What is Candidate Experience?

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Candidate Experience is an increasingly important part of the recruiting process, and recruiters are keenly aware of its relevance to their success.

This raises the question: What is Candidate Experience?


In short, Candidate Experience describes the cumulative experience that your candidates have with your company, from the second they open your careers page to the final stages of rejection, withdrawal, or being hired. Candidate Experience includes all interaction with your company, meaning everything from the clarity of the listing to the ease of application, and, of course, all the interpersonal experiences with your recruiters and hiring managers.

what is candidate experience

Candidates want to truly understand the company’s values, people, and culture before they choose to apply. You only have one chance to make a good first impression, and Candidate Experiences matter. This means that it is now up to companies to create a culture of fostering healthy and positive relationships with candidates from the very beginning of the recruiting process.

Candidate Experience can be the difference between securing a valuable candidate, and having them slip through the cracks and opting for one of your competitors. It also affects your sourcing quality, attracting or repelling candidates based on what they read about other Candidate Experiences on various review platforms, like Glassdoor or Reddit. Poor Candidate Experience can lead to lost revenue and negative PR, as poor word-of-mouth about your business can often originate from disgruntled candidates and spread in their social circles.

This is where Starred comes in. We’re an all-in-one automated solution that collects, measures, and analyzes Candidate Experience data, and helps you keep an eye on how your candidates are feeling. We track Candidate Experience at every stage of the hiring process, giving you data-driven, actionable insights based on how your candidates feel. We enable you to understand what you need to work on today to deliver a better Candidate Experience tomorrow.

In the next chapter, we’ll discuss why Candidate Experience is important, and what advantages you can gain from having excellent Candidate Experience.