Candidate Experience Has Never Been Worse

[00:00:02] The 10 Minute Talent Rant is live. I’m James Hornick joined by Jeff Smith, and we are on the clock. The 10 Minute Talent Rant is our ongoing series where we breakdown things are broken in the talent acquisition and hiring space. Maybe even pitch a solution or two. Before we dig in, all of our content can be found on talentinsights.hirewell.com

[00:00:19] This week’s topic, episode 111. Really getting up there. Candidate experience has never been worse. Never. It’s never, it’s so bad. I was actually got, I posted something on LinkedIn the other day, like I remember when candidate experience, like talking about it was a thing because that was, that was the issue in like 2021 when the market was hot.

[00:00:41] Yeah. I mean, we all, we all cared deeply about each other as human beings back then. Every talent leader, every hiring manager, everyone was talking about how they wanted to provide this amazing candidate experience. It was the key to kind of winning everything. And, now what’s making a comeback for all the wrong reasons.

[00:00:55] Just, it’s fallen off a cliff. The quick side story, I do remember at that point in time, this must have been [00:01:00] four years back, I had someone blow me up on LinkedIn because, you know, as us Office of Dorks, we get so tied up in the lingo that we use. This guy was really pissed. I said, I mentioned something about poor candidate experience and he thought I was like

[00:01:11] being judgy and saying some candidate had poor work experience and I realized we are not talking the same language and it’s not this guy’s fault. It’s so we’re the weirdos. So, but it’s, but it’s LinkedIn’s a social platform not to – People infer different things based on what the shoes that they are in and not understanding that is exactly how he got into that problem.

[00:01:33] Exactly. Yeah. So to be clear, when we say poor candidate experience, we’re talking about poor experience, the company interviewing the candidate gives them. So they, the candidate had a poor time. They did not enjoy the process of interviewing with a firm. Anyways, part of, I guess what we wanna talk about this is there’s, we’re gonna talk about the economy a little bit here

[00:01:54] ’cause that’s one of the, kind of the triggers. Part of the fiscal responsibility playbook, in these scenarios is [00:02:00] to pause hiring. I hate it. But, we have to admit that that’s driving a lot of things, or at least, if not pause, it’s, there’s a, pressure to make really damn sure that we really need to make this hire before moving forward.

[00:02:10] And I think that’s kind of the crux of a lot of these issues. But anyways, so that’s where things break down. Jeff, what’s say you, yeah, it, it’s as simple as if the company doesn’t know whether or not they wanna hire somebody, it’s the, I mean, all of this other stuff is almost irrelevant, but right now, here’s kind of what’s happening.

[00:02:29] The The experience that candidates are having with most organizations, and the value prop and all of the stuff that, the companies take the candidates through right now, by and large, to your point, is infinitely worse than it was even four or five years ago. And we’re gonna touch on it, but I think a lot of it has to do with this virtual stuff.

[00:02:52]  I don’t think companies realize they’re doing it. They’re getting a lot of affirmations from the market and saying, yo, everything’s great. [00:03:00] There’s some talent out there that’s interested. They’re getting some inbound. And so there’s this. There’s this, you know, this push and pull between what the real market is versus what companies think it is.

[00:03:11]  The end result is all of it’s coming back to bite them in the ass. So, James, we have a couple of points. Why does the process suck right now in this moment? Okay, first off, companies are delaying things in decision. Like I mentioned before, there is a return of a window shopping approach. Recruiters, whether agency or internal recruiters, I believe are moving pretty quickly.

[00:03:32] It’s the hiring managers and execs. A lot of times the execs are pretty far from the process are not, even when there’s a strong pipeline, there’s just a lot of companies that are really slow to act on it. And there’s a few reasons for that still. So first, you know, elephant in the room, tariffs, potential recession.

[00:03:49] A lot of companies that cater to the government services have had their funding cut. You know, everyone’s still obsessed with shareholder value and everyone’s really just afraid of making the wrong decision and being scapegoated for it. [00:04:00] So whether it’s. Yeah. Fair. Fair. We get it. Anyway, yeah.

[00:04:05] So there’s a hesitance to move quickly because there’s a fear of making a mistake. So, kind of second thing underneath that though is there is this belief that talent is abundant due to media narratives and it’s patently false. It has been false say for a few very niche areas ever since we rebounded from the pandemic.

