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It’s one thing to find applicants for a job posting and another to bring qualified candidates all the way through the recruitment process to hire. According to a recent study, the average applicant-to-interview conversion across industries was just 2% and the interview-to-hire was 36%.
These numbers reflect both the quality of talent that applies and the attractiveness of the job offer, so how do your own figures compare? If there’s room for improvement, then we’ve got all the know-how you need to boost your numbers and get the best applicants through your door.
Why do candidate conversion rates matter?
How many of your applicants progress through each recruitment stage from initial interest to hiring? Candidate conversion rates tell you a lot about the strength of your recruitment strategy, as well as indicating how appealing the role and your company is to potential applicants.
It’s an important metric to track, because if your numbers are low, it suggests you need to make some changes. Consider investing in tools that can do the leg work for you – for instance, manage your applicant pool with Oleeo or use automated candidate tracking solutions to simplify monitoring your recruitment data.
High candidate conversion rates, on the other hand, indicate you’re doing things right with an impactful strategy that attracts the right people to your vacancies. This means you get the best people for the job, but it also saves time and money that might have to be spent on repeat recruitment campaigns.
There are several factors that influence conversion rates. First, the complexity of your application process needs to be taken into account. Overly long and involved recruitment experiences can cause good applicants to bail out before they get to the latter stages.
Next, the overall experience they have with a company throughout the journey, including the communication they receive and the level of personalization, can either keep them interested or send them looking elsewhere.
To understand how your organization is performing, track your candidate conversion rate through every recruitment campaign and see how you compare to the market average. This will give you a good starting point so you can see how much improvement is needed.
Key strategies to increase candidate conversion rates
Tracking your conversion rates is just the start. From there, it’s time to look at strategies to improve them. Let’s take a look at some methods that can help boost your candidate conversion rates and get the best people for every role.
Crafting an engaging employer brand
An engaging employer brand showcases your company in the best possible light so applicants feel enthusiastic about working for you. Here are a few ways to make that happen.
Build a unique brand identity
What is it that makes your company unique? Don’t focus just on the work you do or the perks you offer - an applicant will probably know that already. Instead, think about the things that candidates want to know.
What’s the work environment like? How do you encourage collaboration and celebrate successes? Do you have mentorship programs or training initiatives? For example, a retail recruitment strategy might emphasize a hands-on, customer-focused environment that encourages ownership and empowers employees with decision-making authority.
Whatever your messaging, make sure it is strong and consistent across all recruitment spaces to build a brand image that the right people will be attracted to.
Highlight Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
This is what you are promising to employees. An EVP includes salary, opportunities for growth, benefits, inclusivity measures, and anything else that represents the overall value you are offering an employee.
Your EVP should be clear and designed with your ideal candidates in mind. Make it a visible part of your hiring content, from the initial job post to conversations at the interview stage. Suppose, for example, you have strong sustainability commitments. This would appeal to eco-conscious candidates, so make sure to publicize it in your job postings.
Utilizing social proof and employee testimonials
Candidates shouldn’t have to just take your word for it that your business is a good place to work. Build authenticity with social proof and employee spotlight programs to support what you’re claiming.
Employee testimonials can be presented as video or written stories, giving potential candidates a behind-the-scenes idea of what it is like to work for you. Include real staff experiences and successes to forge an initial connection and inspire candidates to take the next step.
Simplifying and personalizing the application process
Generic and complicated recruitment campaigns can leave applicants feeling frustrated or like they’re just another number. Instead, make the effort to personalize and simplify the experience wherever possible.
Designing a candidate-friendly application process
If there’s too much hoop-jumping, waiting, and paperwork involved in a hiring process, then there’s a high chance applicants will focus their job-seeking efforts elsewhere. A simple, smooth application experience can make all the difference in bringing top candidates to the next stage.
Avoid lengthy forms and repetitive questions, only gather the information you need to know upfront and leave out anything that can be asked at a later time. Have a clear system for tracking an application's progress, whether that’s with a visual progress bar or through notifications, and let all applicants know what to expect.
This communicates to candidates that you respect their time and starts building a positive impression of your business.
The role of personalization in applications
It can be demoralizing going through an application process that feels cold and impersonal. Putting in the extra work to make candidates feel valued can make a big difference and set your company apart from the beginning.
You can do this by personalizing follow-up emails that are tailored to the candidate's skills and experience. For instance, you could include relevant resources about your company that are specific to interests they have expressed in their applications or interviews.
These small touches acknowledge their unique qualities and show candidates that they’re not just another application in the pile.
Mobile optimization
A simple but important measure is to make sure your application interface is accessible from mobile devices as well as desktop. Many people may find an advert while on the go, perhaps by scrolling through LinkedIn or clicking on a notification email from a job board.
A mobile friendly interface makes sure they can navigate an application easily. This can help capture applicants who want to apply instantly at the time they see the listing, and who may otherwise miss the deadline or have their attention drawn to other postings if they have to wait to be at their desktop.
Leveraging technology to enhance candidate experience
There are a number of tools that can help you to improve your applicant experience.
Implementing recruitment automation
Many businesses are now leveraging AI for hiring to level-up their recruitment efforts. These tools automate much of the recruitment process, making it quicker and easier for both employers and applicants.
