Securing Government Employment – Part 2: How Do I Apply to Federal Jobs?

How do military veterans apply for jobs in the federal government?  The following post helps them understand the application process.

Link:

Securing Government Employment – Part 2: How Do I Apply to Federal Jobs?

How Employers can Improve the Candidate Experience: Part 7

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

Tom Janz, Ph.D. of PeopleAssessments and I had a chance to catch up at SIOP.  We spoke about the candidate experience.  Given the amount of time people are spending on YouTube, Tom thinks the on-line application process should be fun.  Long questionnaires with hundreds of radio buttons to click are just not engaging.

Tom also suggests the experience be job relevant.  Click Play to hear what Tom had to say:

Go ahead and apply for a job at your company. Then ask for candidate testimonials: “Did I have fun?” Continue Reading

How Is Your Rejection Process?

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

I sat with a recruiting team this week to discuss aligning staffing with their business strategy. In this case, the strategy was inclusive of how those not hired felt about the company and its brand. For some of their positions, each candidate could be a future customer, future employee, or potential competitor. Holding those thoughts in focus for a moment triggers some questions about the candidate experience. Continue Reading

How Employers can Improve the Candidate Experience

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

I had a chance to speak with Teresa Fearis, Director of Global Alliances at SHL, while attending Taleo World.  We discussed what can be done to improve the candidate experience.

Candidates are asked to provide a great deal of information during the application process.  At a minimum they provide work history.  Firms that utilize objective candidate evaluations methods such as pre-employment tests, assessments or simulations obtain even more information about the candidate.  This generates a pretty lop-sided exchange of information.  Teresa offers a few suggestions for improving the candidate experience based upon higher levels of information sharing.  Click PLAY to hear what she has to say.  Then scroll down to read more on this topic. Continue Reading

Candidate Experience – Make It Engaging and Interactive, Part 6 of 6

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

This is part of a series connected to the Candidate Experience Monograph.

We asked job seekers to clarify their outlook for an interactive application experience two ways.  In general, we wanted to know if there was a strong preference for engaging activities and if there was an expectation for interactive activities over text only experiences.  The large number of neutral responses to a preference for interactive experience might indicate that candidates do not have enough exposure to job applications with this feature to have a strong opinion one way or another.   However, the majority of job seekers have expectations that they will find a more engaging candidate experience than just reading about the job. Continue Reading

Candidate Experience – Negative Impact of Technical Issues, Part 4 of 6

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

This is part four of a series connected to the Candidate Experience Monograph.

We asked job seekers about the impact of career page technical difficulties. Specifically we wanted to know about the propensity to leave the application process, how much effort and time might be invested in resolving an issue and if the occurrence of technical difficulties created a negative brand impression.

Likelihood to Exit

Candidates want an easy to use experience.  And the data suggest there is limited tolerance for poorly functioning features.  They want simple and effective resume uploads, and links that work and are easy to understand.  59% of candidates are very likely or somewhat likely to exit before completing an application process if the encounter a page or process with frustrating or challenging functionality. Continue Reading

Candidate Experience – Communication Preferences, Part 3 of 6

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

This is Part Three of a series connected to the Candidate Experience Monograph.

We asked job seekers about their preference for how they wanted to communicate with recruiters and hiring managers during the application process.  We wanted to see if there were strong preference one way or another, and in fact there are.

In order of preference:

1. Telephone
2. Email
3. Paper mail
4. Texting
5. Chat

You Know My Name, Look Up My Number

Job search is a personal endeavor through a largely impersonal maze or obstacle course.  Candidates want to make a connection on a personal level with another human being.   At the end of the day, each candidate knows the hiring decision will ultimately be made by another human being. As such, candidates have the highest preference for talking with recruiters on the phone.   A very common retort from unsuccessful candidates is the classic:“if only I could speak with someone, I could sell myself.”  The telephone was the communication vehicle of choice for 88% of respondents.

Everybody uses the phone somewhere in their recruiting process.  However, the personal connection of a phone call is reserved for the most highly qualified candidates.  And with the applicant-to-hire ratios common to high volume sourcing, this means that 50% to 98% of candidates will never hear the ring, never experience the type of interaction they prefer the most.  It creates a clear and pronounced expectation gap that will not be closed.  Even making the ‘No thanks’ call to the unsuccessful is impractical, given the number in the rejection pool. Continue Reading

Candidate Experience – The Big Seven Process Expectations, Part 2 of 6

In this second in a series, I will share the job seeker’s top seven expectations of what they want to know about their application, but first, I digress.

Back in the day, before the web, I would hang a sign in the front door of our building – Not taking applications at this time. I did not want to deal with a pile of applications from walk-in candidates that I had no use for at the moment. I did not want to establish expectations that the prospect of a job existed either. Continue Reading

Are You Measuring Your Candidate Experience?

Joe Murphy of Shaker Consulting Group

I have been writing about the candidate experience.  As such, I thought it might be good to go back to the first look we took at how companies evaluate or think about the candidate experience.

We conducted a survey of attendees at the Taleo World 2008 User Conference in Boston, MA. The purpose of the survey was to assess the degree to which organizations are evaluating the candidate experience and measuring the economic impact of staffing process waste or early turnover. Given the expanding focus on the Candidate Experience, it seemed fitting to share the results again.

As a sponsor and exhibitor of the conference, we asked recruiting professionals who visited our booth to complete a five-question survey. Three multiple-choice questions explored candidate experience issues and two questions examined 120-day turnover. Continue Reading