The way you interact with a candidate from the first touchpoint and throughout the recruitment process can greatly affect their perception of your company. Effectively engaging with a candidate can sometimes mean the difference between someone accepting a job offer and someone dropping out of the interview process entirely. That’s why candidate engagement is an especially important component of the hiring process.
Why Is Continued Candidate Engagement So Important?
While the answer to this question might seem obvious, candidate engagement can encompass different stages of the hiring and recruitment process. Your approach will—and likely should—differ, depending on when in the process you are engaging with the candidate. Broadly, candidate engagement is an employer keeping in touch with a potential employee.
If it takes you too long to get in contact, a candidate might lose interest—or accept a role at another organization. Similarly, if you employ technology that makes the engagement feel impersonal or irrelevant, candidates may also choose not to continue in the process. Therefore, it’s important to find the right middle ground of employing modern technology to engage candidates and knowing when to include a personal touch. Above all, candidate engagement is about connecting with prospective employees and ensuring they feel valued and respected during the recruitment process.
How AI Can Help
AI is helping along the recruitment process in several different ways, including:
- Job ad placement
- Job ad campaign strategy
- Dynamically allocating budget
- Engaging candidates
Not every AI-powered recruitment solution has the capabilities for candidate engagement. That’s why you’ll want to look for one that employs conversational AI in addition to completing the tactical duties of job ad placement. Conversational AI and programmatic recruitment software combine to help you engage candidates in a powerful way.
PandoLogic recently acquired conversational AI software, Wade & Wendy. Coupling Wade & Wendy’s uniquely engaging and conversational AI technology with PandoLogic’s programmatic software helps increase conversion rates while reducing the strain on recruiters by doing the first-level qualification screening. It’s a win-win.
Conversational AI can radically improve candidate engagement and their experience. Wade & Wendy does so by being available to chat with talent 24/7, allowing candidates to share their stories and go beyond their resumes with relevant insights about their experience for the specific role. AI-powered software can also automatically schedule interviews with qualified candidates; this means candidates don’t have to wait around wondering when—or even if—they’ll hear back. This level of time-efficient candidate engagement means your prospects feel their time is valued. In addition to building good sentiment, efficient candidate engagement also means that you are less likely to lose out on candidates who are also in the process of interviewing with other organizations.
AI-powered recruitment software can also help with candidate engagement indirectly—similarly to how such software can help with employee engagement indirectly. That’s because software like PandoLogic can help free up recruiter and people team members’ time. And with less time spent on to-dos like initial outreach or job ad placement, your team can spend more time engaging with people personally and effectively.
While it’s always good to build a personal rapport with top candidates as they move toward an offer, AI-powered recruitment software can help you build stronger candidate engagement from the very start of the process.