To improve candidate experience, start by auditing your current process. Identify what’s working and where candidates are dropping off. Next, align your hiring process with the expectations of today’s top talent. That way, you can create hiring strategies that meet the modern candidate’s needs and deliver a memorable experience.
We’ve previously explored how to track candidate experience metrics and how to audit your recruitment process to uncover friction points. In this article, we’ll take it a step further and show you what candidates expect today and tips to deliver a positive candidate experience.
You’ll learn:
- What “candidate experience” really means today
- Why rising candidate expectations demand a more engaging approach
- Where most hiring teams fall short—and why
- Actionable tips to improve candidate experience
- Real-life examples from talent teams leading the way
What is candidate experience?
Candidate experience is how someone feels while going through your recruitment process. It stretches from the moment they hear about your job opportunity to the final outcome, whether they are hired or not. While overall experiences can be positive, negative, or neutral, these are high-level descriptors.
To truly understand and improve candidate experience, it must be measured in more specific, actionable ways that provide deeper insights into each process stage.
Mapping out the candidate experience journey is a good place to start.
Understanding the candidate experience journey
The candidate experience journey covers the entire sequence of interactions a candidate has with a potential employer throughout the hiring process.
While the journey can be broken down into stages such as attraction, engagement, and offer, it is more insightful to consider it in terms of touchpoints.
A touchpoint is when a candidate interacts with the employer’s brand and the medium through which that interaction happens. These touchpoints go beyond just the stages of recruitment. They include any communication or media the candidate engages with during the process.
For instance, candidate assessment is a distinct stage in recruitment, but other touchpoints play a crucial role, such as:
- Job description pages
- Social media posts
- Press releases
- Career site design
- Emails and notifications
How an organization communicates with candidates at each touchpoint can influence their perception of the employer and their overall decision-making throughout the process.
Every interaction leaves an impression on candidates. Even one poorly handled stage can lead to a bad candidate experience that damages your employer brand.
This is why candidate experience matters more than ever today. You must understand how candidates discover and engage brands and devise a corresponding candidate relationship strategy.
How the candidate journey has changed in 2025
Key findings across independent research reports
If you want to deliver a memorable candidate experience today, you have to get creative. The standard checklist of candidate experience will get your organization into the market.
However, creating experiences that turn candidates into brand ambassadors, who speak positively about the company even if they weren't hired, requires a much higher bar.
And for four good reasons.
Firstly, job seekers now value long-term roles, in addition to other benefits
Job seekers' priorities have evolved dramatically in just a few short years.
- 2022 was all about flexibility. Remote work and work-life balance topped the list, often even over salary.
- 2023 saw a shift toward balance and better pay, as employees demanded both well-being and compensation.
- 2024 focused on career growth, with professionals prioritizing advancement in a tightening job market.
In 2025, a new trend is emerging: the desire for longevity.
When asked about their ideal tenure, most candidates see 3-5 years as the sweet spot. But here’s the surprising twist: 19% prefer staying 6-10 years, and a whopping 28% would commit to over a decade in the right place.
This shift could be because workers are feeling stuck. A recent Glassdoor poll revealed that 65% of employees across all industries feel trapped in their current jobs. Career opportunity satisfaction has dropped 7.5% in two years, as professionals hunger for roles where they can grow and stay.
While flexibility (hybrid and remote work) is still relevant, today’s talents equally desire greater career stability after periods of market volatility.
Secondly, candidates expect a more digital [almost e-commerce shopping] experience
Job seekers now anticipate the process of searching, applying for, and interviewing for a job to be simple, fast, and intuitive. This expectation stems from the fact that digital e-commerce experiences have become commonplace in their daily lives.
After years of one-click purchases, instant deliveries, and AI-powered recommendations, job seekers now demand the same speed, simplicity, and personalization when applying for roles. The fact that nearly one-third of candidates find filling out the application to be the worst part of the process suggests that this area needs intervention.
