When hiring nowadays, many companies neglect one important fact - the unemployment rate worldwide is historically low. Candidates can now choose whom they want to work for - this is the era of the candidate. If they don’t like your job ad or offer, they can move on to the next company with ease. The good news is, you can greatly influence their decision to choose you as their employer by providing an excellent candidate experience.

Simply put, candidate experience is the entire process that someone goes through from the moment they see your job ad until the moment they get hired. The more pleasant the candidate experience is, the higher the chances of you hiring them as your new employee.

Start by improving your job ads and making them stand out from the crowd. Make sure they are personalized for your company and the role you’re hiring for. Put extra emphasis on the remote aspect of the role and explain what remote work means for your company.

Second and the most important part - make the application process easy for the candidate. Every time you request a resume and a lengthy application form, you’re making sure the candidate loses at least an hour of their time when they apply. Instead, offer them a simple test for the role, which takes less than 10 minutes to do.

Once the initial stage is done, give rapid feedback. When the candidate sends in their test (or resume and application), they will wait for you to get back to them. If you take weeks, they may have moved on to a new job ad and they won’t care about your potential offer.

Once the candidate starts moving through the hiring rounds, keep them updated at all times. If the hiring process is transparent, candidates will believe that the company itself is transparent too.

Perhaps the best hiring practice to improve the candidate experience is to familiarize the candidates with all the steps involved. In other words, tell them what happens in each stage. For example:

• - The candidate sends in their test/resume
• - The candidate gets feedback within 36 hours
• - The candidate is invited for an interview within the first week
• - The candidate is given their test task within the first 10 days
• - The candidate gets invited for a test week within the first 14 days from applying
• - The candidate gets invited for the second and final interview with the CEO
• - The candidate gets hired within 21 days from the day they apply

This kind of overview takes very little time to write but it makes an immense difference in the number of your applications and ultimately, the candidate experience.

Wrapping up

Hiring remotely is no walk in the park. However, it’s nothing to be afraid of either. As long as you recognize that hiring and working remotely is vastly different from hiring in the traditional sense, you will have an easier time structuring your company for remote work and finding the best remote talent out there.

Toggl didn’t hire more than 100 remote employees by pure luck. It was done through the practices mentioned in this guide, as well as using Toggl Hire. If you’re ready to kickstart your remote hiring efforts with pre-employment testing, give Toggl Hire a try today.