What is the candidate journey and how does it work?

Before deciding to apply to a job position, all potential candidates must go through a series of steps. This is a long process that ends when the company hires the right person. That process is known as the candidate journey. It’s important understanding this process in order to create better ideas that improve our recruitment strategies. 

What do you know about the candidate journey? At Talent2Win we have an extensive experience in selection processes and personnel recruitment, so we are familiar with this concept. In this article, we’ll delve into the candidate journey and its different stages. 

What is the candidate journey? 

This is a process that is made of all the interactions potential candidates have with an organization before they start working in it. The concept of the candidate journey is a great tool to understand all the stages professionals go through while choosing a job. That helps you improve the image your company has and the way it interacts with people. Therefore, it increases your chances of getting more candidates in your recruitment processes. 

In that regard, the candidate journey shares many similarities with the customer journey, which is a Marketing concept. In this, the company tries to reach the public before they become clients to offer the best experience possible and have a positive influence over their purchase decision. In the same way, in our case, the company tries to be visible for a large number of potential candidates and offer a great experience to have a positive influence over their decision of entering the recruitment process. 

Stages of the candidate journey 

In general, there are seven stages inside the candidate journey. The process begins with the very first interaction that the person has with the company and ends once a candidate is hired. Let’s take a look at the stages one by one.  

1. Awareness 

In the first stage, the company reaches potential candidates who are not familiar with the organization. As a consequence, awareness, refers to the way people get to know the company. It can happen through social media as part of a comprehensive recruitment marketing strategy. In that case, you need to show everyone the company’s work style and its culture. 

2. Consideration 

Since your potential candidates are now familiar with your organization, this is the perfect moment to show it as an alternative for jobs. In order to be considered as an option for professionals, the company should design a social media content creation plan that fits the social media recruitment strategy. Through this, you have to offer content that potential candidates find attractive, interesting and informative. Creating valuable content helps you present yourself as a reliable option. 

3. Interest 

Once they know the organization and think of it as another job option, the next step is to attract the interest of potential employees. To achieve that, the company has to create a good employer branding strategy. This helps you to be perceived positively by the general public, which includes candidates. As a result, potential candidates identify your organization as a place where they really would like to work. That takes us to the next stage.  

4. Application 

This stage begins when your company announces a vacant position. At this point, since candidates have already gone through the stages of awareness, consideration and interest, they decide to enter the recruitment process. For this stage to be more effective, the application process that candidates will have to follow needs to be as simple as possible. Also, it’s important to consider carefully the different channels recruiters will use to announce the job offer. In addition to the most relevant job sites and social networks, you have to try niche platforms.  

5. Selection 

This is the stage where recruiters have to work harder. All the analysis, interviews and tests usually seen in interviews happen in this phase. Since the average recruitment process can takes two weeks, the best is to keep candidates in the loop about the slightest change in the process. Recruiters need to keep frequent communication with candidates. Additionally, recruiters have to notify unsuccessful applicants and offer feedback regarding their performance. Those are key aspects for a good candidate experience. A good experience can turn even rejected candidates into brand ambassadors. 

6. Hiring 

Once you have analyzed the skills and knowledge of all candidates, you identify the ideal candidate. This is how we get to the final stage: hiring. This is where the company makes an offer and, if the candidate agrees with the terms, the process concludes with a contract agreement. It’s worth noting that some people include an additional stage after the hiring: the onboarding process. Since in the onboarding process the person is no longer a candidate but a full employee in the organization, is best to consider onboarding as the beginning of a separate process: the employee lifecycle.  

Now you know what is the candidate journey and its different phases. Understanding this process can help you create better strategies in each of these stages and streamline the recruitment process. 

At Talent2Win, we strive to align your company’s business objectives with the best Talent Acquisition strategies available. If you want to learn more about the services we offer, do not hesitate to contact us.