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Want Better Candidate Engagement? Treat Talent Like Customers

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Hot take: if recruiting teams only focus on forming relationships with candidates within the hiring funnel, then they’re missing out on a lot of talent. That’s where continuous candidate engagement comes in. Let’s explain…

The traditional idea of the candidate experience is short and sweet. It starts when talent becomes a candidate, and ends when they’re rejected. But what about before and after?

Charles Mah, Chief Customer Officer at iCIMS, sat down with GoodTime’s CEO and Head of Company Strategy, Ahryun Moon, to share his strategy for continuously engaging candidates. This “customer-driven” hiring model converts candidates into engaged ambassadors of your brand, helping your hiring team make the most coveted hires.

Here’s the TLDR with five takeaways from the session.

1. The Talent Acquisition Model is Antiquated

The talent acquisition model is in dire need of a makeover. TA has always been about simply filling positions, and this used to be sufficient. But as the talent landscape continues to undergo major changes — with the rise of the distance economy, remote work, and a candidate-driven market, to name a few — we also need to change our candidate engagement.

Traditionally, the TA model is short and linear. Recruiting teams send mass amounts of emails and in-mails in a sourcing frenzy, interviewing candidates, and then relaying offers and rejections. The point when candidates enter the recruitment funnel and start interviewing is thought of as the prime time to focus on the candidate experience. However, the experience is largely neglected during all other touchpoints.

This process is no longer up to the standards of what candidates want out of their hiring experience. Candidates want to feel engaged at every stage of recruitment. This means before, during, and after the process. 

2. Create Candidate Relationships — Not Just Candidate Experiences

Move over, candidate experience, and make way for the candidate relationship.

The candidate experience is all about how candidates gauge their interactions with potential employers during the hiring process. Having recruiting teams focus on creating a positive experience for candidates is undoubtedly important, but the candidate experience as it’s traditionally executed comes with pitfalls. That’s why we need to shift towards crafting rich, engaging candidate relationships.

When companies focus on the candidate experience, they don’t usually nurture the connection with the talent they’ve passed on. This is mistake number one: failing to connect with rejected candidates prevents you from tapping into them for new roles. 

Mistake number two occurs when hiring teams neglect to cultivate the candidate relationship before the interviewing stage. Candidates often have multiple job offers on the table, and the companies that go the extra mile to engage potential hires pre-interview are the ones that stand out.

3. Hiring Pools Still Lack Representation

Creating diverse talent pools is a major talking point in the recruiting world, yet data shows that there’s still a lot of work to be done in turning these conversations into actions. Even as recruiting teams expand their talent pools, they struggle to move the diversity needle.

“We’ve seen an average of 11% to 15% of diverse candidates get the opportunity to interview.

That’s still far below where it needs to be.”

– Charles Mah, Chief Customer Officer at iCI

The current methods of recruiting candidates aren’t conducive to championing diversity. If recruiters want to bring a wider range of representation to their talent pools and tap into more diverse candidates, they need to change the ways that they engage and evaluate quality candidates. 

4. Recruiting Teams Need CCE

It’s time to treat candidates like customers and focus on continuous candidate engagement (CCE). Just as brands engage and re-engage with their customers, CCE refers to the ongoing, value-driven connection between candidates and an organization. It’s established through continuously nurturing candidates.

CCE starts with reaching out to candidates about ideas that you’re mutually interested in, such as by sending relevant blogs or podcasts. You can then add these candidates to your CRM to nurture this engagement.

The next step is to connect candidates in your CRM to larger-scale events, whether this means hackathons or ERG events. When it comes to diversifying your talent pool, encouraging participation in ERG events can greatly accomplish this goal.

Participation in these events leads to networking. By connecting your talent pool to hiring managers and ERG members, you can facilitate genuine connections.

After using your CRM to collect data on these dynamic experiences, you now have a high-quality pool of engaged candidates to interview, already pre-vetted on key soft skills. Rejected candidates are not forgotten – the CCE model moves them back to the talent network and continuously nurtures those connections.

5. Why Ongoing Candidate Engagement Matters

CCE is the key to building meaningful candidate relationships for life. Through facilitating ongoing candidate engagement, these incredible experiences with talent not only build diverse and highly skilled workforces, but a community of loyal customers as well.

“Ongoing engagement creates a network of extremely engaged talent that will jump at the opportunity to work at your company.”

– Charles Mah, Chief Customer Officer at iCIMS

If you want to build a CCE engine that breathes life into your candidate relationships, look at your tech stack. iCIMS’ CRM allows you to cultivate robust relationships with candidates by creating moments that matter.

At GoodTime, our automated interview scheduling solution elevates your hiring team’s ability to connect with and win top talent at scale (and save your team major time and money along the way).

Use our free ROI calculator to see how much time and money you could save on hiring by using GoodTime.

Hiring Gen Z? Here’s What They Want in the Candidate Relationship

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Gen Z is the newest demographic entering the workforce, and they’re here to make waves. As the youngest, largest, and most diverse generation in United States history, Gen Z stands out from any generation that’s come before them. They’re already redefining the workplace with their unique preferences, and with Gen Z employees set to comprise 27% of the workforce by 2025, their influence will only continue to expand.

