Treat applicants like clients
Low unemployment rate means companies need to impress job seekers
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The unemployment rate has fallen to a 49-year low, meaning many top-performing employees are already gainfully employed. Those who are still looking have many options, making your work as a hiring manager or team leader more difficult.
To build your best team, you need to sell top talent on the idea of working for your company, similar to the way you sell potential clients on the benefits of your products or services. If you don’t, you’ll risk losing job seekers to the competition and also miss out on putting together a top-notch team.
Here are a few tips to get started treating job applicants like customers.
Build a strong employment brand
The job candidate experience begins when prospective applicants research your company to see if any open jobs would be a fit for their background, skills and career goals. A strong employment brand can help you stand out from the competition and attract top candidates — just as your overall brand can help you attract and retain customers.
To build a strong employment brand, highlight the benefits your team has to offer, including perks, vacation time, professional development, learning opportunities, remote work and more.
Also build out career paths on your site, so prospective employees can imagine their growth from entry level to management positions. And continuously share engaging content, such as videos, photos and employee testimonials, to get potential applicants excited about the possibility of working for your business.
Respond to applicants quickly
Many businesses wait more than a week to review and respond to a job applicant. You wouldn’t let a customer lead go unanswered for more than a week, would you? If your business took too long to respond to customer leads, chances are you wouldn’t make many sales.
Applicants who are reviewed and acted upon quickly are more likely to be hired. Responding to applicants as soon as possible can help ensure strong candidates stay engaged and excited about the the possibility of joining your team.
If you leave applicants waiting around for a response, you’ll lose qualified candidates to other job opportunities.
Keep candidates engaged
Once applicants have been reviewed, it’s critical for your team to communicate with candidates throughout the hiring process, just as you’d regularly communicate with a customer to close a sale.
If you like a candidate and can’t find time to schedule an interview right away, reach out to the candidate instead of leaving him or her waiting and wondering when the interview will be scheduled.
Continuous candidate engagement can be streamlined through communication as simple as text messaging. Emails, such as those your hiring team sends to schedule interviews, can often be overlooked in a crowded inbox. And job seekers demand more convenient ways to communicate with employers.
Nearly 90 percent of people agree that it would be beneficial to receive text messages during the job application process.
By keeping candidates engaged throughout each step of the hiring process, you can ensure top talent feels valued and stays interested in joining your team.
Collect candidate feedback
Your customers likely often leave reviews on Yelp and other platforms, while job candidates and employees leave reviews on Glassdoor.
Beyond staying on top of the latest Glassdoor reviews, your team should proactively collect feedback from job seekers, so you can continue improving your hiring process and job applicant experience.
Recent data found that 78 percent of job seekers indicate they’ve never been asked for feedback on the candidate experience, and only 25 percent of employers regularly request feedback from candidates. But by collecting candidate feedback, and acting upon the feedback, your business can attract more quality applicants and eventual hires down the road.
Another benefit of collecting feedback is that you can build relationships with candidates and new employees.
The low unemployment rate and abundance of job opportunities will continue being a challenge for employers. By treating job applicants like customers, you can stand out as a top employers and secure top talent.