The human side of hiring

by Sashi Kumar, Managing Director, Indeed IndiaWhen we think of human connection, we think first of family and our closest friends. But we spend a lot of time at work and a lot of time with our co-workers. Research shows that connection with co-workers and our community is also vitally important and the strongest workplaces are marked by an incredibly deep human connection.Human connection in the recruitment processRecruiting more than any other function is built on human connection. A massive 96% of the recruiters Indeed surveyed agreed with the statement “Building connected relationships with candidates is an essential part of being a great recruiter”. How do we leverage what recruiters are great at— building relationships—to make our organisations more socially-fulfilling communities?Purpose and human connection play an important role at every stage of the hiring process; from the job seeker exploring job opportunities to attending an interview. As recruiters, the opportunity here is to create job content that goes beyond qualifications and requirements. The best career sites and job descriptions humanize companies before the very first conversation with a candidate.5 ideas for a more human candidate experience:

1. Help your current employees build the right community for their future colleagues. Today’s candidates, first and foremost, will optimize for happiness. 7/10 of job seekers in India say they would turn down a big salary increase if it meant working with people or in an environment that they didn't like. In the age of employer reviews, candidates can quickly see how companies treat employees.  Even if the job is great and the hiring process positive, candidates say hearing negative things about the company from their peers is the number one thing that would deter them from accepting an offer from your company.
2. Respond to candidates as if they are your most important customers. Only 18% of job seekers surveyed in India say that they received a response within a day of submitting their job application. 50% of job seekers said they would adopt a more negative perception of a company if they didn’t hear back after applying.
3. Let recruiters be advocates for talent. It's an opportunity to be forceful defenders of talent, building connection and trust while helping top talent to really shine in the interview process. 75% of APAC candidates who reported receiving detailed information prior to the interview, but were not selected to move forward in the process gave the experience a minimum of 3 stars on a 4-star scale.
4. Design your recruiting process to maximize the chance of an authentic human connection. A human hiring experience, of course, starts before a candidate even meets the first employee. These human experiences then extend all the way through to the application and interview process.
5. Use data to relentlessly optimize for human connection. The only way to build a truly human candidate experience is to measure how candidates respond to the people and activities in your recruiting process. What data shows us is that perceptions of candidate experience have an incredible impact on organizations and recruiters' ability to attract top talent. Yet, many companies don’t fully measure the impact of their hiring processes on the people they are trying to recruit.

Trust with candidates is built moment by moment. The recruiter, hiring manager, and other people at the company should show an active interest in the candidate and their story. Treat an interviewee as a whole person, and not just as an embodiment of their work. Share information about the interview process, and view applications and respond promptly. Likewise, during the interview process, top talent looks for a genuine human connection.  Those moments of human connection after a candidate has applied to a job are integral to developing a trusting relationship with them.This is a partnered post.