Candidate Experience is an area of priority for all businesses, however strong the brand. Attracting and engaging the best talent for your business is key to a meaningful candidate experience. Regardless of whether you offer the position to a candidate, they should go away with a positive image of your brand.
A candidate experience needs to be engaging and it also needs provide hiring managers with the evidence required to identify who is the right candidate for the role. Providing clarity and fairness to candidates is very important.

During COVID-19 when companies are interviewing candidates, it’s even more important to maintain this clarity and honesty because the remote nature of interviewing amidst these challenging times can lead to uncertainties, which may mean that candidates do not accept job offers.

Candidates will likely be more inquisitive around the financial position of a business they are interviewing with and they will also want to know how the business treated its employees back in March when the pandemic hit. For some candidates, this remote interviewing experience might be better for those whom meeting in person for an interview is an anxiety inducing experience and prevents them from performing their best. Standardising questions and process is more important than ever, to give everyone the same experience.

Operate a policy of fairness
Teaching your hiring mangers how to interview remotely and how to articulate the role and the day to day duties in a remote setting is key.
Make sure that your recruitment process is consistent and fair. This mitigates any bias and it also shows the candidate that the process is a fair and standardised one. You cannot select the right candidate when you are comparing apples with pears.
Ensure that your job description is an accurate representation of the job and its requirements, and train your hiring managers so that they ask the right questions.
As the Talent manager, manage all of the correspondence with the candidates. This makes it much easier to maintain fairness and know where you both stand.

Crystal Clear Communication
Keep your candidate informed of every stage, and manage their expectations as to when they will hear from you regarding decision and next steps.
Just as you would tell a candidate what an interview experience would look like in person, ensure that you tell your candidate what the remote experience will look like. Tell them whether they should be on video and whether they will receive a phone call or if they should join a Google Meet. Removing the unknowns helps to put a candidate at ease and presents a good candidate experience.


The candidate experience should be a two way interaction, both parties are getting to know each other’s value proposition and assessing suitability for the opportunity. Maintaining a fair and clearly communicated process is imperative whilst companies operate in this new way of working, in order to find the best talent for their roles.