The battle for talent isn’t just about offering the highest salary or most lavish benefits. While those things certainly matter, what truly sets companies apart is their candidate experience. This encompasses everything a potential employee interacts with during the hiring process, from the initial job posting to the final offer – or even beyond.
A well-crafted recruitment journey not only attracts top talent but also builds your employer brand, leading to reduced hiring costs, higher employee retention, and ultimately, improved business performance. So, how can you optimize your candidate experience and leave a lasting positive impression? Let’s dive into three key strategies:
1. Use ethical, inclusive hiring practices
More than anything, candidates want employers with a transparent, fair and inclusive hiring process. Succeed in these areas and you’ll have done most of the work to build a solid employer brand. Some key focus areas include:
Be transparent about how you’re using AI
Whether we are ready or not, it is important to recognize AI is an emerging trend. A growing number of companies are turning to AI to reduce their manual efforts and hire more quickly. According to an October 2024 Resume Builder survey, 83% of employers intend to use AI for initial resume reviews, while 69% plan to use it for assessing candidates’ qualifications through analytical tools.
But candidates still want a personalized, human experience and interaction. And many candidates do not trust AI to deliver a personal or ethical experience, according to growing research.
According to The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals, a majority of job seekers say they may not apply to companies that use AI in the hiring process. Even though some job-seekers are OK with employers that use AI to perform routine tasks, most are more hesitant about using it to perform interviews, make employment decisions or screen candidates.
Legislators are trying to keep up with the AI boom and continually assessing how AI impacts hiring. Several laws have been enacted to protect candidates from unintended discrimination by employers using AI and some employers are facing allegations and claims their use of AI in the recruiting process led to discrimination against protected candidates.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use AI in your recruitment or hiring processes. But it is important to find a balance between efficiency and human judgment.
As you evaluate new tools, consider how they’ll impact your candidate experience, if they introduce bias, or if they result in decisions that unintentionally discriminate against candidates. Also ensure your tools’ performance and output is transparent, explainable and error free.
To the extent you decide to use AI, whether in reading the candidate’s resume or conducing an assessment, be sure to tell candidates how you plan to use AI in the hiring process and how you’ll process your applicants’ personal data.
Set realistic timelines and communicate proactively
Candidates want to know that you’ll a) respect their time and b) that you won’t subject them to interviews that don’t make sense for the role.
Both parties want the process to go as quickly as possible. But in reality, hiring processes often take longer than expected — often for reasons outside either party’s control: Maybe a hiring manager goes on vacation or a necessary team’s swamped for a week. Candidates know this, but the uncertainty of hiring breeds anxiety. And unexpected delays or, worse, “ghosting” can turn your candidates off.
Start by giving candidates a projected timeline of the interview process. On the job posting, list each interview, the purpose of that interview, the position of each person they’ll be talking to, any potential projects, and the total expected timeline.
From there, update candidates regularly and proactively let them know about delays — even an update telling someone there’s been no update counts! Regular communication builds trust with your candidates and keeps them engaged, especially if your process does encounter delays.
Use projects and assessments strategically
More companies are using projects to assess candidates’ skills. These can range from timed coding exercises, given during the interview, to presentations and writing exercises that the candidate does on their own time.
Done right, these projects benefit both sides: The candidate can demonstrate their skills in real time, which is especially helpful if they’re hesitant to self-promote during an interview. The hiring manager ensures that final applicants are human (a growing concern), and they can make more meaningful distinctions between candidates with similar experience and education.
But since they demand extra time from already time-strapped job-seekers, interview projects are considered controversial. They’ve gotten criticism for wasting applicants’ time or worse, stealing candidates’ labor under false pretenses. We don’t need to explain why this could hurt your brand, right? There are transparent and thoughtful ways to use projects or perform assessments in your hiring process. Some things to consider:
- Reserve projects for candidates in the final stages of the interview process. Ideally, job-seekers shouldn’t dedicate outside time to a pre-interview project unless they’re in final consideration for the role.
- In your job postings, tell applicants whether you’ll require them to do an assessment during the process and if so, the estimated completion time.
- Consider offering a small payment,
- If you do ask for a candidate to perform a project as part of the interview, make sure you tell candidates how you plan to use the work they provide. Best practice is to only use them for the purpose of evaluating the candidate.
2. Show candidates you care — through your actions and your processes
A positive, consistent and human-centered candidate experience shows your future hires that you care about their growth and that you’re a trustworthy place to work. Below are some ways to perfect your candidate lifecycle and engage candidates at each step along the way.