From a hiring perspective, teams need to consider how to cultivate a strong candidate relationship with the Gen Z job seeker. Talent leaders who want to win over this next generation of workers will need to get acquainted with their expectations— and fast. Forming an authentic connection with your Gen Z candidates throughout the hiring process is crucial to maintaining their interest amid a sea of other attractive job offers. 

Read on to learn how you can attract and engage Gen Z at every touchpoint in the interview process by living up to their expectations of the candidate relationship. 

Demonstrated Emphasis on Company Values

Despite being new to the workplace, Gen Z already knows what they value, and they don’t want to compromise. If an employer doesn’t demonstrate their principles, Gen Z will find a workplace that does. In fact, nearly 70% of young professionals in this cohort are likely to switch industries to locate opportunities that align with their values.

Work-life balance is among this group’s top principles; 42% of Gen Z candidates make a healthy work-life integration a top priority when job hunting. Gen Z seeks out employers that recognize the need to unplug and recharge once in a while to avoid burnout. It’s unlikely you’ll find this age group sacrificing their well-being for the sake of a paycheck.

Companies that don’t emphasize their values are setting themselves up for disappointment when it comes to attracting Gen Z talent. Taking time to clearly communicate what matters most to your organization in the interview stage goes a long way in cultivating a relationship with Gen Z candidates.

Commitment to DEI

DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) holds a special place in the hearts of Gen Z. 48% of United States Gen Z-ers are racial or ethnic minorities, and they want to see the diversity of their demographic reflected in the workplace.

Gen Z is leading the charge in shifting a heavier emphasis on DEI, and much of their interest comes from first-hand experiences with discriminatory workplaces. A recent study shows that 67% of Gen Z employees reported witnessing racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender-driven discrimination in the workplace, and 44% have been on the receiving end of this discrimination themselves.

In turn, this means that this generation is even warier regarding if an organization really cares about facilitating an inclusive and equitable work environment. Gen Z wants companies to champion DEI at all stages of an employee’s journey— even the pre-employment stage. 

Evaluate your pool of interviewers; do your interviewers come from a variety of backgrounds and characteristics? If not, you’re presenting an image of a workplace devoid of a diversity of perspectives. The interview is Gen Z’s first impression of your company, and failing to promote DEI starts the candidate relationship on the wrong foot.

Transparency on the Compensation Package

Gen Z candidates want their future employers to have a strong social conscience, but they want to be paid well, too; 70% say that salary is their top motivator when considering a job offer.

Salary transparency is becoming a widely discussed topic, and Gen Z is oftentimes at the forefront of these conversations. A healthy workplace culture now includes better salary transparency, and 70% of Gen Z would consider switching jobs for more of this transparency.

As a generation defined by money-conscious mindsets and honest discussions on compensation, Gen Z is not likely to tolerate companies that withhold details regarding salaries and benefits. Companies seeking to form trusted candidate relationships with Gen Z must be transparent with their compensation packages, and this means facilitating candid discussions in interviews.

Open Communication on Growth Opportunities 

To cultivate a genuine candidate relationship between Gen Z and your hiring team, it is essential to include discussions on growth opportunities within the interview process. The data doesn’t lie: in a survey, 64% of Gen Z workers identified growth opportunities as one of their top career priorities. 

Gen Z candidates want to know that they can have an exciting future at your company, but this doesn’t mean that they want to hear all about how they can someday fulfill their dreams of becoming a top executive. In the same survey, only 3% of Gen Z cited having a “fancy job title” as a priority. 

Instead, Gen Z wants their hiring process to include open dialogue surrounding how they’d be able to pick up new skills and grow their learnings in their potential future job. Overall, these candidates are looking for additional responsibilities at companies that are dedicated to maintaining their values and prioritizing the well-being of their employees.

Tech-Driven Candidate Experience

Gen Z learned how to scroll before they could speak. They were born with technology in their hands, and they expect the hiring process to keep up with their fast-paced, tech-driven lifestyles. In fact, a staggering 54% of Gen Z job seekers won’t even submit their applications if your hiring process seems outdated or unnecessarily time-consuming.

Arming your tech stack with intelligent recruitment software allows you to keep pace with Gen Z’s expectations. Prioritizing a tech-driven candidate relationship will save you both time and energy, all while ensuring that outdated hiring procedures don’t hold you back from securing top talent.

The Bottom Line: Prioritize the Candidate Relationship

Every generation has preferences in what they want in the candidate relationship, and Gen Z is no exception. This new demographic is redefining not only what an ideal work environment looks like, but also what a desirable hiring process looks like. Staying up-to-date on their expectations is crucial to winning them over.

Cultivating candidate relationships doesn’t have to be complicated. Download our eBook to learn more about the key pillars to a strong candidate relationship.

6 Steps Proven To Boost Your Employer Brand

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Great compensation alone no longer tops the list of must-haves for job seekers. So what is driving competitive talent your way? Today, it’s all about how candidates perceive your company’s culture, aka your employer brand – and whether or not they can visualize themselves being part of it. 

