The candidate experience has real impact it has on the hiring process and your ability to attract and recruit talent. That's why so many companies and experts are following the trends and tactics that have proven effective in candidate relationship building. A positive candidate experience can leave applicants waiting by the phone, longing for a job offer, but a negative experience can have them running for the hills, or worse, into your competitor’s arms. Concerned that your recruiting and hiring process could be hurting your chances at hiring A Players?

Hiring is projected to get a whole lot more complicated. For the first time in decades, there are more jobs open than workers to fill them. According to the June Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, there were just shy of 6.7 million open positions in April which is almost equal to the 6.6 million Americans searching for a job. While this creates a competitive challenge, it also brings us an opportunity to better our candidate experience. Think about the last time you gave your candidate experience a jolt of energy. When was the last time you took time out of your day to thoroughly test your hiring process?

If it seems like sourcing qualified teams is becoming an increasingly tricky task, it is. Job vacancies are at a 15-year high, time to fill takes up to 42 days on average and the talent shortage is hitting its peak. Furthermore, candidates are more brave to share their experiences with a company online through career review sites like Indeed, Glassdoor and FairyGodboss, in addition to sharing experiences with friends and family through social media. Employer branding can only carry you so far if your candidates or employees are having negative experiences, then sharing them. 55% of candidates will quit an application after reading a bad employer review online and only 45% of employers don’t monitor those reviews. Additionally, well over half of candidates (78%) say the overall candidate experience is a clear indicator of how a company values its people.