Is the hiring process broken? Companies spend billions on recruitment, yet 60% of candidates say they've had a negative experience. The reason for this? Ghosting, confusing application steps, and impersonal interactions drive top talent away long before the contract signing. Why is it so hard to get it right?
A study by Deloitte (“Your candidate experience – Creating an impact or burning cash?”) highlights that candidate experience isn’t just about smooth application forms—it’s a direct reflection of company culture and leadership priorities. Firms that excel in this area don’t just hire better—they build stronger corporate brands.
So what are the true factors that make up an outstanding candidate experience? In this article, we will decode this using the seven phases of the candidate journey according to Foxio.
Awareness: Increase employer profile
The best candidates don't apply for jobs – they are drawn to them. Some people have already noticed the AIDA model in the first four stages of the employer experience (see Fig. 1). This works like classic advertising. Thus, in a highly competitive talent market, visibility is everything.
McKinsey states that companies investing in proactive talent attraction strategies fill positions 40% faster than those relying on traditional job postings. This means shifting from passive recruitment to actively positioning your employer brand where top talent is already looking.
Key Strategies to Boost Employer Visibility
🔹 Social Media Ads: Platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and even TikTok have become recruitment powerhouses. A well-placed advert that showcases your workplace culture can significantly outperform a standard job ad in terms of engagement.
🔹 Headhunting & Active Sourcing: The best candidates aren’t always looking. Headhunting and active sourcing are proven methods of accessing such talent.
🔹 Employee Referrals: Often overlooked: your current team is your best marketing tool. By incentivising employee referrals, you turn your workforce into brand ambassadors and attract talent through trusted recommendations.
🔹 Employer Branding Profiles: Candidates research companies on sites like Glassdoor and Kununu before they apply. If you make sure to highlight your company's values and opportunities for career growth here, you'll be ahead of most companies.
Why It Matters:
In today's talent market, visibility is not only about being seen – it is, above all, about being seen by the right people with the right message. Companies that master this first step lay the foundation for a flawless candidate experience.
Interest: How to Spark Genuine Curiosity in Your Employer Brand
Attracting attention is one thing – keeping it is quite another. Job seekers may see your job ad, but what makes them want to find out more about your company? Above all, it's your employer branding.
A Deloitte report on AI-supported employee experience (EX) highlights a crucial change: candidates expect the same level of personalisation from companies as they do from brands like Netflix or Spotify. They not only want a job – they also want to feel that a company understands and aligns itself with their values.
How to Make Your Employer Brand Irresistible
🔹 Authentic Storytelling: Instead of shallow corporate messages, highlight real employee experiences. Videos, behind-the-scenes content and posts about everyday work life are extremely helpful to candidates in understanding what it would be like to work at your company.
🔹 Active Social Media Presence: Here, too, you can score points with social media – because a static careers page has long since ceased to be enough. Interaction with potential candidates via LinkedIn, Twitter or even niche platforms such as GitHub or similar promotes a sense of community and social connectedness.
🔹 AI-Driven Personalization: According to Deloitte, AI-powered chatbots and career matching tools are helping to personalise the candidate experience, making interactions feel tailored rather than transactional.
🔹 Employee Ambassadors:Candidates trust employees more than recruiters. Encouraging your employees to share their work experiences on LinkedIn, Glassdoor or Kununu increases credibility. Studies show that content shared by employees receives eight times more engagement than corporate posts.
Why It Matters:
Curiosity fuels applications. Companies that create a compelling, interactive employer brand don’t just attract more candidates—they attract the right ones.
Desire: Turning Interest into a Strong Commitment
What makes candidates move from casual interest to actively wanting a role? The answer lies in emotional connection and alignment with company values.
A Deloitte study on design thinking in employee experience reveals that companies focusing on human-centered recruitment create stronger emotional bonds with candidates. This means crafting a hiring process that feels less like a corporate transaction and more like a journey of mutual discovery.
How to Strengthen a Candidate’s Desire to Join
🔹 Make It Personal: Generic recruitment emails and robotic interview processes kill excitement. Instead, tailor interactions. Address candidates by name, reference their past experience, and show why they specifically fit your team.
🔹 Showcase Real Culture, Not Just Perks: Salary and benefits matter, but candidates also evaluate team dynamics, leadership style, and daily work environment. Live Employee vlogs, or candid office tours help bring your culture to life.
🔹 Simplify Decision-Making: Candidates often hesitate due to uncertainty—about job expectations, team fit, or long-term growth. Clear roadmaps, transparent career paths, and open communication from recruiters reduce friction and boost confidence.
Why It Matters:
Interest is fleeting. Desire is intentional. The companies that go beyond employer branding and create a real emotional connection are the ones that secure the best talent.
Action: Creating a Seamless and Frictionless Application Process
You've done it - a candidate is interested. She is enthusiastic about your company. But then - a 45-minute application form, multiple applications and a confusing process stop her in her tracks. Bad application experiences kill motivation faster than a low salary offer.
