Quality candidates have options. The top candidates no longer believe it’s just them under review. They know what they want from the companies they apply to and are less willing to jump through hoops in a long drawn-out application process.
If you want them to apply on your job board, the process needs to be as quick and easy as possible. If you want them to choose your board time and again, you need to have an excellent user experience. A positive candidate experience has become more essential than ever.
What Effect Can a Bad Candidate Experience Have?
Drop Off Rates
A bad candidate experience leads to disengagement and significantly higher drop-off rates as candidates abandon their applications before completion. Streamlining the candidate experience can increase completed applications by up to 50%.
Employer Branding and Reputation
A poor candidate experience on job boards negatively affects the employer’s brand and reputation. Strong employer branding has been shown to cut cost per hire in half.
In the past, a candidate who has had a bad experience when applying probably told one or two of their friends about their experience. But now there are online reviews, social media reviews and comments; the potential for hundreds of people per candidate to hear what went wrong. According to CareerArc, “Nearly 60% of candidates have had a poor candidate experience, and 72% of those candidates shared that experience online or with someone directly”.
A client whose reputation is being negatively affected by a job board’s clunky process are less likely to remain as clients. Moreover, candidates will turn to other more user friendly job boards for their job search.
Lower Acceptance Rates
Candidates are more likely to turn down job offers from companies that gave them a negative experience during the hiring process. According to a study by Career Plug, 58% of candidates turned down job offers due to a bad experience in the application process. If your job board has a track record of submitting candidates who turn down offers, your clients may turn to other job boards whose candidates result in more reliable outcomes.
Common Challenges with Current Job Boards and Their Solutions
Out of Date Website
If your website is old-fashioned and clunky, candidates will get frustrated and drop out of the process. User-focused improvements; intuitive navigation, responsive design, and keeping up-to-date with technology and trends can lead to higher completed application rates.
A Lack of Mobile Optimisation
According to Appcast, about 2/3 of applications are made on mobile devices. With this stat in mind, you must ensure your application flow works seamlessly on mobile.
User Experience Issues
A confusing, long-winded application journey, with many steps, will cause an applicant to lose patience and not complete the process. In particular, if your process requires the candidate to be redirected to another site to apply. Keeping the candidate on your site throughout the application process can be hugely beneficial. Implementing a solution which enables candidates to apply directly on your job board, rather than being redirected to a different website immediately reduces friction.
Search and Matching Limitations
Is there a risk that candidates search for IT jobs in Portsmouth and are wrongly matched with retail jobs in Birmingham? If this happens on your job board, most searches will stop right there. Poor search algorithms and matching criteria leading to irrelevant jobs will lose you candidates before the application process has even started.
A Lack of Effective Communication
The gap in effective communication between candidates and employers often leads to a lack of feedback and prolonged job search times. 60% of candidates say that better communication throughout the process would have a positive effect on their experience. If you do not currently have an automatic notification of submission, including details of the client’s next steps, consider adding this into your job board process.
Inclusivity and Accessibility
Job boards should be inclusive and accessible to all users. Ensure that your job board meets the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards.
How we can help
UBIO enables your job board to bring the full end-to-end application experience directly onto your platform. It does this by automating the completion of the applications on your partner site, while the candidates remain on your job board, completing their application at the point of discovery.
The UBIO integration enables job boards to own and finesse the application form to improve candidate experience and increase application completions.
Our customers tell us that our job board solution helps them increase completed applications, access full attribution tracking, and differentiate from the competition. All with a single API.
Contact us to find out more.