[00:04:22] Yet companies think all these candidates should be begging for jobs. Yeah. I feel so strongly about this one. I’m gonna, I’m gonna talk about this a little more depth kind of at the end of this conversation. But to kind of keep this part of the conversation moving forward, there’s a lot of budget hesitation and internal confusion that are also creating artificial slowdowns.

[00:04:37] So kind of the, the trickle down effect of the things we just mentioned. It’s also becoming very clear, very fast that hiring teams are running in different directions. Internal politics are at an all time high. Again, because I think it’s possibly because of remote work too, people aren’t able to kind of see each other and interact as quickly and make decisions together

[00:04:53] collaboratively, things just get delayed out. Yeah. Like most of this comes into play, like there’s lots of [00:05:00] people who are grinding it out on their leather ass and really scared of upleveling their team because it’s gonna expose whatever they aren’t doing. Yeah. The second big piece is that the process in which this is all being constructed upon. Candidates are reporting wildly different experiences within the same company, and sometimes for the exact same role.

[00:05:23]  It’s befuddling. There isn’t any quality checking going on across groups within the companies, and those that struggle with recruiting are kind of bucketed in as everyone’s just off doing their own thing and assessing candidates in their lens, which brings the politics into play,

[00:05:42] by the way. Some candidates get full in-person panels. Others get a couple of Zoom calls, the former being far more valuable. Yeah. hiring steps are changing mid-process often without explanation. So I think this is very much, I’m calling it the idle [00:06:00] hands effect. I really believe that when there’s a slowdown.

[00:06:02] You know, and your people wanna make really damn sure they’re making the right hire. They just invent more steps and more work and more checks. Yes. It’s actually Parkinson’s law, like work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion. So if all of a sudden there’s not as much urgency around it, there’re just, people just have a tendency to make up more interview steps that way,

[00:06:19]  They feel like it’s being productive. Yes. there’s a lot of junior managers out there and sometimes maybe bucketing Junior in with maybe their only management, experience has been post pandemic. So they haven’t seen the world of managing somebody face-to-face in person sitting next to them.

[00:06:38] Maybe that’s part of it, I don’t know. But there’s this lack of confidence, that causes these delays and confusion. And let’s call it what it is. Some of these managers,

[00:06:50] they’re just downright scared of being outed for doing nothing. And it’s increased in the remote work era. Again, not saying all remote employees, us included, are [00:07:00] lazy.

[00:07:00] It has exposed some folks. The third piece is their scheduling. WO is in a hybrid world. It’s a quick hitter, but it matters a lot. We used to have these really compact, tight, in-person interview processes where, you know, the schedule was monitored by a recruiter to ensure everything stayed on time, was productive, that there weren’t redundancies.

[00:07:25] And now we have this split scattered virtual meeting thing. Right? Yeah. People used to take a day off from work to come do the entire interview process, and the company knew they were doing that, so they accommodated and made it really tight and clean. That’s gone. Yeah, you’ve got these scheduling conflicts and lag time.

[00:07:44] It takes longer to schedule. There’s weaker evaluation due to these inconsistencies, and people are asking the same questions of the candidate, which results in fatigue. Personal agendas get into the equation. Again, this is where all of this bias starts to creep in. [00:08:00] And yeah, virtual candidates get treated differently than candidates who go in person, and the success rate increases for people who go in person.

[00:08:08] Yeah. So I want to come back to, the talent myth, surplus myth we were talking before. Before, yeah. Because I promise I was gonna talk more about this for sure. Executives and hiring managers, they believe there is this flood of talent. Because of tech layoffs and other headlines and stuff. And I hate, we’ve talked about this before.

[00:08:26] We’ve probably brought this up in multiple 10 minute talent rants. I know I’ve talked about this on LinkedIn. I hate beating the same thing to death, but it’s been a minute. It keeps getting, it keeps getting used by companies as like. The objection to why we can’t find candidates as recruiters, and this is why it keeps coming up.

[00:08:42] There is a difference between availability of

[00:08:44] talent at the top of the funnel, people who apply to your job and someone’s likelihood to actually say yes, to wanna accept your job. Those are not the two, same two things for various different reasons, but when you’re talking about getting, like the goal of is getting someone to say [00:09:00] yes.

[00:09:00]  It’s 100% guaranteed harder to get someone to accept your offer in a down market if they are currently working. People will stay at jobs even if they don’t like them when times are tough because they need that kind of stability unless they’re really, really damn sure that the next place they go to is better.

