By Shawna Armstrong

Candidate resentment has increased by 40% in North America since 2016 according to the latest annual Candidate Experience (CandE) Benchmark Research Report published by Talent Board.  That is really bad for your company’s or your clients’ brand and reputation, especially if candidates are existing or potential customers.

It is a well-known fact that Recruiting is broken.  It is being shouted from the rooftops by Talent Acquisition professionals and job seekers alike.  The top reasons for candidate resentment, according to the survey, are 1) candidates are not asked for feedback on the process, 2) employers are taking too long to make offers, and 3) candidates who have been engaged and who have invested much time and energy in the process are summarily dismissed via generic email or text messages.

As a job seeker, I had applied for several positions and went into the applicant black hole for most of them.  Waiting for a response and just assuming after too long that I wasn’t moving forward.  One company was kind enough to auto-subscribe me to some talent pool email distro, so I can stay up to date on all the great things they’re doing, though I wasn’t worthy of a response to my application.  This made me resent them even more.  Unsubscribe!

On the Talent Acquisition side, I often receive sincere thank you messages for timely rejection letters, confirming this is such a wide-spread issue.

If your hiring process has temporarily slowed due to COVID and the resulting economic shut-down, you may want to take this time to improve your process for future hiring.  Here are some tips from TalentLyft on how to improve candidate experience in 10 simple steps.