Take candidates behind the scenes
Have you ever used Glassdoor to vet a company before taking an interview? If so, you know how important it is to demonstrate your company culture to your candidates. This humanizes your brand and attracts people who are likely to be a good fit. Here are some places to start:
- Use virtual tours, employee testimonials, or social media snippets to give candidates a glimpse into your work environment and team dynamics.
- Empower team members to share their professional wins and discuss their work on LinkedIn and other social channels.
- Consider creating an employee recognition program at your company. On your company intranet or project management tool, encourage employees to shout each other out for their accomplishments or good deeds (That’s what we do at Accurate! So far, our employees have shared 810+ recognitions in 2025). Besides making your employees feel appreciated, sharing these shoutouts on LinkedIn tells your prospective employees that you care about your talent and that you’re a good place to work. (Just make sure to get each employee’s consent before sharing!)
- Encourage hiring managers to write job descriptions in their own words to give the posting a more genuine feeling.
- Consider connecting finalists with current team members for informal chats to answer questions, share their experiences and provide advice.
Regularly audit your hiring process and technology
By now, you’ve heard enough complaints about overlong application forms and glitchy software.
Nobody plans to create a clunky interview process (we hope!). But technology develops glitches, integrations stop working, and every process becomes outdated with enough time. Designate someone (or a team) to conduct regular quality assessments on your whole candidate experience. Some places to check include:
- Have your tester submit a “test” interview to make sure that your forms and links are working.
- Make sure candidates can easily apply and submit information for background checks, onboarding, etc. on their phones: Choose ATS systems, background screening platforms and onboarding solutions with fully mobile-optimized interfaces for this purpose.
- Test all of the tools you’re using to automate tasks in your interview process (i.e., scheduling interviews, sending confirmation emails, and even conducting initial skills assessments). This is especially important — one mistake here could mean your candidate misses an interview.
- Make sure your candidate’s information flows to the right people and that your ATS is connected to all the tools it’s supposed to.
- Assess your job descriptions and application forms. Are you asking candidates to submit too many questions? Do your questions still make sense for the position/department being hired for?
- Look for opportunities to refresh your employer branding on job descriptions, company talent pages, and other areas of your website and LinkedIn profile.
Make candidate experience a company-wide effort
While HR leads the charge, your marketing, IT, operations, and other teams should be actively involved in creating, testing, and improving your candidate experience. Set regular check-ins with all relevant parties to keep everyone on the same page and create a smoother candidate experience.
Measure results
What’s measured gets managed. Track key metrics like application completion rates, time-to-hire, and candidate satisfaction scores. Analyzing this data helps you celebrate your wins and prioritize improvement opportunities.
3. Don’t neglect the background check
We often think of the candidate lifecycle as taking place from first interview to final offer. But problems can arise during the background screening process as well. Clunky, poorly handled background screens make your candidates lose trust in your business – and start really considering that offer from your competitor.
Prevent unexpected candidate attrition during the screening phase with these tips:
- Keep your candidate in the loop by providing self-service options. Background check delays are easier for candidates to accept if they know what pieces are still outstanding — or when they can expect to receive a final decision. Use a background screening provider with a simple, mobile-optimized self-service portal so candidates can monitor their background check status at any time. (Accurate pairs a mobile-optimized platform with 24/7/363 customer service, so your candidates can check their status, then immediately reach out to a live person with questions, no matter where they are or what time of the day they’re calling).
- Choose a background screening provider known for accuracy, customer and candidate centricity as well as reliable turnaround times. Errors in a background check
scan delay your hire, which can scare candidates off. This is where working with an expert can really pay off: Ask your background screening provider about their accuracy record, how they source their data, how they handle disputes, and what kind of support is available to you and your candidates.
The right background screening partner can help you reduce your turnaround times, onboard candidates more quickly and help you manage disputes that might otherwise delay a hire and hurt your brand.
Creating a truly candidate-first experience is a company-wide effort. But by implementing these strategies, you’ll transform your candidate experience from just another application into the start of someone’s success story.
The candidate experience doesn’t end with the offer letter. Smooth, speedy and accurate background checks give your new hires peace of mind as they join your organization, while also keeping your team safe and minimizing your regulatory risk. Learn how you can conduct quicker and more accurate background checks, hire more quickly and improve your candidate experience with Accurate today.
