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Finding suitable candidates is hard enough right now, but losing them at the final stages of your recruitment process is a real blow to your efforts and investment made in a person.
This insight looks at why candidates pull out and what you can do to limit drop-off and make improvements.
The candidate experience
Candidates may drop off at any point in the recruitment process. For various reasons, a long, complex recruitment process, lack of communication, overpromising on the role/the package, a rigid process that doesn’t allow for flexibility – may be a better offer or an offer from another employer who communicated with them in a better way. All of these reasons can contribute to candidates dropping off through the process – all equally as frustrating.
Candidate experience should focus heavily on building trust and conveying company culture throughout the recruitment process. A key lesson is to ensure recruitment technology is adopted carefully and complements an organisation’s brand and values, delivered with the end-user experience in mind. Whether it be career websites or Recruitment CRM, everything from how a candidate can manage their application and how you communicate with them, needs smart implementation.
The onboarding stage can play a big part in engaging with new hires and can help to increase the offer acceptance rate. Ok, there is no way to eliminate drop-offs, but with a well-organised recruitment process and customised onboarding controlled online, you will be on to a winner.
Mitigate candidate drop off
Some of the steps you can take to decrease candidate drop off and secure the best candidates.
Be proactive – use recruitment tech to accelerate the recruitment process engagingly. Does your recruitment process emulate candidate expectations?
Candidate experience – review how the candidate experience differentiates you from the competition. Use regular communication with candidates, keep in touch calls and videos to keep hires ‘warm’. Also, make sure your careers site is spot on with everything a candidate may need.
Be upfront with candidates about the role early on; career path, the salary, benefits and the perks of working for you.
Accept that losing candidates will happen in certain circumstances, and you will never completely eradicate it, but you can make improvements to prevent it from becoming the norm.
Then there is the topic of counteroffers, which is bound to get a split of opinions about if or when you should use them to secure your preferred talents.
Should counteroffers be considered?
Should employers make counteroffers to tempt an employee to stay or reconsider what you have to offer?
I’m sure we all know the stats that a high percentage, often quoted as 80%, of those who accept counteroffers end up leaving within six months, and the figure is higher still for those who leave within a year.
So, should counteroffers be used if your number one candidate decides to pull out at the last minute because of a better offer or perceived better offer? We asked the LinkedIn community their thoughts, and just over 50% said making a counteroffer depends on the role/person, with the remainder split over whether or not to use them.
I think what we can draw from that is that it’s a personal choice dependent on circumstances. The more you can do to improve your recruitment process and candidate experience and know your recruitment metrics such as offer acceptance rate and applicant to hire rate, the better placed you will be to put a strategy in place to improve.
Final thoughts
Recruitment metrics are always important and, in times of hiring crises, are often scrutinised. Cost Per Hire will always be a key metric. However, recruitment leaders should perhaps focus on the quality of hire and ROI that looks at the bigger picture of filling each vacancy with the right person.
Bits and pieces to help you
Based on responses by Talent Acquisition Managers, this Key Insights Report identifies best practices in recruitment analytics and delves into areas such as quality of hire and speed. Download your free copy.
