{"id":59061,"date":"2017-05-31T08:26:30","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T12:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bullhorn.com\/uk\/?p=59061"},"modified":"2019-03-01T21:19:54","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T21:19:54","slug":"why-a-bad-candidate-experience-is-bad-for-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bullhorn.com\/uk\/blog\/why-a-bad-candidate-experience-is-bad-for-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Bad Candidate Experience Is Bad for Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>This is the first of two articles that will explore why candidate experience and candidate engagement are so crucial for recruitment agencies, what makes for a bad candidate experience, and how agencies can turn the tide and deliver a great candidate experience that drives business results.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Every business professional knows this to be true: delivering a great customer experience is crucial for success. And the consequences of delivering a bad experience are well-documented. <\/span><\/p>\n

Studies show 95 percent of people have taken some action as a result of a bad experience with a company. Ninety-five percent<\/a> of unhappy customers tell others about their experience\u2014often via social media. Worse than that, a bad customer experience impacts retention and revenue directly, with studies showing as many as 82 percent<\/a> of customers who\u2019ve stopped doing business with a company because of a bad experience. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do the same principles hold for a candidate\u2019s experience with a recruitment agency? The answer is, unequivocally, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

For recruiters, talent is the equivalent of customers for a company. Nearly 60 percent of job seekers have had a poor candidate experience, according to <\/span>CareerArc<\/span><\/a>. What\u2019s the \u201ccandidate experience\u201d really about? It\u2019s the continuum of interactions, touchpoints, and various other ways in which the company, recruiters, and hiring managers engage with candidates throughout the entire candidate journey. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Interestingly, there\u2019s a significant gap between how agencies perceive they\u2019re doing at delivering a great candidate experience vs. those who actually measure it and know exactly how they\u2019re doing. Eighty-six percent of agencies\u00a0<\/span>think they\u2019re doing an excellent or good job at candidate engagement, but less than 50 percent actually measure how they are doing, according to Bullhorn\u2019s 2017 UK Recruitment Trends Survey<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Engaging candidates and creating a great experience for them matters a lot for recruitment agencies<\/span>. Here are 5 reasons you don\u2019t want to mess it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll lose product or service revenue if candidates stop doing business with your agency.<\/b><\/h3>\n

Forty-one percent of global candidates who believe they\u2019ve had a negative (1-star) experience say they\u2019ll take their alliance, product purchases, and relationship elsewhere, according to The Talent Board\u2019s 2016 Candidate Experience Research report.<\/span><\/p>\n

This finding is validated by a widely-publicised report <\/span>about the <\/span>cost of poor candidate experience to Virgin Media<\/span><\/a>, produced by<\/span> employer branding<\/span>\u00a0agency Ph.Attraction. According to the study, poor candidate experience cost Virgin Media \u00a34.4M in 2014 ($5.5M U.S.). \u00a0More than 130,000 candidates applied for jobs at Virgin Media that year, 18 percent of whom were existing Virgin Media customers. Due to a poor candidate experience, more than 7,500 cancelled their subscriptions and switched to a competitor.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the volume of candidates for your agency\u00a0<\/span>or clients isn\u2019t like that high, if 20-30 percent of candidates for a B2C business have a negative experience, the cost of lost revenue is still substantial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conversely, <\/span>64 percent of job seekers who give a positive 5-star rating will increase their involvement with an employer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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#Candidates with a negative experience won’t keep working with you.<\/a><\/div>\n

Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n

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People go online and tell others about their bad experience and dissuade others from using your agency.<\/b><\/h3>\n

People who have a bad customer service experience spread the word with others, and job candidates do the same thing. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to CareerArc, <\/span>of those job seekers who\u2019ve had a poor candidate experience, 72 percent say they\u2019ve shared that experience online via an employer review site, such as Glassdoor; a social networking site; or directly with a colleague or friend. Nearly 60 percent of employers have read at least one piece of online negative feedback about their applicant process. Tellingly, 70 percent of the employers who\u2019ve not yet seen negative candidate reviews admit to never having searched online to check if any exist!<\/span><\/p>\n

And bad word-of-mouth has bad revenue consequences. Nine percent of those who’ve had a bad candidate experience go out and tell others not to purchase products or services from the company. The flipside: candidates share positive recruitment experiences with their friends, family, and peers over 81 percent of the time. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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People who have a bad #CandidateExperience experience spread the word with others.<\/a><\/div>\n

Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/span>People won\u2019t reapply for jobs, and they tell their friends to keep away.<\/b><\/h3>\n

When candidates have a bad experience in the interview or hiring process, they clearly become jaded about the prospect of applying for another position. \u00a0<\/span>Just 15 percent of those who had a negative experience (1-star rating) were likely to reapply for another position with the company, according to the Talent Board\u2019s Candidate Experience Research report<\/a>. This means you\u2019ll miss the chance to hire the remaining 85 percent of those candidates in the future. What\u2019s more, 42 percent of candidates who were dissatisfied with how their application was handled by an employer would never seek employment at that company again, according to <\/span>CareerBuilder\u2019s research. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

If a bad experience means competent and qualified people who were interested in working for a company won\u2019t reapply for other jobs, you\u2019ll inevitably see delays in filling positions and increases in the cost of hiring. In contrast, the Talent Board found that <\/span>96-98 percent of candidates who had a positive candidate experience (4-5 star rating) are likely to reapply. \u00a0<\/span>
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Beyond the impact to candidates who considered an agency, a substantial number of candidates <\/span>\u2013 22 percent of those who have a negative experience<\/span><\/a> \u2013 will also go off and tell friends and colleagues to not apply at the agency. With highly desired talent often found via referral networks, this diminishes the pool of available candidates. In contrast, <\/span>96-98 percent of candidates who had a positive experience (4-5 stars) would refer someone else to work at the company<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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1 out of 5 #candidates who have a negative experience will tell peers not to apply at that agency.<\/a><\/div>\n

Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a steep cost of open positions and potentially higher costs of hiring.<\/b><\/h3>\n

The longer it takes to fill a position, the greater the time burden and cost is on the hiring manager. Hiring managers have to spend more time on interviewing and recruitment at the expense of doing their regular day-jobs. Plus, recruiters have to spend more time finding candidates. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But an even greater hit is the lost productivity and value from an unfilled position and a vacant seat. Existing employees may be tapped out or stressed because they have to work harder to pick up the load. If it\u2019s a revenue-producing job, then revenue will be lost along with potential market share or share of wallet for the customer base served by the position.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, if a company or recruitment agency<\/span>\u2019s brand reputation is in any way diminished, the cost to hire talent goes up. Research by LinkedIn shows that a failure to invest in employer branding can cost companies considerably. LinkedIn\u2019s VP of Talent Solutions, Wade Burgess, shared findings in his article, <\/span>\u201c<\/span><\/i>Research Shows Exactly How Much Having a Bad Employer Brand Will Cost You<\/span><\/i><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/i> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Using a combination of Linkedin research results, publicly available salary data, and typical turnover rates, they found the results \u201cpretty staggering\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n