But a smooth application process is just the start. You also must keep your finances tight, because:
Candidates are savy. They will research everything— even your financial capability.
Two-thirds (67%) of job seekers look into a company's financial health before accepting a position. Candidates want to know if you can hire them and keep them employed for extended periods. Recent high-profile layoffs partly influence this. More reasons why longer career tenure is a prominent concern.
And here comes the kicker: Even with excellent financial health, your EVP (employee value proposition) footprint might turn off potential hires. Many new hires in recent years were disappointed to find that the EVP touted during recruitment was "just talk."
As a result, job seekers are now researching employers and asking more EVP-related questions during the hiring process. Interestingly, word of mouth, social media, and online reviews make it easy to expose disconnects between the stated EVP and the reality after hiring early on.
Lastly, candidates think that educational background isn't necessarily the best way to assess someone's potential
In a candidate experience report, only 5% of job seekers believe that educational background is the fairest way for a company to decide who to hire. In fact, most respondents believe the best way for companies to evaluate them is either based on past work history or assessments designed to measure skills directly.
This decreasing importance of a college degree aligns with the growing trend of skills-based hiring, suggesting a move towards valuing practical skills and competencies over traditional academic credentials.
Here’s what the changing candidate experience journey means for employers
The thread running through all these changes is clear:
Employers must design hiring processes that align with the new candidate's expectations at every stage. The passive, one-size-fits-all approach to recruitment simply isn’t enough anymore. The question is not whether you need to:
- Revamp your job descriptions.
- Make the application process simple.
- Be transparent with your hiring process.
Those are now the bare minimum– table stakes that won’t differentiate your brand or leave a lasting impression. The real question is what the ideal job description looks like today. How and where should you communicate EVP in a way that delivers a memorable impression to candidates?
The following section will cover tips to enhance the candidate experience across every touch point, including real-life creative examples from seasoned talent leaders.
11 Data-backed Tips To Improve Candidate Experience Across Every Stage of The Recruitment Process
Make it easy for candidates to discover and understand your brand
1. Set up multiple candidate sourcing channels
Candidates today have multiple channels at their fingertips, influencing how they look for work and where they choose to work. Posting job openings on multiple channels helps you attract a wider pool of diverse and qualified candidates.
For example, suppose you’re targeting people already in the workforce but willing to switch jobs, a mix of job boards (33% usage), recruitment agencies (29%), and social media might be the most beneficial option
However, getting discovered is only half the job.
2. Ensure job seekers can easily understand your EVP
Visibility becomes irrelevant if candidates discover your brand but walk away with a negative or unclear impression. Your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) should resonate across these discovery points, align with your hiring strategy, and be easily understandable.
If you’re hiring from campus, consider launching candidate engagement programs that position you as the employer of choice among students. Then, repurpose those materials—videos, brochures, or event highlights—across your careers page, social media, and student-specific forums. This keeps your message consistent and avoids stretching your team thin by creating content for every channel from scratch.
When repurposing those EVP materials, consider the following tips to truly stand out:
- Replace generic job descriptions with messaging that immerses candidates in your mission. Explain the real-world problem your company solves, why it matters, and how their work will contribute to that impact.
- Respond proactively on public forums where your brand is mentioned. Address negative perceptions and misinformation transparently. They can quietly dissuade high-potential candidates.
- Share employee stories. They offer authentic proof of your culture and values, especially when they reflect diverse experiences across roles, tenures, and locations.
- Keep your language grounded. Instead of vague buzzwords like “supercharging the next generation of innovation,” speak clearly: What’s the problem? Why are you solving it? Why now? Why you? And how will the candidate help?
3. Personalize job ad materials to the candidate’s demography
Getting the candidate’s first name in the email is great.
What could even be better is attracting them with job ad materials specifically curated for them. For example, 18% of UK employers surveyed are now improving their job offerings to attract UK-born workers in response to immigration rule changes.