[00:09:17] Now, a hundred percent sure there can be no shred of doubt. If your interview process is a mess, if the communication is poor, the best candidates you really want will say no to you. Yeah, full stop. I couldn’t be any more clear on this, that it doesn’t matter what headlines you read or how much talent’s out there, if you’re not treating people right, and giving them a high degree of confidence that you’re better than their current employer, they’re not gonna say no.

[00:09:40]  the amount of time we have heard, I can’t believe that that candidate didn’t accept the job. And they were a passive candidate. It, I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s a lot. it’s enough for me to bring it up right now. Yeah. On top of that, I talked about like even at the top of the funnel, still isn’t even there for a lot of areas.

[00:09:58] Like people have to realize, like [00:10:00] senior matrix roles, people who can do it all, people who wear multiple hats, people who have strategic and taxability, that is a very competitive space. There’s really not that much, not that many people who do that the most in demand skill sets are in demand for a reason.

[00:10:13] Not many people do them. You want someone who’s very experienced in doing AI strategy and actually executing on it. There’s just not that many people who’ve done that yet. Right. The layoffs you do see, I mean, it’s a lot more junior people. It might be industries completely outside of what you’re doing, and recent grads are everywhere, but experienced talent isn’t still, so.

[00:10:31] Yep. Yeah. I feel for you young folks who are trying to break in, because everyone increasingly is looking for, you know, the hired gun. The second piece that’s fueling the problem is this reputational damage from, A bad hiring process. Candidates bail these confusing processes and they talk.

[00:10:53] You have to understand this companies out there, the communities are small and I think [00:11:00] we think companies might be, I mean, they may be unaware of the information asymmetry here. The candidates you leave hanging are the ones that are going to tell everyone in him or hers network, which is usually people within the same skillset.

[00:11:13] So it actively erodes your current pipeline of, for the job that you’re, that you’re looking to fill. Glassdoor and public reviews, I’m sorry they don’t go away. We’ve mentioned this a million times. It is grain of salt type stuff, but. It’s where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Like that’s, that’s high correlation with companies that have terrible glass, do door ratings that are actually terrible companies to work for.

[00:11:37] Yes. Just say, I mean, it just, yeah, it’s a fact. And that, you know, larger legacy companies in particular have kind of been the most tone deaf on this. Not all, but in my experience, they can’t grasp why folks aren’t flocking to them the same way that they used to prior to social media and you know, again, your name isn’t gonna just cut it anymore.

[00:11:57] so there’s some strategicimplications here as [00:12:00] well, beyond just the recruiter pane. And what it means for clients is, to your point, top talent is going to walk away. Poor process is going to equal a poor brand recognition. Poor brand perception, consistency, empathy, speed, are going to matter more now than ever.

[00:12:21] And AI is not going to save a broken system. It’s only it. It only works at the foundation is solid. Yeah. some quick things before we wrap up here. Quick observations. Tenure jumpiness scrutiny is back, same dumb reasons as it was before. It’s lazy, but when recruiters are overworked, bad habits reemerge.

[00:12:42] There were jokes I remember in 2021 about like how you explain away your 2020 gap now. Everyone kind of forgot about that. Like there was a whole era of like multiple down markets we’ve had that are perfectly reasonable anyways. Hesitancy around unemployed candidates. They’re your most active talent pool.

[00:12:59] We all see it. [00:13:00] They’re out there begging for jobs on LinkedIn right now. Begging. Begging. Yeah. And lastly, I said this earlier, it needs to be restated. Passive talent is passive for reason. People in stable jobs ain’t leaving anyways. Takeaways. Jeff, what do you got for us? Yeah, I mean, simply if landing talent, top talent is one of your highest priorities.

[00:13:21] Couldn’t lay the sarcasm on any thicker, you can’t pull your interview process, you know, out, out of a hat. It cannot be on autopilot. So, you know, it’s not every autopilot. It’s no pilot. So. Made up a new phrase just now. Thanks for, there you go. You’re welcome. We are short on clock. That’s a wrap for this week.

[00:13:42] Thanks for tuning in 10 Talent Rant, part of the Talent Insights series, which is always available for replay on talentinsights.hirewell.com, as well as YouTube, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify and Amazon. Jeff, thanks again as always, everyone out there. We will see you soon.

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