How Open and Honest Communication Led to Case-Mate Winning a Candidate Experience Award

Would you say that communication is key to any successful relationship?  Probably yes, but it’s not just communication itself; it is the way you communicate.  If your company wants to deliver a positive candidate experience to job seekers, it should establish open and honest communication.

Case-Mate is a global design leader for fashion-forward mobile accessories.  Their products help to express your unique style, while their jobs are designed to showcase your individual talent.  Case-Mate combines passion for detailed refinement with timeless fashion.  Additionally, the company has brought its candidate experience to the forefront, having been recognized as a 2012 Candidate Experience Award Winner.

Now in its third year, The Candidate Experience (CandE) Awards and benchmarking program is designed to evaluate the job candidate experience companies offer through their recruitment cycles and honor those companies that implement outstanding strategies to provide a consistent and positive experience for jobseekers. The CandE Awards program consists of three survey rounds designed to capture and evaluate a company’s recruitment processes and practices that impact the candidate experience. Companies that complete the first round submission process receive a complimentary Employer Benchmark Report, and those that meet the standard for candidate experience are invited to advance in the competition.  The CandE Awards program is complimentary and confidential, and all CandE Award winners will be celebrated at the HR Technology Conference in Chicago this October.

Employers interested in competing or receiving benchmarking data must complete their applications by June 28, 2013. To learn more about the Candidate Experience Awards and the application process, please visit http://www.thecandes.org/apply.

The Candidate Experience Awards (the CandE Awards) was created by veterans of the recruiting industry to help employment candidates have a better experience when they apply for work.  Although the CandE Awards is a competition, it exists to enable any company to benchmark and improve their candidate experience.  The organization behind the CandE awards is the Talent Board, a non-profit research organization.  The Talent Board recognizes that finding new employment is inherently stressful for most job seekers and their families.  Its mission is to help employers and candidates to have a more effective, efficient, and humane exchange during the recruiting process.  The Talent Board believes that the best way to improve candidate experience is to provide corporations with research that helps them to benchmark and improve their operation.

Here is what Alex Putman, Director of Talent Attraction & Recruitment Branding for Case-Mate, says about why his company applied for the Candidate Experience Award.

Our talent acquisition department was first established in November 2011.  We applied for the CandE award to gather data on our candidate experience process compared to other companies, basically see how we could improve.  Our goal is/was to provide a positive experience for all applicants and treat them with fairness and respect.   Note:  We have actually rejected candidates for jobs, and they still recommend their friends/peers for other openings.

Putman also shares what makes his company unique, yet important with respect to the candidate experience.

Open & Honest Communication!  We communicate very openly, especially in the social media space.  One unique part of our process is the use of our personal twitter handles versus a “casemate careers” handle.  Candidates are speaking directly with our talent acquisition team on all fronts of the process, including updates to all candidates on their status as an applicant.
 
We are also heavy users of video and provide 2 minute clips of each managers discussing their management styles and profiles of candidates they seek (versus just having a job description).  http://www.youtube.com/caseMateCareers

–Article by William Frierson, staff writer for CollegeRecruiter.com, the leading niche job board used by college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs and other career opportunities. Steven Rothberg, president and founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, is a member of the 2013 Candidate Experience Council which helps to steer the future of the CandEs awards and benchmarking program by drawing on the expertise and knowledge of the HR community’s thought leaders.