That means generic job descriptions and email messaging aren’t enough to stand out. it. You’d have to consider publishing job descriptions with demographic-specific benefits.
Willo makes it easy to discover and attract talent
With Willo, reaching the right candidates at scale doesn’t mean compromising on experience or brand integrity. You can invite over 20,000 candidates in one go and keep the process consistent for everyone, no matter where they apply from.
Whether you're sharing across multiple job boards, LinkedIn, or working through your ATS, all it takes is one unique link. This helps you tap into a diverse talent pool without extra effort or cost.
And when you reach that pool of candidates, Willo helps you instantly stand out with full customization options. You can customize the job ad page with company colors, videos, or employee testimonials. You can even tailor the terms and conditions to reflect your company’s values.
That way, every touch point reinforces your employer brand, showing candidates you mean what you say right from the start and attracting those who connect with your mission, culture, and values.
Ensure candidates are excited to apply and stay engaged with your brand
4. Provide a mobile-first experience
Mobile-first doesn’t just mean your website looks good on a phone. This means that the entire application journey must be designed with mobile use as the default.
Here’s what you can do:
- Let candidates apply and complete assessments without downloading an app or creating an account.
- Give candidates the flexibility to complete tasks, such as video responses or skills tests, at their convenience.
- Ensure job listings, forms, and application steps load quickly, display correctly, and function smoothly on all screen sizes.
5. Integrate social login options
Social logins allow candidates to use their existing social media accounts, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, or Monster, to sign in or apply for jobs on a company's career site or within their application system.
Information from the candidate's social media account (like their profile details, work history, or education) can be pulled into the application form, potentially making the process easier and less error-prone by reducing manual entry.
6. Automate interview scheduling
Many candidates hate scheduling just as much as you do. In fact, 62% of them would prefer you implement a system that automates the scheduling process. They’re tired of email chains and telephone tags and know there are much better tools for scheduling screens and assessments.
Our recommendation? Use async tools to eliminate scheduling or automate it when that isn’t an option. But remember, even with automation, adding a human touch, like personalized messages, makes a big difference.
7. Keep the application process at a bearable level
Multiple interview rounds, slow response times, and long periods of silence frustrate candidates. Remember, candidates are applying to several roles simultaneously. And in a competitive market, the speed at which you move can decide between securing a great hire and losing them to a competitor. So, even when your application process does require multiple steps, consider various ways to keep applicants engaged.
Willo makes it easy to assess and engage applicants
Willo provides a low-pressure environment for flexible asynchronous assessments. This makes the job application process easier, friendlier, and more empowering for candidates so they stay engaged from start to finish.
- Candidates can apply via an assessment they can complete on their mobile phone anywhere, without downloading an app or signing up. That means fewer barriers and more confidence in engaging employers on their terms.
- They can pause and resume the assessment or even switch devices midway to prevent losing progress in case of a technical issue.
- Candidates also get practice questions at the beginning to set the tone and test devices.
- They can re-record answers and engage with each question with sufficient thinking time.
To keep momentum going, Willo sends automated emails and reminders, offers 24/7 live chat support, and even lets candidates suggest dates for follow-up interviews.
This proactive experience builds anticipation and reduces drop-off. When candidates feel guided, heard, and in control, they’re far more likely to stay invested and excited about joining your team.
Enable candidates to understand and trust your screening process
8. Focus on skills-based assessment
Skills-based hiring prioritizes a candidate’s demonstrated competencies over formal qualifications like degrees or job history. As previously noted, candidates increasingly favor this hiring practice.
Transitioning to a skills-based hiring model requires meaningful changes to traditional recruitment practices:
- Convert experience requirements to skills. Instead of stating “2+ years of experience in digital marketing,” consider asking for “Ability to develop and manage multi-channel digital campaigns with measurable ROI”.
- Revamp job descriptions to clearly articulate the essential skills and competencies needed for success in the role.