In fact, with 25% of candidates willing to accept a pay cut to work for a company with an engaging employee experience, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the employer brand is just as important as the consumer brand. All things considered, focusing on your brand is undoubtedly good for business: organizations that invest in their employer brand are three times more likely to hire quality candidates.

In a world where your reputation as an employer can be discovered in just a few clicks, leveling up is mission-critical. Here are six proven strategies to help you do just that.

1. Audit, Both Inside and Out

It’s one thing to create a flashy careers page – it’s another to live out those promises. To foster a healthy company culture full of happy employees, start by listening. 

Commit to asking your team for honest feedback through regular employee pulse surveys so you can measure and track how they feel about their work experience. Then – and most importantly – let the feedback inform your business strategy.

Don’t stop there. Take an external look at your employer brand by “listening” to what people are saying about your company across social media platforms and job review sites. Gathering this data will help you not only identify your strengths and play to them in the future, but also identify your weaknesses and prioritize next steps for mitigating them.

2. Employer Brand Starts With Employee Value Proposition

Next, get clear on why competitive talent would want to work for you. What do you offer in exchange for their valuable time and skills?

Today’s candidates want to work for a place that not only shares their values, but also provides a sense of belonging. Use the data gathered during your audit to write compelling job descriptions that make it clear why a talented individual should join your team.

To further reel in star candidates, ensure that these same value propositions are intelligently conveyed in the hiring process, leaving no doubt in the minds of candidates that your company is the place for them.

3. Demonstrate a Commitment To DEI  

It’s not enough to show off your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts after a candidate is hired; 85% of job seekers want to know where employers stand on DEI before making a final decision about a job.

A great place to start? Your careers page. If DEI is truly a clear focus for your organization, demonstrate it by including images of people from diverse backgrounds, inclusive language, and employee testimonials that speak to your efforts.

Committing to DEI is one of the most consequential factors in creating a workplace where employees feel comfortable to be their authentic selves. But practicing DEI is a continuous journey. Make a habit out of regularly evaluating your DEI efforts and identifying areas needing improvement. 

4. Broadcast Growth Opportunities

Employees want and need a challenge — especially high performers. In fact, 33% of employees cite boredom as the main reason for leaving a job (Korn Ferry’s Breaking Boredom survey).

So if growth isn’t part of your employer brand, it needs to be. Employees who are offered growth and development opportunities learn new skills, making them more valuable and more engaged.

Don’t forget to emphasize these opportunities everywhere you talk about open roles: on your careers page, in job descriptions, and on social media. Showing that you invest in the well-being of your employees will quickly capture a job candidate’s attention.

5. Give Current Team Members a Voice

One of the most significant assets that will reinforce your employer brand is sitting right in front of you: your employees. In fact, candidates trust what current employees say about working for a company three times more than they trust the employer.

To leverage your team, ask them to leave reviews on job sites, request testimonials to share on your website or social media, or record videos of employee stories you can use in recruiting activities.

Your employees’ stories will breathe personality into your employer brand, showcasing real-life examples of people who love being part of your team. Take it from Microsoft, a company that took this idea to another level by creating a Twitter profile, @MicrosoftLife, which is exclusively centered around their company culture and the lives of their employees.

6. Remember: The Candidate Relationship Is Your Employer Brand

Amidst auditing and improving your employer brand, never lose sight of the connection built between candidates and your organization during the interview process – because at the end of the day, the candidate relationship is your employer brand. How you treat and interact with candidates in their hiring journey directly reflects the type of employer you are. To position yourself as a great place to work, ensure that candidates feel respected.

Here’s where your tech stack comes in: implementing features that allow candidates to self-schedule their interviews for a time that works best for them, and leveraging automation for a quick and easy recruitment process, sends a message to candidates that their time is valued.

Don’t let a negative candidate relationship weigh down your employer brand. Give candidates a seamless experience by leveling up your tech stack today.

Interviewing 101: Building a Superstar Interview Panel

Posted on by Rachel Heller

When executed correctly, an interview panel can be your secret weapon in optimizing your hiring process and securing top talent for your organization.

Interview panels offer a wide range of benefits, from reducing your time to hire, to minimizing interviewer bias, to gauging how candidates navigate group dynamics. A well-rounded panel — stacked with a diversity of perspectives, aligned to the same objective, and well-trained in interviewing — has the potential to wield spectacular results in meeting your hiring goals. 

On the flip side, a weak, haphazardly assembled panel can be disastrous. And with today’s candidates, the stakes have never been higher: 44% of job seekers agree that the interview experience is the most influential part of the hiring process. 

A negative interview can shatter a candidate’s impression of a company, and candidates aren’t afraid to share their bad experiences with the world. 72% of candidates say they’ve shared bad hiring experiences online, and we all know that negative word-of-mouth can do wonders in damaging an organization’s reputation.

All in all, a thoughtfully crafted interview panel can add significant value to your hiring strategy. Choosing adept, trained interviewers for your panel is key to standing out to candidates and delivering a memorable candidate experience. Here are five best practices to assemble the interview panel of your dreams.

Identify Potential Interviewers

At the crux of a successful interview panel building strategy is robust knowledge on the interviewers who are available to you. As a recruiter, this means you should know who’s completed interviewer training and who’s in the shadowing stage, as well as their available hours, their interview loads, etc.

