Here is my game-plan: share my thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness style blog as move through my 60-day journey to answer the following question … Improving the Candidate Experience: Why do good people and good organizations allow a bad candidate experience?
I’m going to be collecting information by interviewing as many company and HR leaders, some who I know other I don’t, focusing on HR leaders from the 2011 Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For list.
Below are some but not all of the questions we will be chatting about in my path of discovery. I’m also figuring that all this great information will create even more questions from the questions.
Q1: Rate your organization’s external and internal candidate experience: poor, average, good, great, or amazing.
Q2: How important is creating a high-touch “candidate experience” to your company?
Q3: Define what you feel your candidate experience looks like.
I’ve set out with a vision to uncover the reasons why improving the candidate experience has not been a priority for most organizations. I draw this conclusion from the horrific, low satisfaction scores from candidates. Even within the initial four interviews with HR directors I’m been enlightened with the perspective of straight-up HR (versus talent acquisition) people who are all at the top of their game and committed to doing a great job.
I’m digging into what people really think about this topic of the “candidate experience.” There have been lots of opinions and discussion about candidate experience, but still don’t think we’ve figured out why good organizations run by good people have horrible or at least very average candidate experiences. My goal is not to condemn or beat up anyone’s HR, recruiting, or corporate culture practices. It’s to frame these discussions into a way that can be consumed by everyone the candidate experience touches.
What other questions should I be asking in my journey to figure out why good organizations have a lousy candidate experience”?
Just food for thought: check out the video below, created out of a panel from Recruitfest Fall 2010: The Candidate Bill of Rights.