply for the job.

Contact Eploy for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) 

At Eploy, we offer highly adaptable Applicant Tracking Systems designed to help you find the best candidates for each and every job opening. Get in touch with our specialist team at Eploy to find out how we can help you meet your recruitment goals.