What is candidate management, and why is it important?
The term candidate management can come across as a little clinical, when in fact, it is as much a people part of the recruitment process as any other. It is, however, the part that is often subject to time-poor hiring managers or recruitment campaigns focussing on a quick hire – thereby missing the opportunities that positive candidate management can offer.
Whether it is a candidate’s entire journey from application to contract-sign, or an application rejected at the first hurdle, candidate management is the process of communication, feedback and support given to applicants. Or sometimes not, as research shows…
In research conducted by Reed.co.uk in March 2021*, we found three key areas of dissatisfaction regarding candidate management:
- Not hearing back: The biggest challenge [for candidates] by far was “not hearing back”, with almost two-thirds (63%) stating this as an issue after sending an application. There are no surprises there, as this has been a running theme, but it has increased in significance, overtaking ‘find relevant jobs’ as the top issue facing candidates today.
- Resilience to keep searching: It’s a competitive market, with almost four in 10 (39%) candidates finding it challenging to keep searching after suffering rejections or a lack of success. Application fatigue is another area that has increased compared to recent years, possibly accelerated due to Covid-19.
- General feedback: Across the board, those surveyed highlighted feedback from rejections, initial applications, job interviews and general progress reports to be significantly lacking, with open response suggestions as to how hirers can do better:
“Force employers to actually respond to applications, or at the least force them to add in a timescale to hear back from them in the application confirmation”
“Always give me feedback if declined”
“Prepare me for both the interview procedure and how to deal with non-feedback”
“Offer auto-feedback when the job is filled or progress on my applications”
So what can hiring managers and recruiters do to stand out among their competitors while delivering a positive candidate experience at every stage of the recruitment process?
Candidate management best practice:
Job descriptions
Job descriptions should be as detailed as possible from the beginning, leaving no room for ambiguity as to what is desired in a new hire for that specific role. Being upfront about the salary expectations and benefits and the requirements and desirables for the position can go a long way into narrowing the field, attracting fewer but higher quality candidates that hirers have time to give feedback to.
Prequalifying systems (example: screening questions)
Prequalifying systems are a way to ‘weed out’ the spray and pray applications, so employers have more meaningful, better quality applications to feedback on. Pre-qualifying helps candidates in other ways, too, as roles they think may be right for them might turn out not to be. If they can determine this in a skills test or a simple pre-qualifying form online, they’ll save themselves time and effort in the long run.
Targeted searches
Targeting audiences for specific market sourcing will refine the candidate search and generate a pool of quality candidates to choose from. Unless a role is very specific, a generic job description to an indiscriminate audience with no time boundaries will likely garner hundreds, or even thousands of applications, much of which are surplus to requirement. These numbers are just not manageable for candidate management, so a tailored approach upfront can prevent this from happening.
Responding to applications
Auto-responder emails are a minimum standard that employers should adopt to manage candidate admin for roles that get high numbers of applications. They are ideal for business support roles and recruitment campaigns where companies are employing large numbers of people for whole departments, call-centres and teams, for example. While auto-responders lack the personal approach, they at least let a candidate know if they are progressing and alleviate ‘not hearing back’ worries when written with care and understanding.
Setting recruitment timescales
Timescales are crucial for hirers to operate, so they must keep candidates in the picture by laying out timescales from the offset. As a result, employers can manage the recruitment campaign more effectively, portioning time out to feedback to unsuccessful applicants and offering support or guidance – be that to another role or improving their CV or applications for the future.
Providing feedback to candidates
Constructive feedback is the most vital part of candidate management that employers can give to candidates applying for their roles. Not every rejection is a lost cause – far from it. In the competitive, candidate-driven market we find ourselves in, post-pandemic, employers have an opportunity to exercise a duty of care by helping candidates to improve and stand out among other jobseekers with the constructive feedback they receive. In turn, this is a great way to build valuable talent pools for the future.
In summary
Candidate management is a fundamental part of the recruitment process and employers must treat it as such. With proper planning and consideration, employers can easily factor in time and resources to carry out effective candidate management for everyone involved, no matter where they fall in the recruitment cycle. Investing this time and effort delivers an excellent candidate experience that positively impacts the company and recruiter reputation – at a time when reputation is as important as ever.
*Reed.co.uk candidate survey March 2021 – 2,995 partial responses and 1,510 complete responses
