There are some fabulously talented friends, clients and colleagues in my network who are seeking new roles.  Like me, many have views on what a great CV achieves, how to prepare for an interview and what constitutes a positive candidate experience.  Fortunately, we all add something positive to the debate, although the diversity of our experience creates some tension from time to time. This tension keeps us on our toes as we seek to navigate a challenging jobs market in search of a new role.  This is not about conflict or mistrust; it’s about finding a way through which reduces uncertainty and anxiety.

It’s hardly surprising that this is such a tough gig.  With your sparkling CV to hand and the story you’ve practised ready to go, disappointment looms as bang you’ve hit a brick wall.  It’s a brick wall created by some employers and some third parties, which seem determined to make you feel bad about yourself.  My definition of a brick wall is the, “creation of an elasticated (or seemingly infinite) recruitment process without clarity or any obvious care for the participants of the process”.  Ring any bells with you?  Maybe you’ve encountered one already and learned from the experience or maybe it’s still playing with your confidence.

Just a couple of months ago I wrote about business brand and reputation.  At that time, my focus was on supporting your leavers,

“It’s a tough jobs market, although how you engage and interact with your audience and how you communicate may determine their future success”. 

Today I’m encouraging organisations to work some positive brand magic on their customers who are the candidates of their recruitment processes. Here are my positive candidate experience hacks:

• First of all, think clarity, ditch ambiguity

• Please don’t waste candidates’ time

• Create great job descriptions which demonstrate what job success could look like

• Describe the person most likely to succeed in the job – strengths, values, aspirations

• Limit the surprises with clearly articulated recruitment processes and ideal timelines

• Brief all third parties fully (and similarly) on the job, the person and the process

• Create insightful and timely communications between all parties

• Ensure that next steps and timeframes are always obvious to all parties

• Provide at least one key contact (name, email, tel. no., best times to contact)

• Deliver interview or assessment outcomes in sufficient detail and in line with candidate time invested in the process

• Remember that people like hearing from people rather than anonymous bots (now there’s a surprise)

• Remember that candidates have invested much time in researching your organisation and participating in your process – demonstrate that you recognise that commitment

• Put your business decisions into context for the candidate and remember to give feedback about their interview performance or application, not their competitors

• Treat candidates with courtesy and they’ll become your brand ambassadors

• Third parties – please try not to work with businesses which don’t value your contribution – they may not value their employees or your candidates, either

I’ve written quite a lot about sparkling CVs and their importance recently, so I won’t repeat myself here.  It’s likely that you already know how much I value storytelling:  it focuses your attention on all that you’ve achieved in your life; it reminds you of who you are and where you are going.  Your story will become stronger each time you share it, whether that’s in conversation or in written form.

So, if you need help with creating and telling your story, or want to create a customer focused recruitment experience, let’s chat about how I can help you.