When you have this information immediately at hand, it’s easier to identify and schedule the right people for your interviews. However, when tasked with scheduling multiple interviewers for a panel, navigating the different schedules, time zones, workloads, and training stages of your interviewers can quickly become overwhelming.

The good news: here in the digital age, your tech stack is vital to handling the logistics of panel interviews. Investing in interview scheduling software that assists in intelligent interviewer selection allows you to automate the process of identifying and load balancing your interview teams, reduce the complexities of communications, and schedule along with the risk of interviewer burnout. This way, scheduling an interview panel is just as easy as scheduling one-on-one chats.

Emphasize Representation and Inclusivity 

A commitment to DEI is a must-have for job seekers – 86% of candidates say that DEI in the workplace is crucial for them when considering a role. With interviews being candidates’ first impressions of a workplace, presenting a diverse, representative interview panel ensures your organization is conveying a corporate culture that is both inclusive and equitable, all while mitigating factors such as unconscious bias.

Take time to thoughtfully consider what your interview panel looks like. Does your panel consist of interviewers with an array of backgrounds and perspectives, properly representing the diversity of your organization’s employees, or is your panel a sea of homogeneity?

Sharing pronouns (she/her, they/them, etc.) when meeting candidates is another way to actively practice inclusivity in hiring. Candidates want to feel comfortable where they work, and interviews are the prime time to show that your organization doesn’t just talk about the importance of DEI, but actually takes time to implement equitable practices.

Align on the Ideal Candidate

The interviewers in your panel should be in complete alignment with the attributes they’re looking for in a candidate based on the job posting’s requirements. When interviewers are in agreement with what they want a candidate to bring to the table in consideration of what the role needs to accomplish, the interview process becomes even more efficient and effective in identifying the right talent in the fastest time possible.

After the interview panel, holding a post-interview debrief is a great way to come together to understand how the interviews went, if the candidate matches the attributes the interviewers were looking for, and if an offer should realistically be made.

Widen Your Interviewer Pool 

The more aggressive your hiring goals, the more employees you’ll need to be interviewers for your various interview panels and individual interviews. Less than 10% of HR executives require interviewer training in their companies, meaning that the vast majority of organizations risk losing out on candidates due to interviewers unequipped to fulfill their roles.

Broadening your interviewer pool with interviewer training is crucial to distributing the interview load evenly across your organization’s employees, all while making sure that your interviewers are qualified to hire quality talent in record time. Interviews are the first interaction that candidates have with your company – make sure you start on the right foot! 

Download our guide to learn how interviewer training can transform your hiring process.

3 Ways To Reduce Employee Turnover With Candidate Relationships

Posted on by Rachel Heller

In the world of recruitment, finding top talent is only half the battle—it’s all about candidate relationships. For hiring teams with goals to not only reel stellar candidates in, but to also ensure that candidates stay engaged in an opportunity that lives up to expectations, talent retention requires just as much attention as talent acquisition.

As a recruiter, if this component of hiring is overlooked (as it all-too-often is), an alarmingly high employee turnover rate can directly negate your efforts to grow your teams. And within the age of the Great Resignation as more and more companies lose their top performers to other opportunities, now is the time to amplify your employee retention efforts.

If the importance of driving retention needed further proof, the cost of replacing an employee reportedly amounts to between 90% to 200% of their annual salary, meaning that keeping retention top-of-mind from the start of the interview process can save both time and money down the road.

We’ve talked about the importance of prioritizing candidate relationships in order to turn candidates into new hires, yet this key component of hiring is equally important when ensuring those new hires decide to stick around for a while. 

While 31% of employees reportedly left their new job within the first six months of working, this statistic doesn’t have to be the reality for your organization. In fact, it is incredibly preventable, and the solution lies in cultivating strong, genuine connections with potential new hires from the get-go. Read on to learn how to use candidate relationships as your secret weapon in boosting retention and reducing turnover.

Be Transparent With Advancement Opportunities

Employees don’t just want to have a job at your organization – they want a career, and part of having a career means having a defined path for promotions and advancement. If these opportunities aren’t present, employees aren’t afraid to look to other places, seen in the more than one-quarter of employees that are reportedly hunting for a new career for better advancement opportunities. 

Clearly and transparently communicating the projected career path in the interviewing stage not only bolsters candidate relationships with a trustworthy foundation of communication but also ensures that both your hiring team and the candidate are on the same page with what can be expected in growth opportunities. 

With 51% of hires left feeling misled over opportunities for career progression, being upfront about how your candidates can advance within the role mitigates the chance that they’ll be disappointed with these opportunities down the line and will decide to move on to a different organization. 

Convey Your Organization’s Culture

Clear communication is undoubtedly a core component in forming a strong relationship with candidates that translates to success and retention once they’re hired, yet this goes beyond articulating growth opportunities: this also means communicating the company culture. 

Company culture has always been somewhat difficult to fully convey to candidates, and the distance economy along with the new norm of remote hiring has made this concept even more abstract and difficult to properly illuminate. But with 38% of workers wanting to leave their jobs due to the culture, it’s evident that taking time to communicate a clear image of the workplace’s culture in the interview process is a must-do.

