A Ripple Effect: The Impact of Poor Communication on Your Business (and Ways to Improve)

Your company should strive for outstanding communications across its operations. However, when it comes to engaging job seekers, problems tend to arise. These issues may disrupt communication between your hiring team and candidates. Worst of all, they may hurt your chances of adding top talent to your team.

How Poor Communication Impacts Talent Recruitment

Your company should prioritize communication—otherwise, it risks missing out on opportunities to hire the best candidates. This is reflected in the results of a recent Gartner survey of 3,500 employment candidates.

In the survey, 68% of candidates said they expect to see salary information in job postings. Along with this, 64% noted they are more likely to apply to a job when compensation is listed in the description. These stats indicate most candidates want to know what they’ll earn before they apply for a job. If your company doesn’t share this information in a job posting, candidates are likely to look elsewhere for career opportunities.

Additionally, the survey revealed that 50% of job candidates said they accepted a job offer over a 12-month period but backed out prior to starting. This shows that candidates may be increasingly willing to walk away from a job offer, even if they’ve already accepted it. If you do not communicate with a candidate after they accept a role with your business, this individual may remain open to other opportunities. And if the right one comes their way, they may be ready to jump ship and move on from your offer.

With talent recruitment, don’t leave anything to chance. Communicate and collaborate with job seekers and keep them up to date throughout the interview and hiring processes. If candidates have concerns or questions, be ready to address them. That way, you’ll be able to keep the lines of communication open with candidates before you lose the opportunity to hire them.

How to Improve Communication with Job Candidates

If you aren’t sure how to maintain positive communications with job candidates, you’re not alone. Fortunately, there are many things your business can do to improve communication throughout its hiring process. These include:

1. Keep in Touch with Candidates Throughout the Recruitment Process

From the moment a candidate submits their application materials to the time your business makes its final hiring decision, remain in contact with candidates throughout the recruitment process. Typically, it helps to break down your communication with candidates into four phases:

Pre-Application: Include a phone number or email address in your job posting that makes it easy for candidates to reach out if they have concerns or questions and send their application materials to you.
Application: Make phone calls, send emails and text messages, and provide updates at regular intervals to keep candidates up to date on their application status.
Interview: Provide timely status updates via phone, email, and text to candidates regarding interview requests.
Post-Application: Notify the candidate you want to hire as soon as you can, share your offer with them, and find out if they’ll accept it. If this individual agrees to join your team, notify others you are not currently considering them for a particular role with your company. You can also invite these individuals to remain in touch and pursue jobs with your business in the future.

Be transparent about how you will communicate with job candidates. This ensures candidates know what to expect when you reach out to them.

2. Create Communication Timelines

Not planning ahead is one of the biggest recruitment mistakes your company can make. With communication timelines in place, you’ll know when and how to contact job candidates. These timelines help you update candidates on where they stand in this process. They also ensure candidates know when you intend to make your final hiring decision.

Give yourself ample time to communicate with candidates throughout your hiring process. Any message you send a candidate should be clear and direct. It should explain what you expect from the candidate and if there are any additional steps they need to complete to move forward in the process.

Share your communication timeline with job candidates, too. This helps establish accountability. By sticking to your timelines, you’ll show candidates your company does what it says it’ll do. This may result in a positive candidate experience. And if a candidate had a great experience with your business but doesn’t land the job they originally pursued, they may still be inclined to consider other roles with your business down the line.

3. Answer Candidates’ Questions

If a candidate reaches out to your business with questions about a role or updates on their application status, respond promptly. Otherwise, if you wait too long to respond or choose not to do so, a candidate may believe you are ghosting them.

When a candidate is concerned about ghosting, it’s unlikely they’ll consider other career opportunities with your business moving forward. On top of that, they may share their candidate experience with others, which may damage your business’ brand reputation.

Generally, it helps to respond to a candidate’s question within at least 48 hours. The sooner you respond, the better. If you don’t have an answer to a candidate’s question, let them know. You can tell the candidate you are trying to find the information they’re requesting. Be sure to provide the candidate with updates as you keep searching for this information.

4. Personalize Your Communications

To recruit the best job candidates, personalized messaging is key. For instance, including a candidate’s name in an email subject line may attract this individual’s attention. As soon as the candidate sees your email in their inbox, they may open it right away.

You may also segment your communications with certain groups of job candidates. As an example, you may group candidates together who apply for one opening with your business. This allows you to quickly and easily share updates about a job vacancy with a large group of candidates.

Along with emails, you can personalize and segment text messages relating to your job openings. When candidates apply for a job, you’ll be able to share updates via text. This ensures candidates will instantly receive an alert regarding a job. It may help you further enhance your communications with candidates.

5. Be Consistent

No matter what job you want to fill, be consistent in how you communicate with candidates. Let candidates know how you intend to engage with them throughout your hiring process. Stick to the communication plan you have in place. If at any point it’s time to rethink your hiring strategy, you can always change how you engage with candidates.

In addition to being consistent with candidate communications, it’s important to be concise. Remember, candidates may spend many hours looking and applying for jobs. If you send them a notification about a role with your company, keep it short. Provide the recipient with the information you want to share with them. If this individual has concerns or questions, encourage them to follow up with you by phone, email, or text.

Lastly, it may be beneficial to adopt a customer-centric approach to your candidate communications. Your business should consider the customer experience carefully. Much in the same vein, the candidate experience should receive plenty of attention. If you constantly look for ways to provide your candidates with amazing experiences, you may be able to distinguish your company from its rivals. Over time, this may put your business in an excellent position to recruit top job candidates.

Continue to Improve Your Communications with Job Candidates

Your business may have concerns about its candidate experience—and rightfully so. If candidates cannot stay in touch with your company during your hiring process, their experience is likely to be a negative one. This may cause your business to develop a poor reputation that makes it difficult to connect with highly trained and skilled candidates.

To continuously improve your communications with job candidates, get feedback from them. Regardless of whether you choose to hire a candidate, request feedback about their experience with your company. You can ask an individual to fill out a survey or questionnaire so they can share insights into their candidate experience. Meanwhile, you’ll be able to use the information they provide to identify ways to enhance the experience for candidates.

Of course, when you work with a professional recruitment agency, you’ll be able to receive extra help with candidate communications. This agency will handle communications with candidates and keep you up to date about job seekers who may be able to fill roles with your business. If the agency finds a candidate who may be the perfect fit for a job, it will notify you. Next, you’ll be able to interview the candidate and see if they have what it takes to meet your company’s requirements. If the candidate proves to be the right choice, you’ll be able to immediately add them to your team.

Partner with Recruiting Professionals Who Deliver What Matters Most to You

PrideStaff is a staffing agency with a proven reputation. Our professional recruiters tailor our services and performance metrics around your company and your objectives. We’ll provide you with a custom staffing strategy designed to help you connect with top job candidates.

Let our recruiting professionals help you solve your staffing challenges. To get started, contact us today.