Redesign the Candidate Experience

Embrace design thinking to elevate the candidate journey and to build a competitive advantage for your organization.

Onsite Workshop

Without improving the candidate experience:

The organization may lose candidates to talent competitors.
You may also lose applicants as customers through a negative organizational perception.
Candidates may privately or publically criticize the organization based on their experience.

By designing a candidate experience that is aligned with the EVP and employer brand:

The organization will stand out among competitors.
Candidates with encouraging experiences often become brand ambassadors.
The organization will attract the right talent and engage job seekers.

The Purpose

Assess the organization’s current state for candidate experience.
Set baseline metrics for comparison with new initiatives.
Establish goals to strengthen the candidate experience.

Key Benefits Achieved

Gained understanding of where the organization is currently.
Established where the organization would like to be and goals to achieve the new state.

Activities:		Outputs:
1.1	Map current candidate lifecycle	Process map
1.2	Record and analyze quantitative data	Candidate experience data gathered and analyzed
1.3	Record and analyze qualitative data	Candidate experience data gathered and analyzed
1.4	Set organizational objectives and project goals	Candidate Experience Project Charter
1.5	Set metrics to measure progress on high-level goals	Candidate Experience Project Charter

The Purpose

Apply design thinking methods to identify pain points in your candidate lifecycle.
Assess the competition and analyze results.
Empathize with candidates and their journey.

Key Benefits Achieved

Segments with pain points have been identified.
Competitor offering and differentiation has been analyzed.
Candidate thoughts and feelings have been synthesized.

Activities:		Outputs:
2.1	Identify extreme users	Extreme users identified
2.2	Conduct an immersive empathy session or go through the process as if you were a target candidate
2.3	Identify talent competitors
2.4	Analyze competitive landscape	Known and unknown talent competitor’s candidate experience analyzed
2.5	Synthesize research findings and create empathy map	Empathy map created
2.6	Journey map the candidate experience	Journey map created

The Purpose

Create a communications and action plan and set metrics to measure success.
Set expectations with hiring managers and talent acquisition specialists through a service level agreement.

Key Benefits Achieved

Action plan created
Metrics set to track progress and assess improvement
Service level agreement completed and expectations collaboratively set

Activities:		Outputs:
3.1	Assess each stage of the lifecycle	Candidate experience lifecycle stages prioritized
3.2	Set success metrics for priority lifecycle stages	Metrics to measure progress set
3.3	Select actions from Candidate Experience Best Practices Action Guide	Candidate experience best practices selected
3.4	Brainstorm other potential (organization-specific) solutions	Candidate Experience Assessment Tool
3.5	Set action timeline and assign accountabilities	HR Action and Communication Plan Tool
3.6	Customize SLA guidelines	SLA guidelines

Visit our COVID-19 Resource Center