Guest Blog | How Salary Calculators Improve Your Candidate Experience

It’s a difficult situation for any recruiter. You match a candidate with a role that is perfect for them on paper. They nail the interviews; and the employer loves them. They get offered the role and everyone seems happy.

Then, out of nowhere, the candidate turns the job down.

Once the dust has settled, you have to ask: what went wrong?

Understanding some of the influencing factors of the recruitment process helps you to manage the expectations and concerns of candidates. With this knowledge, you can also help employers avoid making mistakes that are easy to avoid.

This article dives into some of the reasons why informed jobseekers are choosing some vacancies over others. Take note, and ask if any of this may be applied to your own processes.

Recruiters taking the lead means better outcomes for all

We may fail to consider it, but every interview is a two-way assessment. Candidates form just as many opinions about employers as the other way round. In fact, first impressions count just as strongly for candidates. A study by Monster found that 70 per cent of jobseekers will turn down a job offer if a first impression is below standard.

But which factors influence a first impression? The study goes into greater detail. 35 per cent of interviewees would not take a position if they didn’t like the reception area. Whilst it’s not realistic for a company to overhaul their reception area to the tastes of every prospective employee, there are other factors they can improve.

Do not not leaving candidates waiting in the reception too long. 51 per cent of candidates say they would turn down a job if they were kept waiting. Another factor is the impression the interviewers give off. Aspects include dress sense (which is important to 50 per cent of prospects). A handshake influences 60 per cent of respondents. “Quality of banter” is important to a further 58 per cent.

What we are seeing is an evolution of the candidate experience. A candidate’s decisions are not a linear progression. Instead, we should think of the above factors as influencing a Mckinsey ‘Consideration Loop’. Each consideration loop is unique and personal to the individual candidate; but they can be broken down into four stages:

Stage 1: Initial Consideration

The job seeker knows they would like to find a new job and has a handful of companies they would like to work for. If a company is in this list, they are three times more likely to be chosen than a company outside of this initial set.

Stage 2: Active Evaluation

The job seeker takes a more active role in the job search. They start researching about the companies they had initial interest in, whilst also casting a net wider to more potential employers. Companies will be added or removed from the consideration list based on search criteria.

Some of the biggest factors here will be reputation based on reviews and comments on the company. This is where they will also start to evaluate the offerings each company has and comparing the financial offerings of different sectors. Research here will vary between directly asking the employers and online salary calculators, to understand how the offer sits within the wider market.

Stage 3: Decision and closure

After evaluating the information they have found in the research phase, the job seeker decides on a company they would prefer to work for. From here they will make their application. Ensuring they are aware of everything expected of them for the application process is vital here.

Stage 4: Post purchase experience

Once the applicant has gone through the hiring process, they will have built an image of the company based on the experience that happened throughout the interview process. Referring to the points at the start of this article, if anything during this step 4 puts an applicant off, they could end up dropping out of their application.

Perfect candidates are extremely hard to come by. When a person with the right experience and attitude comes through the door it is vital they are nurtured and have a positive experience or there is a genuine risk of losing their talent. By understanding the above processes, you’ll be able to work and inform employers of where there could be issues in the recruitment process, saving time and resource for all parties involved.

This article was written by Check-A-Salary, a platform dedicated to providing insight on earnings for every position in the UK.