In the end, a candidate relationship embedded with open discussions on culture ensures that whoever is hired for the role fully understands and aligns with the environment and values of the organization, reducing the likeliness of turnover due to a bad cultural fit down the line.

Demonstrate Flexibility When Hiring

If the rise of remote working has taught us anything, it’s that flexibility is good for business. With 42% of employees reporting that they would leave their jobs for a more flexible work environment, companies that don’t offer flexibility risk losing out on acquiring and retaining top talent.

Facilitating candid conversations with candidates on their options for flexible work and flexible schedules is a great way to both strengthen the candidate relationship and make sure that the new hire won’t quit soon after they start the job due to dissatisfaction with the room for flexibility provided within the position.

But, showing is nearly always better than telling, so if you want your recruiting team to really stand out from the crowd, it’d be wise to demonstrate your organization’s commitment to flexibility using the tools in your tech stack. You can make flexibility paramount in the interview process with optimized virtual interviewing experiences, complete with self-scheduling capabilities that allow candidates to interview at a time that is most convenient for them.

The Bottom Line 

When faced with an increasingly picky candidate pool combined with job-hopping employees that drive up turnover rates, acquiring and retaining talent can oftentimes feel like an uphill battle. In times like this, cultivating the candidate relationship grows ever more important. This means enacting hiring practices that present potential hires with a genuine, true-to-life preview of the job.  

Check out our eBook on the candidate relationship to learn how to give candidates personable experiences at every step in your hiring process.

The Candidate Relationship: Seth Waterman from Databricks

Posted on by Rachel Heller

In the distance economy, the talent competition continues to grow more cut-throat as remote jobs garner hundreds upon thousands of eager applicants. Fine-tuning your hiring strategy to foster a strong candidate relationship makes the difference between a candidate accepting or rejecting an offer. 

For candidates like Seth Waterman, feeling prioritized during the interview process made accepting the role of Partner Sales Director at Databricks a no-brainer.

With GoodTime in their tech stack, Databricks streamlines their hiring to win over Seth and other stellar candidates. But that’s not all. Thanks to GoodTime’s interviewer training paths, Databricks increased the size of their interviewer pool, allowing them to move candidates forward faster and deliver quick and easy candidate experiences.

Read on to learn how GoodTime helped Seth accept Databricks’ job offer by boosting one of the most defining factors in every interview: the candidate relationship.

Igniting the Candidate Relationship

Fast-Tracked Hiring Process

Job hunting is known to be one of the most stressful events in one’s life life. Painstakingly long hiring procedures can only make matters worse. Throughout his job search, Seth experienced this all-too-common reality: companies with drawn-out interview processes that sour the candidate experience.

That’s where Databricks stood out from the crowd. After using GoodTime to supercharge their hiring, what could’ve been over a month-long interview process took less than three weeks.

“It was the first time in six years that I had really considered making a move in my career, and with the speed and pace that they worked at through GoodTime, it really made me feel the urgency that they had in me as a candidate.”

— Seth Waterman, Partner Sales Director at Databricks

When companies double down on their tech stack to implement a smooth interview process, candidates feel that their time is honored. From here, the candidate relationship only grows stronger.

Candidate-Driven Interviews

With 87% of candidates preferring to lead interviews, it’s no surprise that candidate-driven interview processes yield more success than the company-driven approach. With the help of GoodTime’s advanced interview scheduling, Databricks put Seth in the driver’s seat with a hiring process centered around his schedule. 

As over half of job seekers prefer more flexibility over a higher salary, flexibility is a growing priority for candidates. Making self-scheduling a central part of the hiring process can be key to creating a great first impression — and first impressions are everything when it comes to recruitment.

How a candidate is treated in the interview process heavily dictates whether they accept a job offer. In fact, 68% of applicants believe that how they’re treated as a candidate reflects how the organization treats their employees. Implementing a candidate-driven interview process ensures candidates that they’d be stepping into a flexible and trusting work environment.

Learn More About Seth’s Candidate Experience

In the end, both Seth and the Databricks recruiting team came out on top. Seth felt valued at every step of his interview journey, and the recruiting team snagged a star candidate. Prioritizing the candidate relationship to win top talent: it works every time.

“If you’re not using GoodTime today, I’d definitely look into it. If you’re interested in having a premier candidate experience for your company, it will go a long way in creating that type of atmosphere.”

— Seth Waterman, Partner Sales Director at Databricks

Watch the video below to hear more about Seth’s experience with Databricks and GoodTime.

How the Distance Economy Changed the Way We Work

Posted on by Rachel Heller

In 2019, only 6% of Americans worked from home — a number that soared to 45% early in the pandemic. People everywhere went from working side-by-side to collaborating solely online in a matter of weeks.

More than just where we work, there’s no question that this distance economy has impacted how we work. It’s even changed what people want from work.

Feelings of social isolation and burnout drove candidates to re-prioritize what’s important to them. And now they’re demanding the very thing they’ve been missing the most — genuine connections and conversations around the things that matter. The distance economy generated a need to communicate differently.

63% of candidates say most employers don’t effectively communicate

Candidates want regular feedback and communication during the interview process. In remote hiring, where human connection is lacking, this is more important than ever.  

