6 Candidate Experience Statistics We Learned from RallyFwd Attendees

Recruitment practitioners from across the U.S. and around the world gathered virtually on Dec. 4, 2019, for the RallyFwd™ Virtual Conference to learn proven strategies to improve candidate experience, get motivated by expert speakers and see new technologies that can modernize how employers attract and recruit talent. And this time, we learned some interesting data points from each other! Through live polling, we asked attendees about their own candidate experiences and uncovered significant challenges that exist within their organizations.

Here are the results of the live polls we conducted with the RallyFwd audience made up of nearly 750 professionals in Recruitment Marketing, talent acquisition, employer branding and human resources. Are these candidate experience statistics surprising to you? How would you answer these questions?

Note: You can download a PDF and PowerPoint file containing charts and graphs with all of the RallyFwd candidate experience poll results. Includes additional questions about using recruiting strategies like the Goldilocks Effect, the 80/20 Rule, Follow-up Fridays, company culture, and more >

1. There is a big disconnect between leadership’s awareness of the candidate experience and the business outcomes associated with candidate experience

RallyFwd attendees said up to 56% of CEOs may not know what candidate experience is.

Up to 56% of our CEOs may not know what candidate experience is, let alone what business outcomes are associated with it or how to solve for candidate experience issues.

It’s clear from these results that we need to educate our leadership on the fact that if organizations provide a poor candidate experience, it can impact revenue streams (candidates are customers too!) and our ability to attract quality talent and hire effectively. By taking the time to educate our leadership team, we have a better chance of securing the resources and budget we need to build a modern, best-in-class candidate experience. 

However, motivating this level of change takes some courage! If you need tips and inspiration on how to foster courage to influence change, you can watch RallyFwd On Demand for free to hear our keynote session delivered by Ryan Berman, Founder of Courageous and Author of Return on Courage. 

2. 73% of RallyFwd attendees have witnessed the impact of a negative candidate experience firsthand

RallyFwd attendees said that 7 out of 10 of their organizations have been impacted by a negative candidate experience.

Nearly three quarters — 73% — of RallyFwd attendees said that their organization has been impacted by a negative candidate experience. As we learned from the Talent Board research presented at RallyFwd, there are a range of negative outcomes that can be associated with delivering a sub-par or poor candidate experience, such as:

• A reduction in your customer base, since candidates who have a bad experience are more likely to want to sever ties with your business
• A decrease in referrals because candidates and employees will be hesitant to refer someone they know to your company if they anticipate they’ll have a bad experience
• An increase in negative reviews on employer review sites like Glassdoor and kununu, which impacts your ability to attract talent in the future
• A higher number of candidates dropping out of your process and declining offers

Based on this poll, it’s clear that many of us have encountered one of the above — or another related outcome — because of limitations with our hiring process. The good news is all of these outcomes also work in reverse. This means, if we can improve our candidate experience in 2020, we’ll have the chance to positively impact business performance, increase referrals and positive reviews, and close more candidates. 

3. The majority of practitioners assess candidates primarily based on skill set and culture fit; however, mind set is becoming increasingly important too

The majority of RallyFwd attendees assess candidates primarily based on skill set and culture fit; however, mind set is becoming increasingly important too.

During the RallyFwd opening keynote, Ryan Berman advised that in addition to assessing candidates based on skill set, we should also be assessing whether candidates have the right mind set. According to Ryan, in today’s difficult business climate, we should look to hire people with the ability to adapt to change.

With the right mind set, skill set and culture fit, you can build courageous teams who are willing to challenge the status quo so that your business can continue to reinvent itself and thrive over the long term, as market needs evolve and as new competitors emerge.

While the majority of RallyFwd attendees were already considering skill set and culture fit in their assessments, for 62% of attendees this was a new factor to consider in our approach to candidate assessments.

4. 64% of attendees have not used a candidate journey map before to test and improve their candidate experience

Only 36% of recruiting practitioners polled said they have created a candidate journey map for their organization.

A candidate journey map is an incredibly useful tool to use to test out and improve your candidate experience. However, the majority of us haven’t leveraged this exercise (yet!) to improve our candidate experience.

If you’re wondering how to build out a candidate journey map, this approach works a lot like it sounds! Candidate journey mapping involves mapping out the various touchpoints and interactions a candidate might experience while moving through your recruiting funnel, from attraction through onboarding. By doing this, you can identify and address places in your candidate journey that might require an upgrade.

If you want to learn more about candidate journey mapping, two of our sessions at RallyFwd covered this approach. You can watch RallyFwd On Demand and listen to Kristen Magni’s session, “Bears, Goldilocks and AI: Getting Candidate Experience ‘Just Right,’” or Shavonne Thomas’ session, “The Power of Emotion in Your Candidate Experience” for more details.

5. Most organizations are not holding hiring managers accountable for delivering on a positive candidate experience

Just 25% of RallyFwd attendees said that hiring managers at their companies are held accountable for providing a great candidate experience.

As you likely know, the candidate experience is not delivered by talent acquisition teams alone! Instead, everyone that a candidate encounters throughout their journey will impact their perception of the experience and your employer brand. This might include receptionists, hiring managers, HR services team members and others.

Of course, hiring managers are one of the most important groups who influence the candidate experience, since outside of TA this segment will likely have the highest volume of interactions with candidates.

As a result, in order to ensure that the quality of your candidate experience remains high throughout the candidate journey, it’s important to hold hiring managers accountable too for the overall experience. Unfortunately, at least 67% of attendees work for organizations where hiring managers are not held accountable for this, probably because we still need to educate our leadership teams and hiring teams on the importance of candidate experience.

A good starting place for hiring manager accountability is to offer training that educates them on the candidate experience that your company strives to deliver and the important role they play. Hiring managers can’t be held accountable, after all, for something they don’t understand or have visibility into.

If you’re looking for inspiration, watch Stacy Van Meter’s session, “Rallying Your Company to Prioritize Candidate Experience,” on RallyFwd On Demand. During her session, Stacy shares how her organization, Deluxe Corporation, enables hiring managers to provide a stand-out candidate experience through several innovative approaches.

6. At least 64% of attendees will be implementing new technologies in 2020 to improve their candidate experience

64% of talent acquisition and HR professionals said they plan to implement new technology in 2020 to improve their candidate experience.

It’s clear from our technology poll results that many Recruitment Marketing, talent acquisition and HR practitioners will be using new tech tools to modernize their candidate experience in 2020!

Many of our RallyFwd speakers provided insight into some of the tech tools that are working for their organizations, including AI tools, text recruiting, chatbots, automated sourcing tools and much more.

Two of our speakers — Kristen Magni, VP of Talent & Culture at Bozzuto, and Kevin W. Grossman, President of the Talent Board — advised that when choosing technology we need to do so in a really thoughtful way. We should be selecting solutions that help us to deliver on a more personalized experience, rather than automating to the extent that the candidate experience feels impersonal.

To better understand the landscape of what new and emerging solutions are out there, and which ones might be a good fit to solve your candidate experience challenges, you can access our Online Technology Showcase on demand! In this showcase, our RallyFwd sponsors offer up an exclusive 30-minute walk-through of their platforms and answer these two critical questions: “How does this technology modernize the candidate experience?” and “How can does your tool help us to know if our strategies are working?”

We hope these poll results offer up some interesting perspective on how your peers are thinking about and approaching candidate experience in 2020. As an industry, we still have a ways to go, but progress is being made every day by bold practitioners like you — keep going — you are making a difference!

If you’d like more insights from our poll, you can download a PDF and PowerPoint file containing charts and graphs with all of the RallyFwd candidate experience poll results >