Candidates are talking about your staffing company. What they’ll say, when they’ll say it, and who they’ll tell it to isn’t in your control. But whether what they are saying is good or bad is. We’ve scoured the web to find surprising and insightful candidate experience statistics.

For example, did you know that only 25% of candidates report having a great candidate experience? Focusing on candidate experience will help your staffing company stand out in the marketplace.

Read these candidate experience statistics to find out how candidate experience is connected to making faster placements, growing your staffing company, and building a strong talent pipeline.

Overview:

1. Delight candidates by engaging in real-time
2. Differentiate your company through better communication
3. Increase your offer conversion rate
4. Engage your talent pipeline
5. Keep your talent pool warm
6. Gather feedback from candidates
7. Improve your application process
8. Simplify your forms
9. Retain your candidates
10. Shorten your time to fill
11. Protect your employer brand
12. Build a positive employer brand
13. Acquire candidate brand ambassadors
14. Rescue your Glassdoor rating
15. Place higher quality talent
16. Align your agency with improving revenue
17. Protect your client’s revenue
18. Save your clients millions every year
19. Increase the sales of your client’s products/services

1. 69% of candidates want to see employer response time improved

Create an instant response time and defy candidate expectations.  A majority of candidates are used to not hearing back from companies after they apply.

They expect it! Your staffing company can stand out by engaging every candidate seconds after they apply. Using recruiting automation can make sure you engage and delight candidates seconds after they apply.

Source: Careerarc

2. 63% of candidates say most employers do not communicate adequately

Does your staffing company update your candidates about the status of their application? Do you provide helpful information like instructions on how to find the hiring event? Do you check in with candidates you’ve placed to see if they are open for another role once their contracts expire?

Improving the frequency of your communication with candidates will improve the relationships they have with your recruiters. Instead of approaching staffing from a transactional mindset, approach it from the perspective of building relationships. Funny enough, this will help you make more placements faster by standing out.

Source: Talentboard

3. A positive candidate experience makes candidates 38 percent more likely to accept a job offer

Focusing on candidate experience will improve your offer stage conversions. It literally makes candidates more likely to accept offers your clients make to them or contract offers your staffing company sends them. Improving your offer conversion rate is a great way to grow your staffing company.

Source: IBM

4. More than half of job seekers say employers never keep them informed about their application status

You can use a simple ATS automation to update candidates about their application status. One easy way to do this is to create a few custom candidate status objects. For example, you could create a custom status called “submitted.”

When a recruiter submits the candidate to a client, they could change the candidate status field to “submitted.” This could trigger a text message to your candidate telling them they were submitted for a role. You could even add in personalization fields to inform them that they were submitted for a “travel nurse position at NursesRx in East Atlanta.”

Source: Talentboard

5. 53% of candidates report not receiving a response from employers until 3 months after applying

More than half of candidates expect to not hear back for months after filling out an application with your staffing company. Avoiding recruiter ghosting and engaging them immediately post apply will stand out in stark contrast to their expectations.

This will create a delightful experience for your candidates and make them more likely to prefer to work with your company.

Source: Talentboard

6. 75% were never or rarely asked for feedback after applying

Asking candidates for feedback about your recruiting process is a powerful, but simple tactic you can use to improve the candidate experience. The best practice here is to have candidates respond to a short candidate satisfaction score survey. Simply ask them to rate their experience with your recruiting team from 1-10.

Follow up with candidates who rate your experience anything less than 7 and ask them what they didn’t like about it.

Source: Candidate experience report

7. Lengthy applications can cause 60% of your candidates to drop out of your recruiting process

Using lengthy application forms and complicated questions will stop applicants from ever entering your recruiting process. Are you using a resume parsing tool as your first line of screening?

Making candidates fill out the information that’s already on their resume in complex lengthy forms is making you lose the most qualified applicants. In this market, qualified candidates know they can quickly find work elsewhere.

