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5 Candidate Experience Myths

Ever wonder as a job seeker if recruiters really care about how you’re treated in the hiring process?

Your experience when applying for a job is referred to in the recruiting world as the “candidate experience”. And good companies are concerned about the experience a job seeker has in the recruiting process because it impacts the reputation and brand of the company. That ultimately affects whether the company is able to hire good employees.

There’s even an annual competition to determine the companies providing the best experience to job seekers — The Candidate Experience Awards.

Check out these candidate experience myths, courtesy of Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads and CareerBuilder. Good recruiters do care about your experience, even though it may not always seem that way.

• Myth: The failure to acknowledge a job application won’t impact the company.
• Fact: 44% of job seekers who didn’t hear back from an employer when they applied for a job said they have a worse opinion of that employer.

• Myth: What happens in the recruitment process stays in the recruitment process.
• Fact: 78% of job seekers said they would talk about a bad experience they had with a potential employer with friends and family. 17% said they would post something about their negative experience on social media and 6% said they would blog about it.

• Myth: Just hearing from an employer in a tight job market is enough to keep the candidate’s interest.
• Fact: When asked to assess the recruiters who contacted them, 21% reported that the recruiter was not enthusiastic about his/her company being an employer of choice. 17% didn’t believe the recruiter was knowledgeable and 15% didn’t think the recruiter was professional.

• Myth: The top reason why job seekers apply for a job is salary.
• Fact: Location was the number one reason candidates submitted an application (45%), followed by desirable industry (33%), reputation of the company (25%), interesting assignments (23%) and advancement opportunities (22%). Competitive compensation ranked sixth for why candidates said they applied for a job.

• Myth: The top reason why job seekers don’t apply is the advertisement.
• Fact: Good content in a job ad is critical, but technical issues are more often the culprit. Job seekers cited a link that wasn’t working and computer/Internet problems as the top reasons for not applying to a job. The application being too lengthy rounded out the top three.

We’ve all heard complaints, but can anyone share a good experience they’ve had in the hiring process?

+Rob Riggins