Building strong relationships with candidates, from initial phone screens, all the way through to the offer stage is more important than you may think. Frequent and effective communication with candidates in your pipeline is one way to ensure positive, long-lasting relationships. The main benefit of establishing good communication with your candidate pool is to keep your candidates from losing interest in your company or position and taking their job search somewhere else. By keeping an open and active flow of communication with your candidates, it is likely that you will retain more candidates and therefore, make more hires. Once you build a strong connection with your candidates, they will feel comfortable with you, the company and the position- making it less likely that they will search for other opportunities.
Keeping up communication with the candidates you have in play is also a great way to acquire referrals and receive leads and industry knowledge. You can even offer incentives for referrals which will serve as a great way to increase the number of qualified applicants for your job openings. Additionally, developing open communication with candidates can, often times, causes them to share information with you regarding possible client leads or industry knowledge. For example, a candidate might share that they heard a competitor of yours is laying off a number of employees. This provides you with the inside scoop on potential candidates that you may have an open position for. This allows you to get the jump on those candidates and reach out to them before other recruiters/companies.
Take the time to develop strong, lasting relationships and open lines of communication with your candidates. It may seem a bit tedious or time-consuming at first, but in the long run, it will benefit you and your company more than you can imagine!
By Kristen Coutsouros | People Science Talent Advisor