- Enable candidates to share unconventional proof of skill. For example, you could allow college talents to upload ePortfolios, capstone projects, or personal case studies that showcase the application of practical skills.
9. Publish an AI usage policy to educate job seekers before the application process.
AI is now deeply embedded in the recruiting process. Candidates use it to improve their applications, and employers use it to streamline evaluations. Yet, despite its growing presence, the technology remains controversial.
Recruiters worry about losing the human element or even their roles to automation. Conversely, candidates express concerns about bias, opaque decision-making, and how their personal data (video assessments) is used. A lack of transparency around AI-driven decisions negatively impacts perceptions of fairness and trust.
Instead of avoiding the topic or addressing it vaguely, publish a clear AI usage policy that helps job seekers understand:
- How do you use AI in recruitment (screening CVs, scheduling interviews, or evaluating video responses)?
- What candidates can expect, including where AI begins and ends in the evaluation pipeline.
- Why your use of AI is fair, accountable, and bias-mitigated, including what safeguards you’ve implemented.
- How much AI assistance is acceptable from the candidate
- What an AI-generated CV or AI-assisted video assessment looks like, and things to avoid
This guidance helps level the playing field while encouraging ethical, effective use of the technology on both sides. Candidates trust your brand and believe more in your process.
10. Communicate with applicants throughout the process, even non-selected candidates
If job seekers don’t hear from you after 1 week, 34% of them assume they’ve been ghosted. That number jumps to 41% after two weeks of no contact.
Candidate ghosting frequently leads to frustration and abandonment of the recruitment process. If all a candidate receives is a confirmation email after applying– and nothing more, they are more likely to pursue other opportunities.
As a result, TA teams must continuously keep job seekers up-to-date throughout the process.
- Provide status updates at key points: Let applicants know when their resume has been reviewed, if the hiring process is delayed, or when decisions are expected.
- Offer constructive feedback to unsuccessful candidates: Politely notify non-selected candidates, especially when AI is involved. Many applicants never receive feedback if screened out by an AI-based system, and responses often lack detailed justification.
- Set expectations early: Include communication timelines and touchpoints in your application instructions so candidates understand what’s next.
Continuous status updates can reduce anxiety and build trust throughout the process.
Willo helps you deliver fair & bias-free assessment and screening
Willo empowers organizations to move beyond traditional CV filters and embrace a more equitable, skills-based hiring model. Instead of focusing solely on a candidate’s qualifications on a CV, which can be polished with AI tools, Willo gives you a clearer picture of each candidate’s potential.
You can assess every applicant’s skills and potential through flexible, asynchronous assessments in formats like:
- Video responses
- Audio submissions
- Written text
- Multiple choice questions
That way, candidates can show their full potential and stand a fair chance in selection. It is an avenue for hiring teams to focus more on cultural addition instead of cultural fit and build a more diverse team.
And this approach doesn’t compromise hiring speed. Willo’s AI automates repetitive tasks, freeing time for deeper candidate review.
- You can instantly search candidate responses for keywords or themes through Willo’s AI transcript.
- It generates concise summaries of each candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas worth exploring, giving recruiters a clearer picture without replacing their judgment.
- AI-powered shortlisting automatically ranks candidates based on predefined criteria or assessment scores.
- You can generate role-specific and industry-compliant questions with AI
That balance between fairness and efficiency continues through the evaluation process. Willo’s customizable, collaborative scorecards let your team assess candidates based on the most important skills. With Blind Scoring enabled, it ensures every assessment is reviewed independently, keeping evaluations free from bias.
4 Real-Life Candidate Experience Examples & Stories To Inspire Your Approach
Every month, we speak with talent leaders to share their experience developing inclusive candidate experience and skill-based hiring strategies. Here are four creative examples of companies improving candidate experience in creative ways:
1. Coinsquare turned rejection emails into a user acquisition & employer branding tool
Martin Hauck, a fractional HR consultant at the Purple Umbrella, shares a story about Coinsquare on this episode of the Looks Good on Paper podcast.
