How to create a positive candidate experience with AI

March 7, 2024 Updated: March 7, 2024 4 min read

So much of the candidate experience comes down to building relationships—between a job seeker and your hiring team, your current employees, and your company’s brand. Is there a way technology can help build these relationships? Absolutely. Engage the right AI, and you’ll transform your candidate experience for the better.

Why is candidate experience an important part of the hiring process?

It’s easy to get caught up in quickly calculated recruiting metrics like time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, or offer acceptance rate. Though sometimes harder to quantify, a great candidate experience is no less important. On the contrary, candidate experience is essential to the success of any recruiting strategy. 

Unfortunately, according to benchmark research by ERE Media, many candidates were discontented in 2023. Not only were they unhappy, but candidates were resentful of their poor recruiting experiences. This is bad for business! Resentful candidates are unlikely to apply again, refer their networks, or engage with the employer brand as a consumer. If you want your team to be able to compete for leading applicants and build a thriving talent pool, prioritize candidate experience.

How can AI enhance the candidate experience?

ERE’s research wasn’t all bad news. It also showed that employers who used AI to enhance their recruiting strategy delivered the best candidate experience. Keep reading to learn how AI can help.

Deliver a more inclusive hiring process

Everyone brings preconceived ideas or beliefs to the workplace. Using specialized tools to balance them out will lead to better hiring. For instance, AI can ensure a recruiter’s personal preferences have less influence than a candidate’s skills, abilities, and willingness to grow. 

Teams can also use AI to build more inclusive job descriptions. Optimized job descriptions and ads will appeal to as many qualified job seekers as possible, without discouraging candidates due to exclusionary word choices. Beyond that, AI can support more objective resume reviews, and help teams deliver structured, fair interviews.

Increase engagement and connection

Though technology won’t guarantee human connection, AI can certainly support it. Increase engagement with your talent pool by using regular, automated, personalized communication. Utilize AI-generated templates to draft outreach messaging that is easily tailored to different segments of your network. 

Make chatbots available to answer pressing questions and bring candidates to resolutions faster. Use software to monitor social media activity to easily respond to questions or comments. Most importantly, automate menial tasks so that you have more time to invest in relationships with leading candidates.

Reduce time to hire 

No one likes to wait around for life-changing decisions to be made. Don’t leave candidates wondering where they stand. Instead, use AI to streamline your hiring process and get people to their new jobs quickly. Find the right applicants to interview faster with intelligent resume screening and AI-generated summaries. 

Gain immediate insight into live or one-way video interviews with conversation analysis and efficiently locate key moments to share with other decision-makers. Make more collaborative decisions quickly with an interview platform that gives everyone access to your automated summaries, feedback, and highlighted interview moments.

Improve candidate matching and retention

A positive candidate experience is a gift that keeps giving. You’ll close on more candidates when you deliver a streamlined, positive hiring experience that outshines the competition. When you use AI for interview insight or automated skills testing, you’ll also close on candidates who are more prepared to succeed in their new roles. 

This pays off in the long term. Great hiring decisions lead to higher job satisfaction for employees, lower turnover, and access to a wider network of talent. Along the way, be sure to use AI to automate requests for feedback. Summarize and analyze responses to gain more insight into your candidate experience and make changes accordingly.

Strengthen your employee brand

A positive candidate experience results in a positive perception of your company. A hiring process that leads with great technology shows that your organization prioritizes innovation and the user experience. And with a more efficient hiring strategy, you’ll communicate that you value candidates and their time. 

Automating personalized and regular touchpoints, delivering an inclusive interview process, and using spare time to connect with candidates will help foster stronger connections between your employer brand and top talent too. When job seekers feel warmly about your company, they’re more likely to accept offers, share your open positions with other people they know, and find more satisfaction in their new roles.

Intelligent hiring tools that improve candidate experience

Though AI isn’t meant to replace the people on your hiring team, it can certainly augment their abilities. And as AI becomes more integral to the recruiting process, know that it can help deepen your candidate relationships, strengthen the candidate experience, and lead you to better and happier hires. Continue to learn about AI as it advances, and employ it to foster an engaged and excited talent pipeline.

If you want an expert on your side to guide you through these changes, connect with Clovers. Our intelligent interview platform helps you deliver a next-level experience that attracts and closes more candidates than ever before. Get started with our expert team today.

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