For better or worse, we’re always comparing. And such comparisons are so much easier to make today. We want to know what our neighbours paid for their house? Was it more or less than we stumped out? Not a problem, easily done. We want to know where are friends are staying on holiday? Is their hotel, weather, food, views better than our own? A simple check on the social media of our choice and we know. And the likes of Instagram make it all too easy to understand how we dress, how we look, how we’re ageing in comparison to those around us.
One of the major technological advances over the last ten years has been consumer comparison sites. If we want to compare mortgage rates, hotel prices, flight availability, insurance deals, healthcare outcomes, grocery prices, we’re only a couple of clicks away. We inhabit today a far more transparent world. The truth is out there like never before. There’s rarely a shortage of relevant stats, metrics and tables. We know how our sports team is faring, we know how local schools are doing and how well our pension is performing. Not so much in absolute terms, but particularly in comparison to their respective peer groups.
In theory, it has never been easier to make an informed, insightful choice. And if, sometimes sadly, we’re usually stuck with our football team, that’s not the case with our choice of insurance company, bank, holiday destination or car.
Nor, for that matter, our employer.
How often do organisations compare their candidate offering with the market?
How often do they create topical levels of understanding about their applicant journey and how it might stack up alongside those offered by their industry or locational peers? If I’m a candidate, I’m likely to be considering not just one new employer but a handful. And I’ll definitely have some key considerations and criteria in mind when I come to compare like with like. I’ll want to know about salary levels and respective packages. I’ll want to know how those different organisations are performing. I’ll want to understand some practical things around location and commute.
“I speak to many Heads of HR who claim to have “a great candidate experience”. My answer is always “Compared to whom?” That’s when you see the cogs turning and the realisation that maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves a little.
The huge issue with not comparing your company’s candidate experience with others trying to hire the same talent is that you end up not only with false positives (thinking you are doing well, but in comparison you are not as competitive as you think), which result in complacency, but also false negatives, where you think you are doing poorly, but given the perspective of comparison, you could be doing ok, resulting in wasted effort, focus and budget, trying to fix something in which you are already better than your competition”, Steve Gard, Founder at BenchmarCX – “The Candidate Experience Comparison platform for employers”
Along with such important considerations, two hugely interlinked elements will form a key part of my decision-making process. The image, reputation or brand of those employers. And the sort of candidate experience I come across. Interlinked, because the experience I come across as a candidate will significantly influence that organisation’s employer brand or reputation.
Candidates, particularly strong ones, looking around at employment options on their own terms, are no different to consumers. Just as they will do their own research on the experience they encounter as a customer, on speed, on efficiency, on the communications they receive in making a purchase, they’ll make similar comparisons during their job search.
They will be looking at you and your careers in relative rather than absolute terms.
“As AI improves over time, I am confident that, with automated technology, so too will candidate experience. My team are big on personality, passion and their ability to impart insight and knowledge to deliver a great candidate experience. For me, that means giving the candidate enough insight into the role, the highs but also the challenges, enabling them to make an informed choice about whether to pursue the role or not. Transparency and integrity are really important values that help deliver the best candidate experience. We often find that even when candidates have not accepted a role with us, they will remember the experience and return to us at a later stage.
I know organisations that measure candidate experience through NPS or their own systems. Our ATS enables us to measure candidate feedback, however we have not enabled it yet, as we need to be confident that we have the resources to act on and deliver improvements, but it is something we are looking at for the future.
You’re absolutely right, it would be great to measure and compare candidate experience, as I really do believe that it can make or break a candidate’s decision to engage with an organisation. It is as simple as this”, Adele Swift, Talent Attraction and Recruitment Manager, Toolstation.
However, the big difference between the various comparison sites and metrics touched on above and the candidate experience provided by employers is transparency.
How well do you, as an employer, understand both how candidates perceive the process and experience they go through when engaging with you? And how does such an experience compare with the offering of your competitors?
How much more or less value adding is your candidate experience?
Is tech adding to or detracting from such an experience?
How well or otherwise do your candidate communications function and land?
How slick and efficient is the experience you provide?
And all such answers need to be compared with what the competition is doing.
It’s little point shortening your time to offer, for example, by x days if that remains two weeks longer than your talent competitors.
Whilst there may well be tangible differences between one employer and another within a particular sector, those differences – likely to relate to culture, to progression, to DEI – are only genuinely understood by employees, rather than candidates. Therefore, in the absence of lived and experienced differences, a candidate can only compare what they encounter – the applicant experience. What they see, what they take from candidate communications, speed and efficiency, culture, respect, consideration, passion, how engaged the people they come across are, represent what they will think of you.
“I don’t disagree with what you are saying about candidate experience and the availability of greater sources of information. But the key is measurement and tracking comparative improvements. And comparison with competitors can involve a great deal of analysis. However, the importance of talent intelligence is growing all the time.
All too often, companies rely on the likes of Glassdoor, which as we know, comes with a price attached and perhaps lacks objectivity.
From previous experience, ownership for candidate experience tends to sit with TA teams. When EB becomes involved, this can present challenges”, Andy Hendon, Global EB Consultant (Formerly of Syneos Health & KPMG).
For those candidates, your employer brand is your candidate experience. And because they are likely to be engaging with a number of employers, they are able to compare such experiences. To create rankings and league tables.
What’s vital, then, is to understand how the candidate experience you currently provide to applicants compares to your employment peer group. Where are you on that league table?
I’d also suggest that we make such comparisons more during tougher times. If a customer is making a significant purchase when finances are tight, their research into the transaction will be forensic. The same logic applies to strong candidates making a career move during an uncertain labour market.
Very simply, providing a candidate experience that compares favourably to your talent competitors is a competitive advantage.
Equally simply, do you know how the candidate experience you are currently providing compares?
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 