As a growing business, sourcing the right candidates to join your company is an important process. However, with recruitment sometimes taking weeks, how can you ensure that candidates are kept happy and fully satisfied?

Recruitment agencies spend a large portion of their day managing candidate queries and expectations and they know the importance of keeping potential employees interested.

Here are six ways that recruitment companies such as Webrecruit use to keep candidates engaged, right up until their first day of their new job.

 

1. Build a relationship with potential employees

Even if there’s only one position available in your company, it helps to build a good relationship with all candidates that you select for an interview. Follow the lead of recruitment agencies and keep the details of talented candidates on file, even if they’re unsuccessful.

This means that if any similar positions in your company arise, you already have a ready-made talent pool, thus reducing your time and cost to hire in the future.

 

2. Understand their reasons

If a candidate is still in employment when they apply for a role within your company, make sure that you understand the reasons why they wish to leave their current role and explain how joining your business would be the next best step for them.

For example, if a candidate is looking for a new role because they feel as though there is a lack of progression opportunities within their current company, this is a great time to talk about your personalised development plan for each employee within the business.

 

3. Provide meaningful feedback

Providing feedback to candidates in the right way is a technique that many recruitment agencies have mastered. Being honest is vital as it’s important to let candidates know in what areas they need to improve.

However, when delivering negative feedback, always make sure that you talk about candidates’ strengths to give them a burst of positivity, whilst having something to work on.

 

4. Be contactable

It sounds simple but make sure that you respond to telephone calls and emails from candidates in a timely manner and be as thorough with your responses as possible. This creates a positive impression of your business and shows that you’re organised and, most importantly, interested.

 

5. Make candidates feel at ease

When going through the application and interview process, candidates will naturally feel a little nervous. Be professional at all times but try to speak to them in a relaxed manner and make them feel at ease to bring out the best in them.

 

6. Ensure that candidates have the right information

When you make direct contact with a candidate, make sure that you send them a copy of the full job description – up until this point, they would have probably just seen the job advert. The description will give them a more comprehensive overview of the role and they’ll have a greater understanding of what they’ll be doing on a day-to-day basis.

Also, make sure that you give full details of the benefits offered – this is an important factor in selling the role, as well as your company, and is something that many candidate don’t ask about as it’s often seen as a taboo interview question.

 

Don’t forget that keeping candidates engaged doesn’t just stop when they begin working for your company – hold regular performance reviews, make them feel included and ensure that they are settling in well. Remember that retaining and developing talent is just as important as attracting it in the first place.

 

Looking to outsource your recruitment? Webrecruit’s talented team of resourcers can help you. Find out more about our recruitment services.