The candidate experience is all about how individuals are treated during the hiring process. Candidates formulate a lot of opinions about organizations during interviews, but most importantly, in the time periods between interviews and status updates.
Engaging candidates with text messages and emails keeps them warm and lets them know you are still thinking about them. What's even better is to enable them with resources to be successful at your organization before they are even an employee!
If you're wondering how on Earth that's possible, interview guides are a fantastic start.
An Introduction To Interview Guides
Interview guides should engage, inform, and educate candidates so that they feel prepared and curious for interviews. These guides should provide lots of details about your organization so the interview is more substantial and tactical. Rather than a conversation filled with questions about company culture or who the candidate would work with, the interview can be a more comprehensive discussion about the role and responsibilities. This will help your team better evaluate success on the job and compatibility with the company.
Sending interview guides before onsite interviews is a great way to engage with and keep candidates warm and interested in your organization. They seem highly personalized so candidates will appreciate the seemingly extra effort your team makes!
Building Successful Interview Guides
Recruiting teams are already slammed with tasks - following up with candidates, scanning resumes, chasing hiring managers for feedback, scheduling interviews. And now they are supposed to be content creators too? Absolutely not. Creating an interview guide should be a collaborative effort with the marketing team at your organization and the hiring departments that would like or need interview guides.
Strong interview guides are only about one or two pages, and it's all very punchy information. What may seem high-level and unnecessary to you (like providing interviewers' names) goes a long way with candidates. It shows you care about their candidacy and want them to perform well during interviews. Providing this information can also ease lots of nerves or tension heading into an interview.
To start building your guides, think about what you would want to know heading into an interview. Is the company size important? Do you want an overview of benefits? What about and overview of the team you'd be working on?
Define what may be important to your candidates and share these points with your content creators so they can make a beautiful and impactful guide for your recruiting team. If you're not sure where to start, these are the information points you should always include:
Company Description
While a candidate coming onsite surely knows about your organization at this point in the hiring process, give them a reminder of who your company is, what you do, and why it matters to the market you play in. It's always good to set the foundation starting with introductions.
Preview Into The Team
On the note of introductions, provide details about the team this candidate may be joining. Often, these will be the people candidates are interviewing with, so it's nice to get a little bit of background on everyone. If candidates are heading into very large teams, who are the key players and who will this potential new hire report to? You want to familiarize candidates with the team early to make them feel welcome. Adding interviewers' contact information also enables candidates to send thank you notes following the interview. Just make sure you ask for permission from these interviewers to do so first!
Role Overview
Job descriptions online are pretty vague and they almost read as templates to candidates. An interview guide is a great place to get into the nitty gritty of the position. Share lots of specific details. This can get candidates thinking about the role and helps them formulate questions heading into the interview. That leads to much more productive conversations.
Directions & Instructions For Arrival
You may have candidates traveling from out of town to an interview, or they may live right down the street. Regardless, it's nice to share directions and instructions for the day of the interview. There are already so many nerves bouncing around on interview day. Make the process of arriving simple, stress-free, and easy.
Download our free interview guide template: Interview Guide Template from ConveyIQ
