Making candidates feel valued through an efficient hiring process
One of the most important parts of hiring great talent is ensuring candidates feel valued during the interview process. Imagine this: You’re a strong candidate who has applied for an open teaching position and hasn’t heard back. How would that make you feel?
The best talent will always be in high demand. Here are some ways you can make sure you’re first on their list.
Increase candidate engagement
Cultivate prospective candidate relationships by staying in touch until you have an open position that’s a fit for them. There are several ways to keep your prospects engaged, like inviting them to cultivation or school/community events, sending them emails on a regular cadence to check in and see if they are still searching for open roles, forwarding them your school’s newsletter so they can better understand your unique school culture, highlighting volunteer opportunities in our school community, etc.
We suggest tagging these individuals with a "high potential" candidate or prospect tag within the Nimble system so you can easily filter, find, and bulk email them. These are folks you don't have a role for now, or who already accepted an offer for this year, but who you may still want to hire later. We call this “building your bench” and these efforts ensure that you have a roster of warm prospects for when you need to fill a mid-year or future vacancy!
Provide meaningful feedback
Our user research with teacher candidates found that lack of communication from potential employers was their biggest frustration during their job search. Many shared that after feeling "ghosted" for one position, they were less inclined to apply for future roles at that school or district.
You can improve and solidify a strong district reputation with candidates by providing timely feedback. At a minimum, candidates simply want to know where they stand — something as simple as letting them know they aren’t moving forward for a role goes a long way. Where it's possible legally, it can be helpful to give the candidates concrete feedback on their application or interview that can serve them in their future job search.
Set standards with your hiring managers around communication to candidates and provide them with email templates. For example, one common policy is for hiring managers to send a decline message to everyone they’ve interviewed.
- Pro tip: Before closing the job, send a bulk email to all remaining applicants letting them know that the role has been filled. You can then link to your job board so they can look for roles that are still open, or you can provide the direct links to similar roles where you’re still accepting applications.
Identify gaps
Leverage data to identify gaps where candidates have been sitting in the hiring process for a long time. You have to move quickly to hire the best candidates; they're likely to have many offers and you want to be the first! Research has shown that candidates are more likely to accept a role when the hiring process has moved swiftly.
Be sure to check out the bottleneck notifications on the Nimble homepage to see which candidates have been in the same hiring stage for a long time. Then, use that data to lead internal discussions about tightening up the process. The pipeline dashboard gives users insights into hiring trends, like time to hire. The hiring conversion chart at the bottom of the pipeline dashboard lets you see how long it takes people to move through the process. This data allows your organization to make more data-driven decisions about using recruitment and hiring resources.
Ensuring that candidates feel valued through the interview process is essential. Remember to focus on the three key items: candidate engagement, feedback, and identifying gaps in your process!
