Shawnee Love   •   June 7, 2018

This blog is the last in our 9 part series on candidate experience, and discusses how to close a recruiting project with a candidate in mind.

Yes, even how you close a posting and close the loop with unsuccessful candidates is part of your candidate experience.

Tips to enhance the experience are:

1. Send a thank you email confirming the posting is now closed to those who applied but didn’t get an interview.
2. For those who you interviewed and haven’t yet notified they were not successful, take the time to call them to deliver the news personally. Get prepared for this call by identifying what the candidate could do to be a successful hire next time for this position and provide that feedback if the candidate wants to hear it.
3. Take the posting down in all the places you posted it.  There’s nothing worse for a job hunter than finding the job of their dreams only to discover it isn’t still open.
4. Reach out to the newly hired person, share information about beginning work, and ensure they know you are looking forward to them starting (Technically, this isn’t candidate experience anymore because the newly hired person is no longer a candidate, but expect the new hire to tell others about the hiring experience from beginning (seeing the job posting) to end (being new on the job).  As such, your new hire orientation is important too.   [More on that in future blogs.])

None of this is difficult, it just takes time, and the lack of time is often why these details are missed.  But they are meaningful to the people and create how candidates (and their “closest” friends, family, followers and contacts) experience your organization.