84% of candidates want hiring process transparency before they apply 

Emerging from a period of uncertainty, candidates want to see full transparency from companies, including what to expect with salaries, benefits, job responsibilities, and work arrangements.

37% of people experience lower trust in leadership     

Remote work created feelings of isolation for many. Connection builds trust, and it’s important to start building that connection as early as the interview stage. The distance economy created a desire for a more personally fulfilling work experience.

33% of recruiters say more candidates ask about their DEI initiatives than before the pandemic

Candidates want to be a part of an equitable workplace that demonstrates a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And they’re prepared to pass up job offers from companies that don’t.

76% of millennials want to know about a company’s social and environmental stance before accepting a job       

Environmental and social commitment matters to many candidates, especially the largest segment of today’s workforce — millennials.

More than one in three candidates would take a pay cut for learning opportunities

The uncertainty of the recent economic crisis accelerated the need for upskilling, especially in technology. Candidates want employers who can maximize their potential and set them up for a better tomorrow. The distance economy amplified the need to feel appreciated and prioritized.

75% of people say their mental health is now a top priority

Remote work took a major toll on personal well-being. Now, candidates are looking for employers that place as much value on mental health as they do.

Flexibility is the fastest-growing priority for job seekers right now. Candidates want continued flexibility to gain better work-life balance and to prioritize their mental and physical health.

Only 17% of remote employees want to return to the office full-time

Two years into the pandemic, people have figured out how to work from home. Now, they’re looking for companies that give them the flexibility to work in a way that suits their life.

Trust, transparency, flexibility. If you’re noticing a pattern in the data being reported, you’re not alone. Now more than ever before people want genuine connection. For hiring leaders, that means developing positive candidate relationships. 

Elevate Your Recruitment Process Today

If you want to stand out among other companies in the distance economy, you need recruitment tech that truly prioritizes candidates. Look no further than GoodTime Hire.

GoodTime Hire harnesses Candidate Relationship Intelligence to automate coordination, build relationships during interviews, and provide actionable insights to continuously improve your hiring process.

Learn more about how Hire can take your recruitment process to the next level.

Spotify’s Work From Home Revolution

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Remote work from home is nothing new, and if we’ve learned anything over the past two years, it’s that WFH can be just as productive (if not more so) than working in an office.

But what if your company wants to adopt a WWYWB (Work Where You Work Best) policy? Lindsay Goring, Global Talent Acquisition Lead at Spotify, sat down with GoodTime’s Head of Customer Success, Lauren Costella to discuss options for remote work and the strategies that made their approach a success.

If you don’t have time to watch the full video, here’s the TLDR with the five main takeaways from the session.

Consider Your Remote Work Approach With A Globally Distributed Team

Spotify has implemented a strategy that enables employees to work from anywhere. Employees at Spotify are encouraged to view work as something they do, not a place they go. This enables great flexibility for employees to work fully remotely if they choose.

Though this strategy has been successfully implemented at Spotify, it’s not for every company. The fact is, there is no one size fits all option because you have to have the right infrastructure to support this work style, and the right strategies to implement these kinds of company policies. 

The way a company approaches these policies is one of the most important elements to consider. Spotify’s approach was very people-focused and they aimed to analyze what their employees needed to work their best. This meant that they had to provide flexibility for their employees because some of them worked best in a remote environment. 

This Is How Spotify Approached Work From Home: 

  1. Try to ensure that teams are within similar time zones to work seamlessly with each other instead of having 8+ hour time differences. 
  2. Set up multiple entities in different locations around the world so that those who do need the office can access it. 
  3. Choose specific regions when you’re looking to fill certain roles. 
  4. Allow employees to choose their work modes (office or home mix).

Prepare With Your Team

This is all about getting your team ready for change by understanding the goals and strategies used to make those changes a success. Preparation is also crucial for leaders to understand which employees prefer working in the office and those that prefer working fully remotely. 

It’s important to remember that it will take months to fully prepare for this kind of work environment because these changes can be quite drastic. Some roles have to adapt fully online, while others will need to be hybrid.

These Are Some of the Factors Spotify Had to Iron Out Before Getting Started: 

  1. Employee laws in different countries
  2. Payment methods for different currencies and countries 
  3. Co-working spaces for those who want office spaces in different locations
  4. Human resources and internal comms
  5. Training and retraining staff to adapt to remote work
  6. Getting the recruitment team ready

For Remote Work, Employer Branding Is Key

This is an important element in recruiting talented people because they need as much information about their employer as possible. Spotify has a dedicated website just for careers at the company to highlight the different roles available. This lets candidates see which roles are eligible to be fully remote and the ones that require office work. 

This kind of method is quite effective in employer branding because the website gives in-depth details about the roles as well as the company culture that candidates should expect. It’s better than just having a few hundred words on a job board that give very little knowledge about what the employer’s values are and what work mode options are available at the company. 

This kind of employer branding is fundamental because it ensures that candidates already know before they apply what kind of role they want and what work mode they are eligible for as well. 

Spotify’s Results

Once these kinds of changes are made within the company, it’s essential that people are measuring the level of results. Spotify has seen many great results and one of those is the increase of applications once they announced that they’d let people work from anywhere where eligible. This attracted many talented people based in different parts of the world. 