Coinsquare, a cryptocurrency exchange, implemented a thoughtful process for rejecting candidates that served as both a user acquisition and employer branding tool.
Instead of simply sending generic "thanks but no thanks" emails, at Coin Square, rejected candidates received three specific things:
- A list of resources to help them in their job search
- An invitation to provide feedback on the interview process,
- And a $10 credit to use on the Coinsquare trading platform
This approach moved away from the standard, often impersonal rejection letter that creates a negative candidate experience. A good candidate experience, even in rejection, can lead individuals to speak positively about the brand. In contrast, a bad one can result in negative reviews on platforms like Glassdoor, potentially costing the company financially.
To implement this,
- Review your current rejection templates and identify opportunities to add value beyond a simple "no." Find areas where you can adjust your messaging to frame rejection emails with encouragement to apply for future opportunities.
- Include a request for feedback on the candidate's experience in your rejection communication. You can collect candidate feedback surveys with Willo’s Custom Routing.
- If applicable and feasible, offer a small sample of your product or a discount/credit to rejected candidates, especially if they are potential customers.
Listen to the full story on this Looks Good on Paper podcast episode.
2. Ideagen improved candidate experience by allowing candidates to self-select out of the process
Yasmin Castle, a Talent Acquisition Specialist at Ideagen, shared how Ideagen implemented a practice of advertising its interview process on every job advert. Unlike most organizations, Ideagen clearly outlined the specific stages and what each would entail from the outset to ensure transparency and save time.
Providing upfront clarity allowed candidates to understand the time commitment and requirements of the process before even applying. If a candidate reviewed the advertised steps and decided they were not interested in going through them, or that the stages were unsuitable for them (e.g., due to needing flexibility), they could self-select.
This meant they were not wasting their time applying for a process they wouldn't complete, which is analogous to providing enough clarity early on. Moreover, enabling candidates to opt out early ensured the recruitment team at Ideagen received fewer applications from individuals who were never a viable fit for the process, regardless of their skills.
This saved the team the time they would have spent reviewing applications and potentially engaging with candidates who would have dropped out later.
Listen to the full story on this Looks Good on Paper podcast episode.
3. Ideagen tackled the drop-off rate with pre-assessment educational content
Ideagen has a significant focus on early-career talent, including graduates and apprentices. The challenge is that some candidates may have limited or no prior experience writing CVs, formal interviews, or assessment processes. This lack of familiarity can lead to a significant drop-off rate during recruitment.
To address this, Ideagen devises a process of creating videos and planning to launch them, along with conducting webinars, aimed at university students and others applying for early-career roles.
The educational videos aimed to coach candidates through the recruitment process, providing hints and tips and helping candidates understand what to expect.
This proactive approach supported less experienced candidates, improved their experience of the recruitment journey, and helped them better demonstrate their suitability for early-career roles.
4. Increase diversity and inclusion by creating good biases
This one is really interesting, and it comes from Martin Hauck. Martin advises that in addition to actively removing negative personal biases (like reacting negatively to certain terms on a LinkedIn profile), recruiters should also aim to create good biases as well.
These good biases are described as ones that focus on identifying signals that you can rely on to be helpful for a particular type of role. The focus shifts from filtering out based on perceived negatives to actively looking for positive indicators of potential or relevant skills that might be demonstrated outside traditional qualifications or linear career paths.
An example of such a "good bias" or positive signal could be looking for candidates with valuable experiences gained in challenging, non-traditional environments. A job developer who has demonstrated initiative by building things themselves, even without formal experience, could be looked at more favorably. The same goes for hiring executive assistants from call centers because they constantly put out fires and develop strong problem-solving skills.
As a result, companies can:
- Broaden the pool of considered candidates, giving opportunities to individuals who might otherwise be overlooked due to negative biases or reliance on "what looks good on paper".
