With the demand for software engineers on the rise, it’s important to not lose grasp of those top candidates during the hiring process. In order to achieve this, companies must develop a positive candidate experience from start to finish. This will help bag those talented senior-level candidates but also not leave a bad impression on your company for those unsuccessful candidates.
By carefully implementing a plan for your hiring process, you can offer your candidates a blissful hiring experience offering great communication, consistency and relevance.
Why is the candidate's experience so important?
With already high competition between companies to get high-level software engineers onboard their teams, the coming years are set to increase this competition even further. It's important to leave a good impression on your candidates from start to finish in order not to lose them to a competitor.
Candidates who have a positive experience during the hiring process will be more likely to accept employment from your company. Moreover, they’re more likely to perform well in the role. This is a big bonus!
Whilst it’s never guaranteed that all of your candidates will walk away happy, these guidelines can offer the right method to get you closer to creating a positive candidate experience. Let's jump in.
1. Plan, Plan, Plan
Without a doubt, before even putting the job posting out into the world, you need to plan thoroughly. Firstly, you must understand what your core metrics are, and quantify your goals. Next, you need to be clear on the required skills you need from a candidate in order for them to be successful in the role. These need to be made clear in the job posting.
An evaluation strategy should be based on your hiring goals. The most common strategy is leveraging a technical pre-hire evaluation, offering you valuable information about candidates' capabilities which will help you select the appropriate candidates to move to the next stage. It is vital that you choose a strategy which accurately helps you measure a candidate's potential success in the role.
The strategy you choose can vastly influence a candidate's hiring experience. Whilst interviews and work samples are well-perceived by candidates, strategies that venture too personal towards candidates are not.
When selecting a personality assessment be extra thoughtful about the questions you choose, they must be relevant to the role. The more efficient your planning is, the less likely you are to lose a strong candidate during the hiring process.
2. Communication is Key Throughout
Technical assessments must measure skills applicable to the role. Perceived job relevance in evaluations is demonstrated to lead to positive candidate experiences. With this, you should always check for consistency in your strategy.
All candidates should be following the same process for you to make a fair evaluation. Interviews that have been structured properly are shown to have higher validity and help to reduce bias.
On top of this, when candidates are made aware of the structure of the hiring process, they are shown to have more positive reactions. You need to be transparent and communicative with all candidates about how the process will work, sharing information such as how long evaluations will take. This will help candidates to feel less anxious as they aren’t left in the unknown.
3. Be Transparent After The Selection Process
Regardless of the success of a candidate, you need to offer constructive feedback to them. Lack of timely information can cause stress to candidates, who are left not knowing whether they can accept an offer from a different company or not. Honesty is key, and giving rationale to unsuccessful candidates will prevent sending them away having had a negative experience. Perhaps encourage them to apply again in future as well.
Two-way communication will help candidates to feel heard and validated, meaning they are more likely to walk away with a positive experience of the recruitment process. Listen to any feedback from candidates with open arms and use this information to help improve your recruitment process in future.
Final Thoughts
To offer your candidates a positive hiring experience, get planning well before your first interaction with the candidates. Great planning is your key to success. This planning will support consistency, communication and relevance throughout the hiring process.
This guide can help your company offer a fair and consistent experience for software engineers, helping them to walk away with a positive experience, regardless of their success. For a professional and thorough hiring process, partner with the experts!