How AI unlocks the key to a great candidate experience.

The “ideal” candidate experience is impossible. 

Well, at least for 99% of candidates. 

“Candidates are only going to be happy if they get the job,” said Kevin Grossman, VP of research at ERE, and creator of the annual CandE Benchmark Research Report. 

Think about it this way: If you receive 100 applicants for an open role, no matter what you do, only one of them is going to come away thinking the candidate experience was perfect. The other 99 are probably going to be disappointed. 

But just because you can't make your candidate experience “ideal” for every candidate doesn't mean you can't make it better. In fact, you can make it so good that those 99 rejected candidates want to come back and apply again. Now that is a great candidate experience.

So how do you do it?

The 2023 CandE Benchmark Research Report found that the key is speed; when companies make the application process smoother and faster, they’re much more successful in getting rejected applicants to reapply. Here are some other critical takeaways from the report:

• The companies providing the best candidate experience were engaging 22% more candidates with an AI assistant.
• Top performers were 42% more likely to have their job applications launched via text message.
• The number one reason candidates drop off from the hiring process is because they feel their time was disrespected.

Essentially, we know that the most important thing to a candidate when they apply for a job is to actually get the job. That’s obvious. But right below that in second place is not having their time wasted. Now, you can only guarantee that first thing to one candidate. But you can guarantee the second thing to everyone, all the time. 

And the research shows you can do that most effectively with AI. 

AI fills the communication gap in the current application process.

Yes, the same AI automation that many fear is actually making the candidate experience worse, is actually making it better. 

How can that be? 

Well it turns out that above all else, candidates don’t like to be ignored. Of course, you didn’t need research report data to tell you that, but we have some anyway: CandE data found an inverse correlation between the time it takes to hear back from a company and the likelihood a candidate would apply to that same company a second time. 

“Feeling like their time has been disrespected during the screening process has always been the number one reason candidates withdraw their application,” said Grossman. “And no matter how upset candidates may get, there’s typically not a lot of interaction at the point of application.”

Candidates seek an interactive, transparent, and fast application process. And above all else, AI excels in providing an interactive, transparent, and fast application process that candidates love.

So much so that integrating AI into the point of contact with a candidate increases the company’s NPS score (how CandE measures candidate experience) by up to 50%. That’s because AI is able to fill a communication gap that is often present in large-scale hiring processes. 

“Candidates may only want the job, but filling the communication void helps the experience for those that don’t get it,” said Grossman. 

How AI creates great candidate experiences. 

There’s a finite amount of minutes in a day. It’s impossible for human recruiters to always communicate with every candidate effectively. There’s simply too many tasks and too many roles to juggle for most organizations. 

Which is why the employers with the best candidate experiences right now are the ones leveraging AI to communicate with candidates — CandE’s Award Winners were engaging with 22% more candidates with AI automation. 

“Conversational AI is able to engage candidates when there was previously no engagement,” said Grossman.

Automation gives candidates exactly what they need: fast responses in a smooth process. For some top performers, that automation takes the form of conversational AI assistants that guide candidates throughout the hiring experience with 24/7, “always-on” functionality, meaning that candidates can receive the same smooth experience at 3:00 a.m. that they do at 1:00 p.m. 

Plus, they’re expert communicators — assistants can send candidates interview prep, reminders, next steps, and status updates to keep the process moving. All of this correspondence is automated over text — a medium that top performers are 42% more likely to funnel their hiring process through.

No recruiter wants to ignore a candidate. But when faced with a large workload and a heavy influx of candidates, communicating with everyone becomes an afterthought. Automation allows companies to operate effective communication at scale, leading to some great results for top performers.

‍Great candidate experiences use automation. 

“When it’s done right, most of the application experience is automated before the interview,” said Grossman.

Ultimately, not every candidate is going to get the job. But you can still make the experience better for the candidates that don’t. With AI automation, you can deliver a fast hiring process that makes silver medalists more likely to try again when they find a new opening they like. And deliver a simple, fast, and smooth experience at a part of the application process where candidates are looking for a simple, fast, and smooth experience. 

And if a candidate is offered a job after a conversational job application? Well, that would be “ideal”, now wouldn’t it.