- Demonstrate fairer and more insightful assessments focusing on a candidate's capabilities and potential contributions.
- Bring in "surprising hires" with diverse perspectives and experiences that enrich the team and culture.
Why Is Creating a Positive Candidate Experience Important?
Stand out from the competition
Most active job candidates apply for multiple jobs, and even top passive candidates are often targeted by several recruiters at once.
If a candidate is evaluating multiple opportunities, their experience with the hiring process becomes a very real and very influential differentiator. They can directly compare your process's speed, simplicity, friendliness, and professionalism with competitors.
Better completion rates
Poor candidate experiences are the leading cause of candidate drop-off. Studies show that 65% of candidates who have abandoned an application or hiring process have cited a poor candidate experience as the reason.
The job market is competitive. Losing top candidates due to a less-than-stellar hiring process can put your company at a disadvantage, increase recruiting overhead, and ultimately affect your business's success and growth.
More positive advocacy
Whether they eventually get hired or not, 60% of candidates with a positive experience will leave a positive review about your hiring process. As we mentioned earlier, candidates with a negative experience are 185% less likely to recommend your company to other job seekers. Positive reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations can attract even more top talent to apply for your job openings.
What Factors Prevent Hiring Teams from Delivering a Positive Candidate Experience?
A mismatch between employer practices and candidate expectations
There is a persistent disparity between what candidates expect from the recruitment process and their actual experiences. Candidates expect the experience of searching, applying, and interviewing to be simple, much like common digital e-commerce experiences.
They seek a faster hiring process, enhanced interview experiences, and better communication. However, many job-seekers are still experiencing a long hiring process with minimal communication, annoying form fills, and more.
Inefficient (manual) hiring processes
Manual processes still plague HR teams, draining morale and taking time away from more impactful work. A shocking 71% of recruiting and hiring leaders report missing a key candidate hire due to these inefficiencies (Findem, 2023).
Specific process problems contributing to this include slow screening and evaluation, candidates being found too late, inefficient communications, processes taking too long, and interview scheduling issues.
Concerns about AI's impact and bias
While AI offers potential benefits like increased productivity and efficiency, concerns exist about its impact on the candidate experience. Too much AI in recruitment could make the process impersonal, causing recruiters to miss out on top candidates.
Challenges remain in selecting appropriate AI recruiting tools and creating fair, standardized auditing procedures.
Difficulty defining and implementing the Employee Value Proposition
Candidates today are researching employers and asking more questions during the hiring process. They care about what employers deliver, not just what they offer.
It can hurt retention if companies promote their culture or EVP during recruitment but don't live up to it in the actual employee experience.
Challenges in skills-based hiring implementation
Shifting towards skills-based hiring and retention strategies is highlighted as a savvy move, but implementing this approach presents challenges.
These include determining how to assess candidates based on their actual skills, identifying the necessary tools and interview techniques, training staff on skills-based hiring, and collaborating to create effective skills assessments.
Lack of time, resources, and burnout
HR professionals, including recruiters and talent acquisition leaders, often feel overwhelmed by their workloads. Limited resources and budgets contribute to this challenge.
This overwhelming workload and lack of resources can trap them in a cycle of performance management and conflict resolution. Furthermore, it prevents them from focusing on impactful candidate experience initiatives.
The Right Technology Can Help You Deliver a Memorable Candidate Experience
The right technology transforms how you design and execute your candidate's experience journey. With Willo, you can create a fairer, more inclusive, and engaging journey from start to finish. From skills-based assessments to bias-free evaluations, Willo helps you put candidates first without sacrificing speed or quality.
In today’s competitive talent market, that can make all the difference.
- LaunchCode increased the number of qualified candidates screened by 54% with Willo.
- Bott + Co improved new hire quality while saving 45+ minutes per candidate interview.
- EDF screened 17,000 candidates with a 9-member team, cutting the process time in half
You can be the next success story. See how Willo can transform your hiring experience.
