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This is part four of Talent Board’s 10-part “CandE Research Takeaways” series. The previous posts are available on our Articles page.

If you’d like to build greater competitive advantage into your candidate experience, read our 2020 Benchmark Research Report. You’ll find ideas and best practices that you can apply at literally every stage.

During the Attract stage, for example, you can gain a competitive edge by making it easier for candidates to research your company. Many employers are still just slapping the basic facts on their career sites and in job descriptions. You can leave them in the dust by providing candidates with deeper insights about the work they’ll be doing for you and how they’ll fit into your company’s mission and overall success. Showcasing your company’s culture, values, and other differentiators will go even further in filling your pipeline with qualified talent.

Here are a few key data points from our North America 2020 Report about specific ways to make researching your company easy:

• Provide your career site in multiple languages. In 2020, nearly 35% of candidates said they want career sites in multiple languages. Currently, CandE winning companies implement career sites in multiple languages 6% more often than all companies, a stat we expect will only grow in the years ahead.
• Create a presence beyond your career site. Although career sites are still the top destination for candidates doing research (46% say career sites are the most valuable research channel), LinkedIn career pages are in not-too-distant second place (30% of candidates use them). Other valuable channels include job boards (30%), online groups such as Facebook and Yahoo (29%), and employer review sites such as Glassdoor, Indeed, and kununu (24%).
• Let your employees speak. Nearly 32% of candidates said they want more information about company culture, and another 32% want more information on why employees want to work for you and why they stay with you. In the view of many candidates, your employees are the most persuasive and authentic sources for this information, so encourage employees to speak freely about these matters on your career site, in your social media, and across review sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, and Fairy Godboss. FYI, CandE-winners make employee testimonials available 11% more often compared with all other companies.
• Implement a chatbot. Chatbots are not only cost-effective but they’re also a convenience and a time-saver for both you and your candidates. CandE winners utilize chatbots to answer candidates’ questions on career sites 15% more frequently than all
• Publish a newsletter. If you thought newsletter were dead, think again! More and more companies are publishing career-oriented newsletters to communicate with potential candidates, and CandE winning companies are doing it 40% more often than all companies.

Bottom line, by making it easy for people to research your company and your jobs—no matter where that research takes place—you’ll be creating a significant advantage for your employment brand in competing for and converting qualified applicants.

Why Focus on the Attract Stage?

Talent attraction is a great place to begin building a competitive advantage—and not just because it’s the initial stage of every candidate’s journey.

Focusing on the Attract stage allows you to reach all of those candidates who do their own research on potential employers—now a hefty 74% of the global talent pool. Equally important, you’ll be helping candidates self-select more effectively, i.e., make an informed choice on whether to stay with or drop out of your process before contacting you. With millions of displaced, unemployed individuals currently looking for jobs, effective self-selection can save your recruiters countless hours of labor every week.

Incidentally, two-thirds of candidates from all companies participating in our 2020 research gave a 4- or 5-star rating for the information they found on employers while doing research. That figure jumps to 74% for CandE winners. If that doesn’t convince you to take a page from their playbook, I don’t know what will!

In my next post, I’ll explore the importance of letting candidates know where they stand throughout your recruiting process. As always, if you’re interested in participating in our 2021 CandE benchmark research program, click here.

Be safe and well.

Kevin Grossman, Talent Board President