When tasks like application screening, interview scheduling, and initial assessments are automated, recruiters and hiring managers can focus their efforts on personal and meaningful communication with candidates. This reduces the amount of time spent on admin and helps to focus recruitment efforts on the right people.
Personalized communication through recruitment software
As previously mentioned, personalization is an important part of boosting your candidate conversion rate. From a technical standpoint, the role of specialized recruitment software is essential to achieving this by keeping track of candidate interactions, their goals, and any noteworthy interests.
This will give you the data needed to craft genuinely personalized communications - the building blocks behind a good relationship with top applicants.
When choosing your recruitment software, look for one that is right for your business. For example, if you are focused on graduate recruitment, you should look for an option like Oleeo campus recruiting software. Or, if you are targeting specialists in a niche field, you might look for a solution with advanced filtering and skill matching capabilities.
Utilizing data analytics for continuous improvement
As with almost every other part of a business, data is becoming increasingly important for recruitment strategies. Track metrics like candidate drop off points and offer acceptance rates to pinpoint where your campaigns might be going wrong.
In particular, analyzing patterns in specific applicant pools, such as early career hire, can give you the information needed to fine-tune your strategies for specific groups. For example, analysis might reveal that specific sourcing channels, such as LinkedIn or a particular job board, resulted in a higher volume of suitable applicants.
Going forward, you can target your recruitment campaigns more on these channels than others for a more efficient and effective process. As a result, your recruitment efforts should become more refined and targeted, leading to better conversion rates.
Nurturing candidates through ongoing engagement and follow-up
Successful conversions don’t just come from the initial job postings. They’re built on good relationships - and key to this is nurturing candidates throughout the process.
Effective follow-up strategies
Carefully judged follow-ups with candidates show them that you care and are enthusiastic about their application. Set a follow-up schedule that keeps communication going, with careful timing and without being too persistent.
It’s also important to be easy to contact and quick to respond if candidates have any questions. If your work means you’re often on the move, finding a VoIP phone provider can be very helpful as it allows you to make and receive calls from anywhere. You can then be on hand to answer queries whenever is necessary, which can make a big difference in keeping applicants engaged.
Creating a pre-employment community
Community doesn’t have to wait until they have signed a contract and have gone through the onboarding process. A very effective way to keep the interest of top talent is to build a pre-employment community. For example, you could invite shortlisted candidates to special events, like an online Q&A with employees.
Alternatively, you could create a newsletter that focuses on company culture and upcoming projects. For instance, why not show snippets of your virtual team building activities? This will give applicants a sense of inclusion and a firsthand look at what being in your team feels like.
Using content marketing to educate and engage
Content marketing is not just for customers, it’s also an approach that can help keep job applicants engaged. Resources such as webinars or blog posts that are relevant to their careers and ambitions are great content to share with candidates. Let’s say the goal is to hire developers for start-up companies like yours and you already have many applicants. Don’t just stay silent and make them wait until you’ve chosen your new hire. Send them your own blog posts on JavaScript and low-code or a link to your webinar on open-source software to keep them busy throughout the application process.
This is another way to show your commitment to their professional growth from the start and helps keep them interested through the process, so if the offer stage arrives, you’re more likely to get a positive answer.
Mentorship as a competitive edge in recruitment
If you haven’t already established a mentorship program in your organization, its benefits for recruitment are a good reason to start. Plus, it helps measure employee engagement through participation rates and feedback, so once you get top talent on board, you can monitor how well they settle in.
Highlight mentorship as a development path
Spotlight mentorship as a key part of your team culture. This is a highly attractive feature for any candidate looking to progress in their career. Be specific about how your mentorship program works, whether it'd be traditional mentoring with a more experienced employee, peer mentoring, or group mentoring.
Each style has different benefits, whether it’s gaining invaluable knowledge about career growth or gaining support in the early stages of a new job. The mere fact that you have a workplace mentoring program will help candidates to see your company as a long-term career prospect where guidance and investment in employees is a priority.
Communicating mentorship success stories
A particularly effective way publicizing your mentorship program to applicants is by sharing some success stories. Feature case studies that explain how your mentoring models helped employees achieve goals or reach milestones.
Be as specific as possible by focusing on the methods, such as goal-setting sessions or network-sharing, that contributed to their progression. This will show applicants the potential for growth and new opportunities that working in your organization can provide.
Monitoring and measuring success
To understand how effective your strategy is and the impact of any changes you make, there are some key metrics you should track.
Start by outlining your key performance indicators (KPIs) to build a detailed picture of how successful your recruitment process is. These include time to hire, application completion rate, and offer acceptance rate.
Tracking these will show you where applicants are most often dropping out. For example, if there are applicants choosing not to complete the application at a high rate, perhaps you need to consider simplifying the form.
Make sure you have solid enterprise architecture frameworks in place for managing your data. This helps to keep the flow of information uninterrupted across systems for accurate analysis and informed decision making.
Start boosting your conversion rates today
Attracting top talent to your business takes effort. Generic recruitment campaigns and traditional methods will likely fall short in a competitive market. Make sure every recruitment campaign is worth your while by showcasing what’s great about working for your company, personalizing communication, and using new technology to give applicants the best experience possible.
There will always be some good candidates that get away, but if you use these strategies to improve your recruitment efforts, you’ll increase the chances that the best people end up sign on the dotted line.
Ready to get started boosting your conversion rates with mentorship programs? Book a demo with a Together expert, or see the platform for yourself.
