Treat your applicants like customers. We’ve said it countless times before. The reasons are obvious, but the proof is in the pudding. 1 million candidates flow through our systems every year and all applicants get a chance to rate their experience. This way we can determine whether what we preach is true. The benefits of an automated, data driven preselection system for recruiters are clear, but what about the applicants?
Like what you see?
Don’t miss out. Subscribe to our monthly digest to get the latest TA and TM resources delivered right to your inbox.
Is it something that candidates appreciate, or would they rather stick with a more classic application process? And what about the feedback they automatically receive, do they consider it as useful or are they really not that bothered about it? Instead of telling you (again) why a great applicant experience is a necessity for your company, we wanted to show you some facts and figures. Therefore we’ve done a bit of research among 2224 anonymized candidates that completed TalentPitch to see whether or not the system does what it’s supposed to do: Here’s how applicants experience 21st Century Preselection through TalentPitch.
TalentPitch
Before we dive into the data, it’s important to know TalentPitch. For those of you who do, you can skip this part. For those of you that don’t, here’s a quick breakdown:
TalentPitch is an immersive online application experience that we’ve developed after extensive research amongst applicants and employers. The experience informs an applicant about a particular job in a gamified way. At the same time, our algorithms measure 26 KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that are predictive for success.
Based on the client’s wishes, TalentPitch consists of several modules. Applicants go through these modules autonomously during their application and get a realistic preview of the job they’re applying for. This way they get to see and feel for themselves whether or not they like the job, the organization and the culture they might become a part of, and you get to know if the applicant is a right fit.
Today, TalentPitch has proven its worth for many organizations around the globe.
Applicant Feedback
One of the key features of TalentPitch is the minipoll at the end of every session. Here, candidates get to tell us what they think of the experience. All their feedback is collected and used to continuously improve what we do.
The minipoll is straight and simple; applicants can use one of 5 smiley faces to rate their experience – from ‘Awesome’, to ‘Yuck’.
Besides the smileys, applicants can also leave a personal message behind to share their feedback about the experience. The feedback is collected and checked regularly to see how TalentPitch performs in terms of applicant satisfaction.
Results
For this post, we used the anonymized data of 2224 applicants to see how they rate their TalentPitch experience. 42,8% of these candidates awarded their experience with the highest rating: Awesome. Their feedback includes:
– ‘A really nice way to meet new potential colleagues, you made me feel special during the application process. Thank you:)’
– ‘That was by far the most fun I’ve ever had during an application process. The mixture of skills tested, and the way in which they were applied into real work situations, was well done.’
After ‘awesome; comes ‘good’. From the 2224 applicants, 36,6% rated their experience with ‘Good‘, leaving comments like:
– ‘I enjoyed seeing how much thought went into the application process. It did give me a good impression of the workplace, a kind of vibrant environment in which my energy and creativity would go to good use.’
– ‘I had a lot of fun doing the application!’
After ‘good’, comes ‘Ok’. Out of our test population, 13,8% rated their experience as ‘Ok‘, leaving comments such as:
– ‘Most of the questions were hard to answer, but it was a good experience.’
– ‘It was fun.’
6,6% of respondents rated their experience with a ‘Meh‘. This resulted in feedback like:
– ‘It was too long.’
– ‘Wish I got a second chance, my internet connection was very unstable.’
And finally, 0,2% responded with a ‘Yuck‘ stating:
– ‘My laptop battery went down and I did not have the adapter with me during the test, so it’s really a waste of opportunity:(.’
– ‘There could be less questions to save time, thank you!’
Overall, the results were as follows:
Personal feedback
Not only do applicants get to give feedback, they also receive some. A personalized feedback report to be exact. Upon completion of the assessment, every candidate gets an overview of how they did. The report consists of two parts: competencies and personality. Based on the type of skills that have been tested, applicants will see exactly how well – or not – they scored on each element. The personality part of the report gives candidates a look into the mirror; they’ll find out if what they think about themselves matches with what TalentPitch detected. What matters here is that you give your applicants tangible feedback they can use to their advantage. You can see what both elements of the personal feedback report look like below.
A few of the things candidates have told us about the report they got:
– ‘Personally I don’t know yet what it is I’m really good at. This test and the results definitely give you more information about yourself. I trust you guys can use these results to predict whether or not a job at this firm would be a good fit for me and that is a reasuring thought.’
– ‘You get to know more about your strenghts and weakenesses and thus improve them, I like that.’
– ‘The fact that I was able to see the results of the pre-screening tests has given me more insight into my abilities which I thought was valuable.’
In a Nutshell
So, to get back to our initial questions: Do candidates enjoy an automated, data-driven self-assessment? Yes, most of them do. And what about the personal feedback report they receive, is this something they value? Yes it is. We mentioned it before, 21st-century job seekers attach great importance to personal growth, not only in their private lives, but also in their jobs. Good quality feedback, even from a failed application process, fits perfectly within this mindset. After all, it’s useful information for them to have and to put into use when they apply for a different role. And there is more. The fact that TalentPitch applicants generally are positive about the experience means they’ll leave with a good feeling about your company. Yes, even when you don’t hire them. This is maybe the most valuable part of the process, because a happy candidate makes for a happy customer!
Stop guessing,
Start data-driven hiring.
Learn how you implement a modern candidate selection process, that is: streamlined, experience-driven and backed by data.