It's obvious: outdated hiring processes don't just discourage talented people from completing applications. Many companies unconsciously filter out strong candidates by simply making it too cumbersome to apply.
How to Remove Barriers and Drive Action
🔹 Cut Unnecessary Steps: Studies show that application drop-off rates skyrocket after 10 minutes. If a process isn’t essential—remove it. Do you really need a cover letter? Does the candidate have to create an account? Simplify.
🔹 Enable One-Click Applications: Top companies allow candidates to apply using LinkedIn or quick online forms. The less friction, the higher the conversion.
🔹 Give Instant Feedback & Status Updates: McKinsey found that candidates are 3x more likely to stay engaged if they receive timely updates. Silence after an application leads to drop-offs and negative employer branding.
Why It Matters:
Interest alone doesn’t lead to hires—action does. The easier the process, the higher the chance that great talent completes the journey.
Selection: Building a Transparent and Fair Hiring Process
The hiring decision is the moment of truth. Candidates have invested time, effort, and emotions in the process – yet many of them are frustrated by slow decisions, vague feedback, or an opaque selection process. The result? Top talent moves on and your corporate brand suffers
McKinsey debunks common hiring myths and shows that many selection processes unintentionally prioritize speed over quality, gut feeling over data, and tradition over fairness. So, polish your selection process.
How to Make Your Selection Process More Effective
🔹 Ditch the "Gut Feeling" Approach: Studies show that structured interviews predict job success 2x better than unstructured conversations. Standardized evaluation criteria help eliminate bias and improve hiring decisions.
🔹 Speed Up Without Rushing: Candidates expect a decision within two weeks. Anything longer, and you risk losing them to faster competitors. Streamlining decision-making with AI-based screening tools or structured assessment rounds can cut delays.
🔹 Use Data to Improve Hiring Accuracy: Predictive analytics and skills-based assessments can help companies move beyond intuition and hire based on measurable potential, not just experience.
Why It Matters:
A fair, transparent selection process isn’t just good ethics—it’s smart business. The companies that master this step don’t just fill roles; they build lasting relationships.
Onboarding: Turning New Hires into Engaged Team Members
The hiring process doesn’t end with a signed contract. The real challenge begins on day one. A poor onboarding experience can leave new employees feeling disconnected and second-guessing their decision—sometimes even before they start.
How to Create an Onboarding Experience That Drives Retention
🔹 Preboarding Before Day One: Keep momentum going after the offer is accepted. Automated welcome emails, digital handbooks, and team introductions before the start date create a sense of belonging early.
🔹 Make It Interactive, Not Administrative: Nobody gets excited about filling out endless forms. AI-driven onboarding platforms can automate paperwork, freeing up time for meaningful experiences—like shadowing sessions, mentorship programs, and culture immersion.
🔹 Regular Check-Ins Beyond Week One: Onboarding shouldn’t stop after a few welcome meetings. A structured 30-60-90 day plan with feedback loops ensures that new hires stay engaged and feel supported (and appreciated).
Why It Matters:
Seamless onboarding not only helps employees to settle in – it also promotes long-term engagement, productivity and loyalty. The best companies also make employees feel at home.
Measuring and Continuously Improving the Candidate Experience
The best hiring teams don’t just assume their process works—they prove it. They track, measure, and refine every stage of the candidate journey. The question is: Do you?
Again, design thinking comes into play – companies that treat recruitment as a continuously evolving, data-driven process see higher engagement and retention rates. Yet, many companies still rely on outdated hiring methods, making decisions based on gut feeling rather than real insights. If you’re not measuring candidate experience, you’re leaving top talent—and money—on the table.
How to Make Candidate Experience Measurable and Actionable
🔹 Identify Drop-Off Points: When do candidates drop out of the application process? Do they lose interest after the first interview? A data-driven analysis helps to identify where and why candidates drop out.
🔹 Let Data Shape Decisions: Companies that use recruitment analytics reduce hiring costs and improve the efficiency of decision-making. With the help of data, recruitment teams can refine job postings, optimize the application process and improve selection criteria based on real evidence, not assumptions.
🔹 Optimize and Iterate: Measuring the candidate experience is an ongoing process. The best recruiters continuously adjust their approach based on hiring trends, feedback and performance metrics. The goal? A seamless, frustration-free process that attracts and retains talent.
Why It Matters
A hiring process that feels flawed to candidates also is flawed – full stop. Every delayed response, every unclear job description and every outdated application form reduces a company's ability to hire new talent. At the same time, you as a company should consistently analyse, optimise and refine your candidate experience in order to see the effect of your efforts – and, of course, to attract better and more suitable candidates. On the one hand, this will ensure you build a reputation, and on the other, hiring future employees will be easier, faster and cheaper in the long term.
This is data-driven recruiting in its purest form: where data becomes your recruiting superpower. It enables companies not only to improve the candidate experience, but also to reduce personnel costs and make smarter hiring decisions. Would you like to know how leading companies are already using this to get ahead?
🔗 Read the full breakdown here:
Data-driven recruiting – the key strategy for reducing HR costs
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