By allowing people to work from anywhere, they no longer had to turn down applicants who were unable to relocate due to personal reasons or COVID-related challenges. This leveled the playing field for applicants and gave them the chance to hire more talented people regardless of their geographic location.

Remote Companies: Time to Give Your Tech Stack an Upgrade

Having the right tools is critical for companies trying to move to remote work. Spotify works to ensure that collaboration is asynchronous by using tools like Slack, Workplace, and GoodTime.

GoodTime Hire’s automated, intelligent scheduling serves as a major asset to companies that have to navigate through different time zones with candidate schedules. This is one way that the Spotify team can automate coordination, eliminate manual work to save both time and money, and make the application process a positive experience for candidates. 

Learn more about how GoodTime Hire’s interview scheduling software can supercharge your recruiting to win top talent.

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How to Run High-Quality Interviews in the Distance Economy

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Interviews are a critical part of any hiring phase. But what happens when you have to undertake these interviews against the backdrop of an emerging distance economy? It’s more challenging when you have to undertake the interviewing process remotely. Unless you employ impeccable skills and tactics, you’ll likely miss the mark in your recruitment process. 

So, how do you ensure that your remote interview process is above board? Scott Parker, Director of Product Marketing at Goodtime, spoke with Siadhal Magos, Founder and CEO of Metaview. Here’re some useful takeaways from the LinkedIn Live conversation that can be handy for hiring leaders managing the remote hiring processes. 

Prepare Your Interviewers Like Your Company Depends on It

When it comes to building candidate relationships, there’s little room for error during remote interviews. The days of the fashionably decorated offices loaded with perks are done for the foreseeable future, so preparation and proper training are key.

In most cases, candidates anticipate a polished interview process with minimal hitches. Having specialized training paths to ensure you have the right people asking the right questions to the best candidates is everything.

The interview preparation phase involves more than just selecting a panel of interviewers. Preparation involves optimizing your tech stack, the questions being asked, the interview sequence (who’s asking what and at what stage), and the scheduled times for the interviews.

Unlike face-to-face interviews, where you have more leeways to make adjustments, there’s very little wiggle room for remote interviews, especially if they’re across multiple time zones. If you want to run a high-quality interview in the distance economy, create training paths and interview templates to scale your process efficiently while keeping it bespoke to each candidate and role.   

Train a Broad Pool of Interviewers 

The new distance economy means the candidate pool is far deeper, which could easily overwhelm your team. A mistake some hiring managers make is settling for a smaller interviewer pool, which exposes the team to two negative outcomes: burnout and a slow time-to-hire.

It’s critical to empower your interviewers both in skill set and in load balancing. If you anticipate interviewing 70% of the shortlisted talent, you need to have at least 30% of an equivalent number of interviewers to oversee the interviews. 

It’s essential to expand the interviewer pool when dealing with remote interviews. This way, you have room for diversity, increased productivity and better succession planning. Before commencing the interview process, empower the interview team in a way that they can manage the process seamlessly. It’s also important to note that your interviewers are the face of your brand. What they portray during the interview is what the interviewees will take as the actual representation of your brand.

Plainly: an exhausted and dismissive interview panel will absolutely send the wrong signal. Don’t let it happen. 

Invest in the Right Resources

It’s surprising how hiring managers can set a very high standard for the candidates, yet rarely invest as much in the interviewing team. The interviewer training process is helpful as it sets the standards when dealing with interviewers.

Properly trained interviewers can cut the actual time of recruitment by up to 50%. The quality of the actual interview process depends more on the skill level of the interviewers than on the number of panelists. An interviewer should have conversational skills and analytical capabilities when managing the recruitment process. Other aspects such as experience in managing people also come in handy.

As an organization, it’s essential to invest the time in training your interviewers. When dealing with remote candidates, specific skills are critical. Unfortunately, most of these necessary skills cannot be attained without a formal, standardized training. 

Vary Your Question Types 

The process of interviewing candidates encompasses both open and closed-ended questions. Sometimes, direct, closed questions during an interview save time. But in other cases, you also need to listen to what the interview has said in length about some topic areas. This is significantly more so when dealing with remote interviews. 

In most cases, open-ended questions are helpful in the modern distance economy context. Open-ended questions allow you to probe the candidates more and invite them into a conversation. It’s important to do this, since it will enable the candidate to feel at ease and blend into the conversation. It’s essential to set questions so that they invite a broad range of responses.

The future of hiring will witness a mix of remote, in-person and hybrid work settings. Open-ended interviews present a chance for interviewees to explain how they intend to ensure flexibility in response to the uncertain future. 

 It will also help put the interviewee on the different spot-on issues. On the other hand, closed-ended questions allow the interviewee to give short answers on direct matters. 

The Bottom Line

The distance economy continues to disrupt how businesses run and operate. Talent acquisition teams must adjust and adapt to this evolving world of remote hiring. Optimizing remote interviews is among the new norms that every TA leader must embrace to develop the best candidate relationship possible. 

