A Candidate FAQ: The Single Best Piece of Recruiting Content
This need to be perceived as something they’re not causes companies to hold back vital information early in the recruitment process—information that if left ungated could dramatically improve the way they meet and interact with talent.
45-second read (+4:11 video)
Companies and candidates are both putting on a show for each other.
Companies posture in hopes of enticing the best talent to jump ship and come work for them.
And candidates aren’t able to let their guards down and show their full selves because the application and interview processes haven’t evolved to incentivize this type of authenticity and transparency.
As a result, both are losing.
This need to be perceived as something they’re not causes companies to hold back vital information early in the recruitment process—information that if left ungated could dramatically improve the way they meet and interact with talent.
This is about aligning psychologically and emotionally with candidates. This is about empathy.
Here’s one really simple way that companies can improve the experience for candidates and help move in the direction of trust:
Create a candidate FAQ.
It’s as unsexy as it gets. But in practice, can be magic for helping candidates opt-in or out at the top of the funnel—and be more prepared, more comfortable, and more informed early in (and throughout) the recruiting process.
IMO, it’s the single best asset that any recruiting team can create.
It’s simple: Take every question that candidates repeatedly ask on screening calls and in interviews. Put together a simple document or Q&A blog post that answers those questions. Link to it in your sourcing messages, make it accessible on your careers site, and use it as an interview prep tool.
+ It’s evergreen. Once this asset is created it only requires periodic updates and/or expansion.
There’s a lot to unpack here. And this is barely scratching the surface.
But unless companies can improve the experience at the top of the funnel, the rest of the process will struggle to evolve. It starts there.
This is where a very small investment of time and money will produce a huge ROI.
Listen to my full conversation with Megan Bowen where we discuss the new era of recruiting.
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