Improving Applicant Conversion
The Challenge
When you think about improving applicant conversions and the effort spent to create a great job ad, what comes to mind? You’ve spent time identifying the need, getting the necessary approvals, and creating and reviewing the job ad, and it’s likely there’s been at least another two or three people involved in the process as well. So when you finally post the compelling job ad that you created, there’s nothing worse than seeing only a few applications trickle in. Well-written job ads can catch attention and generate page views, but if candidates aren’t applying, you need to identify the reasons why.
Analysis
The first thing to consider is your ideal candidate pool and whether your job ad is tailored to pull them in. If you’re seeing a lot of click-throughs on your job ad, but they’re not translating to applications, you may be attracting the wrong candidates. This costs you time and money and there are a number of things you can do to ensure these candidates aren’t using up your valuable clicks.
What You Can Do
If you want to improve your applicant conversion rate it’s critical to make sure you have a clear job title or headline. Sure, ‘Chief Happiness Advocate’ may resonate with your company culture, but it’s not specific enough to be included in the search results when candidates are looking for a Head of People Operations role. You can be more creative with job titles within your organization, but externally you should be using titles that are typical and familiar.
When posting your job ad it’s important to specify the location. If you have four offices in and around your head office location (i.e. Vancouver), don’t forget to specify which office the candidate will be expected to work out of. Office location can be a deal-breaker for candidates, especially in larger cities with long commutes. Many candidates will not put in the effort to apply if they’re uncertain of the location and your job may get excluded in search results, or included in the wrong search results, if not properly specified.
If your job ad is compelling and includes all of the information to attract the right candidates, but your applicant conversion rate is still low, you’ll want to consider the application process. In fact, 60% of job seekers abandon their applications midway through due to the length and complexity of the process. Understanding the candidate experience and simplifying the application process can lead to better conversion.
To simplify the process, remove the “nice to have questions” that you don’t actually need answers to in the initial job application. Asking candidates to provide references, identification, or educational transcripts isn’t necessary at the application stage and introduces barriers for candidates and makes them less likely to apply. The same applies to requiring candidates to manually enter their work history after they have already uploaded a resume. A good ATS will scrape the information from the resume so that a candidate can simply review it for accuracy – no manual entry required.
Ultimately improving applicant conversion is about optimizing the candidate experience. Taking the time to make the process easier and quicker for candidates can dramatically improve applicant conversion, particularly if you can reduce the length of the application process to five minutes or less.
The Sincron Solution
At Sincron HR we are working to resolve this critical process issue. We work with various job boards to automate postings and have recently streamlined our recruitment module (ATS) so key candidate data and filters are easily accessible to your HR team. Candidates can use the “Apply Spontaneously” on client career pages so applications are processed in seconds using cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
- The platform allows organizations to integrate their strategic planning objectives and KPIs into performance management
- Sincron HR configures the platform to ensure organizations meet or exceed industry/accreditation standards
- The new HR Essentials platform is now available for just $2/month per employee
- Training and tech support (call, text, video library, etc.) is included
To learn more Contact Us Today!
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