Dive Brief:

• With the talent market tightening, job seekers have heightened their expectations for the candidate experience. A new survey from CareerBuilder and SilkRoad found that the majority of employees (68%) said they believe the way employers treat job seekers reflects the way they treat employees.
• Twenty percent of job seekers will devote no more than 10 minutes or less to each job application they fill out. More than 80% of respondents said they expect to receive a clear timeline regarding the interview and hiring process and regular updates throughout the process. Another 36% said they expect to speak to an actual recruiter before they put in their application.
• The majority (67%) of employers said a quarter of new hires will not show up for their first day of work, according to the survey. More than half of employees, 51%, report continuing to look for other jobs even after they've accepted an offer.

Dive Insight:

Job seekers have become quite picky since gaining more control within the talent market. For example, bad websites drive candidates toward competitors. According to a survey by CheekyMonkey, 63% of millennial job seekers said they didn't apply for jobs through an online recruiter because of poor website design. Data from the Society of Human Resource Management revealed that an application requiring more than 10 minutes of effort will lose half its potential candidates. In a candidate's market, employers will need to optimize every point in the recruitment process to assure quality and quantity when it comes to hiring.

A bad candidate experience may not only squash recruitment efforts: It may also become a branding issue, with job seekers posting about their negative experiences online, pushing even more potential hires away from your talent pipeline. To hire good candidates in volume, whether for the holiday season or all year long, applicants are demanding a better experience and better offers before they decide where to settle.