Desire and reality in recruiting

In addition, speed is an important criterion for a positive candidate experience. As customers in online stores, applicants have learned how quickly online ordering systems work. This has apparently also shaped their expectations of application processes. In the view of 63 percent of the participants, two weeks is all that is needed from feedback on the written application to the first interview. 37 percent want to know where they stand one week after the first interview, 54 percent give companies two weeks. After the final selection step, 55 percent of participants expect the final decision within a week.

Online application forms: Most applicants want to be through in 20 minutes

Applicants also expect speed when entering their data in the online form. 43 percent want to spend ten to 20 minutes filling out the form. 22 percent are prepared to spend a maximum of ten minutes on the online application form. Only 29 percent can imagine spending 20 to 30 minutes entering their data. Six percent would even wait longer than 30 minutes.

Applicants miss transparency

According to the applicants, companies are not yet meeting these wishes in practice. "Strong room for improvement" is how survey participants see transparency and orientation to their applicant needs in application processes they have already gone through. Overall, only 17 percent rated the overall quality of the application process as "very good," but 47 percent still rated it as "good." A total of 36 percent gave the overall process grades of "satisfactory," "sufficient" or "poor."

The practice: Personnel managers usually take longer than applicants expect

And what does the situation look like on the HR side? To what extent can companies' recruiting processes meet applicant requirements in practice? And how do HR professionals assess their processes? In other words, are the demands of applicants realistic in practice from an HR perspective?

While 60 percent of applicants consider a total duration of the process of no more than one month to be appropriate, the situation is significantly different in the practice of HR managers: Only 28 percent of the companies surveyed meet this expectation. There are also significant discrepancies between candidate expectations and recruiting practice when it comes to the length of time it takes to receive the first binding response to an application. Only 45 percent of the companies manage to communicate within one or two weeks whether the next selection step will be taken or whether the application has failed. 17 percent of companies need three weeks or longer for this. According to the recruiters, however, they are faster at the next steps: 68 percent manage to organize an interview within two weeks of the first positive news.

Almost half of the companies without online application form

A startling survey result: 47 percent of companies say they do not use an online application form. This high figure is surprising given the large proportion of survey participants from medium-sized and large companies (54 percent). Accordingly, the number of companies that do not use an applicant management system is probably quite high. Experience shows that the proportion of "forgotten applicants" is particularly high in companies that rely on manual recruitment processes. Breaks in the process occur frequently and applicants are unsettled or even annoyed.

Not actively working on the Candidate Experience: Applicant feedback is rarely caught up

But only a few companies plan to actively improve the candidate experience. This is indicated by the fact that 69 percent of the companies surveyed do not collect applicant feedback on the process. 62 percent do not collect qualitative metrics on the application process. And only 59 percent of the companies surveyed are planning to shorten the time periods in the application process.