Owning The Candidate Experience

There are many hands involved in a candidate’s experience through the application, interview, and offer processes when they're pursuing a new opportunity. Our focus here is the direct hiring executive's involvement in - and quite honestly, the make or break of - securing a talented individual. 

From the beginning, the hiring executive's engagement is critical for an ultimately successful hire. Candidate experience is not solely Human Resources' responsibility. At the front end, the hiring executive is partnered with their internal Human Resources or Talent Acquisition team to design a talent management strategy and define talent gaps, in other words, identifying the key critical roles on their team that need to be filled. To ensure a succinct process, and overall time-saving, for all parties involved, this role must be fully defined (with responsibilities, required skills and education, KPIs to measure success, main initiatives tied to their performance, organization design, compensation, etc.) before going to the market in active recruiting.  The more decisive and clear you can be up front, the better off you'll be throughout the recruiting and hiring processes. It is so imperative to have this all finalized prior to crafting a compelling message to share with talented candidate prospects who are targeted in a search strategy aligned to the requirements for this leadership talent gap. 

Put yourself in the candidate prospect’s shoes. When pursuing a new opportunity with a different organization, typically a candidate is engaged because of the culture and/or mission of the company, the direct executive leadership team, and the growth opportunities within. If a hiring executive is disengaged, the risk of losing top talent is extremely high, especially passively seeking candidates. If the candidate doesn’t get to build a relationship with the person they’ll potentially work for, what’s the point in pursuing it any further?

Relationship building through the hiring process is critical - for all leadership candidate prospects, but those passive seekers in particular. It’s important that the candidates have a clear understanding of who they’ll be working for and with, why joining the organization is of interest to them, and where they and their career growth aspirations fit into the company. This person is coming to work FOR YOU, you’re a big part of the story and the selling process to attract (and retain) top talent.

It’s important to recognize that in today’s “hot job market”, the candidate prospects are assessing the organization and interviewing the opportunity and leadership team, as much as the company is interviewing them. It’s a two-way street. There has to be a mutual “fit” - and it’s imperative that that decision is made fully-informed. The hiring executive and the leadership candidate prospect both deserve the opportunity to build a relationship throughout the hiring process.

If you’re a hiring executive, you’re probably thinking - “Sure, all sounds well and good, but I have a million priorities on my plate demanding my attention that drive our business forward. How in the world can I make time for this hiring process?” It’s important that the time commitment is laid out on the front end of the search, too. Work with the HR/TA/Search Firm team to understand what the time commitment looks like. I assure you it’s do-able. But, when there are deadlines, competing priorities, and capacity is strained, it can seem daunting. If possible, identify a time to devote to this hire when your “plate” allows the time. It does not need to be a massive time commitment; it simply needs to be intentional time spent. By engaging with the right partner (internal HR/TA or external search firm), having the right initial definition of the talent gap and need, and a well-defined, clear plan on recruiting for this role, you should be set for success. Clarity is King. 

What’s the ROI for a hiring leader being engaged through the hiring process, you ask? It’s fairly simple - time saved. In our business, we see time and time again, if hiring leaders are available, engaged, and decisive they’re able to attract, hire, and retain a top talent leader in a shorter period of time. It is immensely helpful and drives return to provide candidate’s with a positive experience - as it’s a direct representation of the company’s (and hiring leader’s) brand. No negative press here, if it’s done right. Lastly, we’ve seen in our business, building a positive relationship with a new potential hire leads to higher engagement, talented referral applicants, significantly better long-term retention, and internal succession planning success.

What are the consequences? The consequences far outweigh the ROI. If a hiring executive isn’t engaged in the hiring process - i.e. not devoting time and energy to building a relationship and representing the company positively to those who may (or may not) be hired - there are 4 big consequences that plague the company. 

• One, the hiring process is prolonged. It can take months - years - to hire someone if the hiring leader isn’t engaged in attempting to attract top talent, passive seeking candidates prospects. 

• Two, it is extremely common that a disengaged executive leader and a prolonged process lead to losing key talent prospects. Without momentum, leadership candidates become disinterested and/or decide to pivot their careers with another company who is interested in investing in them. 

• Three, literal dollars and cents. There are additional costs with a prolonged process - whether it’s a leadership talent gap internally that is halting the business from driving forward, or it’s paying an HR/TA salary or a Search Firm partner fee - it is costly to the P&L. 

• Lastly, a negative candidate experience is detrimental to business development, a company’s brand, an organization’s culture, and a hiring executive's reputation - this type of negative press spreads like wildfire with word of mouth and online reviews. 

With this type of neglect and misalignment, it makes it significantly more difficult to get the right person in the role. 

Conclusion: A highly-respected, local Talent Acquisition leader in our network said it best when he stated, “Having an engaged hiring manager greatly impacts the ability to attract, close, and retain the best talent.” We couldn’t agree more.

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Lexy Johnson

Director, Practice Development & Marketing

Cultura Solutions

 

Cultura Solutions is a strategic search firm in Minneapolis that partners with executive leaders to help bridge high-impact leadership talent gaps. Cultura employs an extremely disciplined and transparent search process with a targeted sourcing model and outreach focused on genuine human-to-human interaction, allowing us to turn non-active prospects into interested candidates. Visit www.cultura-solutions.com for more information.