Katya Laviolette, chief people officer at 1Password. Passionate about all things people.
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Companies are obsessed with customer experience, and with good reason: Studies show that consumers are increasingly willing to abandon brands that don’t meet their expectations, with 80% having switched brands because of poor customer experience.
But what about talent? While layoffs at leading companies are making headlines, the U.S. unemployment rate was only 3.4% in January. And regardless of market dynamics, the battle for top talent never ends.
What if companies treated their current and prospective talent with the same care and attention they devote to customers? Could this provide a competitive edge? From my perspective, the answer is a resounding "yes."
First Impressions Aren’t Just For Customers
Job seekers know about the power of first impressions. But while every company wants to make a great first impression on prospective customers, the same should also be true of prospective employees. Even if a candidate declines an offer, or isn’t given one, the quality of their experience has far-reaching consequences.
Talent Board, a nonprofit that researches job candidates’ experiences, found that “candidate resentment”—a measure of how negatively job seekers rate their experiences—rose worldwide in 2022. In a recent report, the organization found that while resentment rates among North American candidates dropped 14% last year, they were still at a “historically high” 12%.
As Talent Board’s president notes, candidate resentment has “major repercussions” for companies—including “whether or not candidates will apply to their jobs again, whether they'll refer colleagues and friends, whether they'll be brand advocates and whether they'll buy a company's products and services.”
To create a candidate experience that leaves even unsuccessful applicants feeling satisfied with the process, consider prioritizing transparency and creating a seamless experience with ongoing momentum. One strategy is to leverage an applicant tracking system (ATS) that makes it easy to submit applications, setting the tone for further communications.
Offer clear and concise job postings, and outline which qualifications are required and which are preferred. Additionally, detail what a candidate can expect from you. Great job postings strike a balance between what the company is looking for in a candidate and what the company can offer in return.
Many companies think it’s OK to ghost candidates they’re not interested in moving forward with—because of limited bandwidth or, more often, because they grossly undervalue the ramifications of being impolite. Just like customers should never have their inquiries go unacknowledged or unanswered, candidates should know that their application has been received, is being reviewed or is no longer being considered.
Like many others, our company has a strong support function that engages customers through various communication channels. We’ve also set up a parallel system for talent. Each candidate receives a thank you message after their initial interaction with us, and from there we ensure there are personalized touchpoints to keep them informed of their application status—including whether they’re moving on to the next round, who they’ll be speaking to and what to expect in terms of timing and pace. If a candidate may be better suited to another open opportunity, our talent team lets them know during the interview process. If candidates are ultimately unsuccessful, we encourage them to keep in touch and invite them to apply for other roles.
Listen, Refine, Repeat
Customer satisfaction surveys are essential for helping product teams refine and improve offerings. Similarly, candidate and employee surveys can give organizations actionable insights.
Consider asking candidates to complete an optional survey about their experience after interviewing with you, regardless of whether they were hired. You can also ask candidates to optionally self-identify their personal diversity data to ensure you’re creating an equitable process for all and continually refining your outreach to underrepresented groups. At my company, over 80% of respondents noted that they were satisfied with their experience interviewing with us last year, and more than 89% of applicants choose to complete our diversity survey.
Feedback from these surveys can help you better understand your candidate audience and how you can improve. For example, we now provide our “1Password 1-Pager” in advance of interviews, giving candidates a glimpse into our culture and values and providing thought starters for questions they may want answers to during the interview process.
Surveying new hires after the onboarding process can also provide tremendous insights. According to Gallup, just 12% of U.S. employees say their company does a good job with onboarding—but 70% of employees who had exceptional onboarding experiences say they have "the best possible job." This suggests that great onboarding experiences can drive retention and job satisfaction.
Employee engagement surveys can provide you with an opportunity to ask your people for feedback on everything from how supported they feel in their roles to how accessible they feel leadership is and whether they feel your efforts around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) are making an impact. Use this information to refine your programs, processes and internal communications strategies.
These insights have been particularly helpful over the past year as we’ve grown our company from 550 employees in four countries to over 900 employees in five countries. Our people have worked remotely since day one (and will continue to), so surveys and feedback give us insights that might otherwise be gleaned during “water cooler conversations”—and they could be helpful to you, too.
Satisfied Talent Makes For Satisfied Customers
All great companies believe their customers deserve the very best. To deliver on that goal, it’s imperative that we treat talent with the same care.
This should start with seamless hiring processes that leave all candidates feeling respected and great onboarding experiences that energize new talent and equip them to hit the ground running. It should continue with surveys and other mechanisms for seeking employee feedback. And this feedback should be integrated as quickly as possible to improve systems, practices and the broader employee value proposition.
Customers are valuable in any market, and so is top talent. Employee experience, like customer experience, should always be a priority.
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