Source: Workopolis 

8. 60% of job seekers have quit an application in the middle due to its length or complexity 

Shorten your application process and use conversational AI to pre-screen candidates for qualifications. You’ll be able to find more qualified candidates and make faster placements immediately without changing anything else about your process.

Source: SHRM

9. Negative candidate experience will cause 69% of candidates to never work with your company again

Creating a poor candidate experience by not responding to your applicants or having lengthy application forms is causing many candidates to write off ever working with your staffing agency. In this market, you can’t afford to repel candidates. You need every qualified candidate you can find to make placements quickly.

Source: Talentboard

10. A quarter of candidates say the hiring process takes too long

What can you do to shorten your hiring process? Are you doing everything you can to shorten sticking points? One way to produce a significant increase in speed is to use automated interview scheduling.

Source: Jobvite

11. 72% of candidates who have a negative experience will tell others about it

If you aren’t engaging every candidate that applies, you’re creating negative experiences for many of your candidates. Each negative candidate experience your staffing company creates has a ripple effect in the market. Candidates are talking to their friends, family, and network about your company.

Source: Forbes

12. 81% of candidates will share a positive experience with their direct network

Creating a good candidate experience will help you get referrals from your candidates. Many times candidates have friends, family, and close professional contacts who also work in the same industry.

Source: Workopolis

13. 51% of candidates will share their positive experience online through social media, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn

Creating a positive candidate experience is a great way to build your employer brand. If you delight candidates by communicating better than other staffing companies you’ll build an army of employer brand advocates online.

Source: Workopolis

14. Negative Glassdoor reviews will keep 55% of candidates from applying to your company

Does your staffing company have negative Glassdoor reviews? These reviews are causing candidates to hold off on working with your company. If you have a lot of negative reviews, focusing on candidate experience will result in positive ones and increase your Glassdoor rating.

Source: HCI

15. 15% of candidates who have a positive hiring experience put more effort into the job

Creating a positive candidate experience will improve the performance of the talent you place at your client companies. Focusing on it means you’ll place more qualified and engaged talent faster.

Source: OfficeVibe

16. 91% of employers report that candidate experience influences consumer purchasing decisions

Are you staffing for B2C companies? One way to make a compelling case for using your staffing company over competitors is by connecting the candidate experience you create to your client’s revenue.

Source: Careerarc

17. 60% of job seekers report a poor candidate experience would make them less likey to purchase products from the employer

Whether the data is collected on the employer side or the candidate side the connection between candidate experience and product purchasing is clear. Negative experiences will damage revenue for B2C brands.

Source: Devskiller

18. Virgin Media lost 6 million in revenue every year because of bad candidate experience

Your staffing company can collect a measure of candidate experience called candidate satisfaction score. Staffing companies who use Mya to engage candidates get an average candidate satisfaction score of 9.7/10.

A nearly perfect score! Tie your candidate experience to revenue. Convince your clients that your staffing company is the best choice because you care about more than filling positions. With candidate experience, you can help your B2C clients protect their revenues.

Source: LinkedIn

19.  23.8 percent of survey respondents stated that a positive candidate experience with an employer made them more likely to increase their relationships with employers’ respective “brand alliances, product purchases or networking.” 

Many people aren’t surprised to find out that negative candidate experience can damage revenue for B2C brands.

But, did you know that the positive candidate experience your staffing company creates can actually influence new revenue for your clients?

Source: CandEs

Make candidate experience your competitive advantage

I hope reading these candidate experience statistics has shown you that candidates are craving better experiences. Following candidate experience best practices can help your staffing company in every way imaginable.

It’ll help you create more value for your customers by providing them with talent that’s more engaged as well as by protecting the revenue of your B2C customers. It’ll help your staffing company create better relationships with your candidates and build a stronger employer brand.

Candidate experience will also help you make placements faster than your competitors can. Finally, candidate experience will create a more engaged and healthy talent pool for your recruiters to source from.

Focusing on candidate experience can make the way you communicate your competitive advantage.