Preparing for an interview is often left entirely to candidates, but we argue recruiters also play a crucial role in equipping people with the resources to understand a company and their role.
If a high number of candidates are falling out of the hiring process early on, there could be something wrong with your interview process. Personalization doesn’t end in the outreach stage. Try out these three strategies to speed up hiring, prepare interviewees, and create a better candidate experience.
Give candidates access to try out your product.
Getting candidates familiar with the product or service your company sells gives them a chance to understand how it works, and to decide what they like about the product and how it can improve to better serve customers. Consider creating a candidates-only login to a trial version of your product to help them to envision how their job plays a role in marketing, selling, or building the product. This also gets candidates excited about what you’re selling, building a base of brand ambassadors even before they’re part of the team.
Send them a recent press piece about the company.
This is especially important if you’re recruiting talent for a company still gaining traction. Build credibility with candidates by sharing what others are saying about your company. Don’t just send candidates to the company’s About page, share a press article, a customer testimonial, or both. Round out the company’s story from the perspective of those part of the company, those who follow it, and those who use (and like!) the product.
Create context about the role and share role-specific examples.
Give candidates a taste of a day in the life of an employee – don’t just talk about what you do, show them. Share your blog, webinars, and eBooks with marketing candidates. Hiring engineers? Tell them your stack, share public repos, and if you’ve got it, the engineering blog. Looking for customer success reps? Send them to the company Zendesk, or archives to support articles, and tell them about your customers biggest pain points and how you’re working to solve them. Sales people should get a tour of the product, as with the rest of the team, to get a feel for what they’ll be selling on the job, and how they fare against the competition. (It’s easy for companies to point out where their competitors fall flat, but seeing it first-hand enables them with better evidence.)
The company website and job description don’t always illustrate a full picture of the team and role, and you can’t expect much from candidates who don’t know what your company does, how your product works, or what they’ll be doing on the job. The candidate experience is easily overlooked, and thoroughly preparing a candidate lets them know you want them to succeed because you want them on your team.
Want more on building out the candidate experience? Check out this webinar we ran with the awesome people at Officevibe!
