Elevating your Candidate Experience for the Digital World

Jordan Ingersoll
October 14, 2020


Jenn Perez, Chief People Officer at pymetrics and Yael Burla, Sr. Product Manager at pymetrics discuss challenges in digital recruiting, the impact of building trust with job seekers, and solutions for elevating your candidate experience. 

Watch the full session here



Challenges Due to COVID-19. 

Covid-19 has amplified existing HR challenges and added complexity to the candidate experience. We are all facing a lack of resources from having to let employees go or repositioning certain roles to different areas of focus. And as if HR wasn’t already stretched thin enough, it’s harder than ever to actively engage with every candidate in the funnel. 93% of job applicants reported being ghosted by an employer after an initial in-person interview or after responding to a request for additional information. The hiring process is also inefficient and lengthy. Organizations desire a process that is seamless, yet thorough-- and now more than ever, digital. 


With all these growing challenges, organizations are scratching their heads at how to create a valuable experience for every person that connects with their brand. How you treat candidates has a direct impact on your employer brand. You want applicants to walk away thinking your hiring process was fair and that they received valuable, constructive feedback. You do not want candidates walking away feeling used or ignored. If they would apply again, or they still support your product, you did something right. The ultimate question to answer, then, is how can the hiring process enhance your brand, not detract from it?


Impact of Building Trust. 

Building trust with candidates is crucial. Here are a few stats that support why: 84% of people would be more likely to apply to a company if they knew the employer responds to every applicant. 72% of job seekers who had a bad experience told others about it. 56% say they'd discourage others from applying due to bad recruiting experience. 35% of candidates would cease using a company’s services if their candidate experience was poor and disrespectful. According to a PwC study, nearly half (49%) of job seekers working in in-demand fields say they’ve turned down an offer because of a bad experience during the hiring process. 


Candidate-Centricity. 

Over the last several decades, there has been a power shift to consumers, who now have more options than ever at their fingertips. When a consumer has a bad experience with a brand or product, words spread faster than the organization can even react. That is why organizations need to adapt to be customer-centric. Research shows that organizations that are customer-centricity focused are 60% more profitable. So not only does it impact your brand perception, it can also affect your bottom line. 


In a digitally-driven world, companies like Spotify and Netflix do an excellent job at tapping into their consumers' wants and needs, and even make the experience extremely personalized. So why is it that as a candidate you can’t even get a response back? Organizations should have the same approach to HR. Make your hiring process candidate-centric. Choose vendors that put candidates first. Within your tools and processes, demonstrate a candidate-first culture.  


Elevating Your Candidate Experience. 

The traditional hiring process is a broken system. 99% of candidates get rejected and 45% of candidates never even hear back. In order to elevate your candidate experience, you have to add value to each step of the hiring process. But how do you do that? Before they even apply, you can guide the candidate to the right role. Once they've applied, how can you ensure you’re choosing the right candidates in an unbiased way? Throughout the process, offer candidates personalized and instant feedback. If the candidate is not a good fit, how can you turn rejection into an opportunity for them to find something else? All of these touch-points are key opportunities for you to capitalize on your brand and elevate and differentiate the experience you provide. 


Personalized and Instant Feedback. 

With pymetrics’ platform, every candidate is going through the same assessment that measures the same metrics. The results can be mapped to what's important to specific jobs at any company, depending on how incumbents performed. There should always be consistency in what you’re measuring-- we only change the algorithm of how people fit to those things based on what’s important to the role. That is how you create a scalable solution and offer personalized feedback. At pymetrics, we ask candidates to go through a series of games. We provide them details about their attributes and how each one relates to the workplace. They can then leverage this information elsewhere in the application process. Candidates only need to play the games once, so they can apply their results to any job, for a streamlined process. 



Soft Skill Attributes. 

pymetrics measures 11 attributes that are all soft skills that constitute cognitive, social, and emotional behavior. These are innate behaviors that you cannot easily learn or unlearn unlike hard skills. By focusing on soft skills, you can fairly measure someone’s actual potential, leveling the playing field for everyone because there is no right or wrong answer-- it’s all about fit. You can match soft skills to the most important things you look for in employees. For example, if you find digital literacy to be extremely important, you want a candidate that can learn and adapt to constantly changing technologies. So you can look at the soft skills learning and attention. It isn’t one or the other, it is important to consider both soft skills and hard skills. But having a tool that allows you to see the whole picture of that person is essential. 


Career Guidance.

More accurately understanding someone's potential allows you to guide them towards an opportunity they may never have considered, whether that be a different role within your organization or at another company. You can send candidates to our job marketplace where they can see matches to other roles within your company or in others. This not only helps you find best fit candidates and fully optimize your talent sourcing efforts, but you also can simultaneously demonstrate a deeper level of support for applicants that choose to connect with your organization. 


Digital Interviewing Tools. 

Digital interviewing is becoming increasingly popular. This is a fairer approach to interviewing because you can reach and evaluate a greater pool of applicants. Traditional interviews are very biased-- decades of research show that first impressions are solidified within 30 seconds of meeting someone, and attractive candidates are more likely to be hired and receive higher starting salaries. Campus recruiting is skewed towards the top schools, often leading to a lack of socioeconomic and racial diversity as well.


86% of organizations are conducting virtual interviews to hire candidates during COVID. There are many avenues to do this. The first is a two-way, live interview, akin to the many other Zoom calls we find ourselves on during the day. The second is a one-way interview in which the candidate records their responses to pre-set questions. This approach is more efficient for your recruiting team, and more fair and flexible for candidates because everyone is asked the same questions, and they can do it on their own time. The third approach is an audio only, one-way interview. This method removes any discomfort for candidates who don’t want to be watched and judged on their outward appearance, and eliminates opportunities for bias on the recruiter side as well.


The Benefit of Changing the Status Quo. 

Changing the candidate experience status quo has many benefits. A better candidate experience means better business outcomes. Here’s what we mean:



Employer Experience During Digital Interview. 

As the employer, you can access the pymetrics platform in several ways. Through our portal, employers can evaluate candidates directly. Or integrated with your ATS, we can send candidates a link to the integration to make it more seamless for the employer to score within their current system. The employer receives the same report as the candidates, but in addition, receives information on how each attribute relates to the job they have applied for, and our data-driven recommendation around how and whether to proceed with each candidate. 


pymetrics Soft Skills Report. 

The pymetrics soft skills report is tailored to the individual, not to the jobs they apply to. The results of pymetrics’ gamified assessments can be applied to any job. Candidates walk away learning more about themselves and their broader role in the workplace. pymetrics works in partnership with HR teams to help them evaluate candidates overall potential. The onus is on the company to get back to the candidate on the specific role.  



To learn more about what candidates have to say about the pymetrics experience firsthand, feel free to visit our Candidates Page here