Interview Strategy Basics: Build the Candidate Relationship

Posted on by Rachel Heller

A seamless candidate experience has become even more elusive in today’s distance economy, where things move faster than ever. It’s a new world of work, and people use technology to collaborate from anywhere — a change that’s had an enormous impact on the priorities of job seekers.

Now, candidates expect employers to give them the work experience and flexibility they need in order to flourish — and rightfully so.

With so many people experiencing emotional, physical, and financial burdens from the fallout of the pandemic, they’re reevaluating what’s most important to them and starting to put their own needs first. They want to be part of a workplace that is aligned with their values, and where genuine professional connections and holistic support are the norms.

Remote work and virtual hiring have been a monumental shift for talent teams, and organizations that are winning the race for critical talent are now focusing on building candidate relationships throughout every single part of the hiring funnel. 

That’s why today’s talent teams need to provide candidates with a flexible, personal experience as well as authentic insight into the company, the role, and the team they’re considering. To help you make the changes that matter, consider how you can focus on the candidate relationship before, during, and after the interview.

How To Create Genuine Candidate Connections Before the Interview

Train Your Talent Teams

Cultivating genuine connections starts long before a candidate’s interview is even scheduled. It starts by training the people who make the first impression on the candidate — the interviewers.

This is critical, and here’s why — an interviewer’s performance is a direct reflection of your company. So, to create genuine connections, train your interviewers on these key practices:

  • Always treat candidates with respect and kindness.
  • Be attentive when they’re talking so you can better understand their needs.
  • Despite hectic schedules, use the interview to truly connect with candidates. Smile and nod to show you’re listening.
  • Allow candidates to engage in real conversations about the things that matter to them.
  • Help them feel heard and understood by asking them to elaborate or by reiterating what they’ve said.
  • To minimize bias, ask open-ended and behavioral-based questions.
  • Be transparent, and be prepared to answer questions about topics like culture and pay.

Promote Flexibility and Fairness

Flexibility is at the top of most candidates’ lists. Prove that your company values flexibility by making it a key part of the interview process.

Start by respecting candidates’ time and letting them self-schedule their interview appointments. Automated interview scheduling platforms empower candidates to select their own interview slot and even reschedule, if necessary.

Besides flexible scheduling, here are some other ways to provide a fair, flexible interview process:

  • Look for bottlenecks in getting candidates through the process and address candidate dropout. Optimize for efficiency and speed. Can you reduce the number of interviews to speed up the process?
  • Candidates may need accommodations —provide options and support for candidates with your interviewing technology.
  • Understand when life happens, and candidates need to reschedule.
  • Diversify your interview panels. The more trained interviewers on your hiring panel, the more diverse candidates you’ll be able to connect with as they’re able to envision a place for themselves in your organization.

How To Create Genuine Candidate Connections During the Interview

Promote and Enable Authenticity

Will candidates join your company if they feel like they don’t really know what you stand for and what it’s like to work with you? Probably not.

For candidates, transparency in the interview is a reassuring sign. And if you want to win the best talent, honesty, and openness should be the top goals for each interview. To do this:

  • Be up-front about potential challenges or deal-breakers. No one likes having their time wasted.
  • Foster honest, mutual conversations from the beginning.
  • Be open about job requirements and expectations.
  • Talk about compensation and benefits early.
  • Absolutely no ghosting!

Be Willing To Be Interviewed

Candidates are putting their priorities first, and it’s showing up in interviews — that’s right, they’re interviewing you just as much as you’re interviewing them.

Candidates want meaningful work. So, it should come as no surprise that they’re initiating discussions on wellness benefits, flexibility accommodations, growth opportunities, and DE&I initiatives (a topic that 33% of recruiters say they now get more questions about than in previous years).

And in a competitive job market like this one, you have to bring your A-game. That means welcoming candidates’ questions, and being prepared to answer them thoroughly. Ensure you leave plenty of time in the interview to answer their questions — in more than just a rushed moment at the very end.

How To Create Genuine Candidate Connections After the Interview

Give and Receive Candidate Feedback

The best talent teams build genuine relationships with empathy. And this goes two ways — by understanding the candidate’s perspective, and by giving the candidate helpful feedback.

Hiring teams need to actively assess how their interviews are being perceived by all candidates — whether or not there’s an offer on the table. To do this, create open doors for candidate feedback. Then, use that feedback to examine blind spots and uncover growth opportunities for developing future candidate relationships.

Along with candidate feedback, leverage data to understand and refine your process. Continually making small, incremental changes will have a huge impact over time.

For candidates that did not receive an offer, don’t just quit the relationship after the interview. Continue nurturing genuine connections by providing helpful feedback. Here are some tips:

  • Be honest but considerate, giving praise when appropriate.
  • Provide helpful tips for future interviews.
  • Keep in touch with candidates for future opportunities.

Companies That Put Candidate Relationships First Will Be Hard To Beat

In today’s virtual world, the best hiring teams understand candidate needs while delivering best-in-class experiences.

To create the most efficient, candidate-centric process, use hiring automation to maximize personal touch. With GoodTime, hiring teams can automate time-consuming, low-value tasks so they can focus on candidate relationships, instead.

To learn how GoodTime can help your company turn your talent strategy into a winning experience book a demo today.