Five Reasons Your Best Applicants Move On

Much of the discussion in the HR and recruiting world revolves around how to attract the best candidates. With all of the channels available, both on and offline, competition is fierce to bring top talent into your company. But getting them interested is only half the battle. The next step is getting them to apply. And that comes down to candidate experience.

If you want to hire the best and the brightest candidates, you need make sure you’re successfully bringing them to the end of the application process. Corporate recruiters know this, but not necessarily how to make it happen. A recent Jibe survey revealed that 80 percent of talent acquisition professionals describe candidate experience as “very important” to their recruiting efforts, yet nearly half of those surveyed describe efforts to improve candidate experience as an ongoing struggle. So how can a company do this?

Here are five common mistakes that companies make that can cause a candidate to become frustrated with an application, potentially abandoning it altogether.

Common Mistakes that Discourage Job Applicants

Click through for common mistakes organizations make in the job application process that discourage qualified candidates from applying, as identified by Jibe.

Applicants Can’t Upload Their Resume

2015 is upon us and no one wants to paste their resumes in plain text. According to the recent Jibe survey, a majority of job seekers would even give up on an online application if they encountered tech hurdles (60 percent) or couldn’t upload their resumes (55 percent). Are you going to risk more than half of your candidates leaving because they can’t easily upload their resume?

Applicants Can’t Apply by Mobile

Again, 2015 is here and you’re not mobile-optimized? More than half (55 percent) of the job seekers Jibe surveyed feel it’s important that the online application process is optimized for mobile, and 70 percent of job seekers expect to be able to apply for a job with a smartphone. In fact, 20 percent said they wouldn’t even fill out an online job application at all if they couldn’t do it on a mobile device. It’s crucial to not only ensure your careers site looks good on a mobile device, but that the entire application process functions well all the way through to the point of submitting the application. Otherwise, you risk driving the best candidates away.

You Don’t Keep Applicants Posted

Did you get my application? What is the hiring timeline? Is anyone listening? Hello? A majority of job seekers (51 percent) expect to be informed about the status of their application, but only 14 percent report actually receiving that information during their job search.

Applications Can’t Follow Up

One of the most frustrating things for a candidate is to feel their application gets dropped into a black hole once they submit, never again hearing from the company they want to work for. Forty-four percent of applicants are deterred if there’s no way for them to follow up, so enabling a way for them to do that is key to keeping them engaged.

Applicants Can’t Add Referral Information

Did you know that employee referrals are the number one source for new-hire quality? If they know someone who works there, they should be able to say it. I’m a current employee and I approve this candidate.