The relationships you build with candidates are the reason your organization gets repeat business, and also, the reason your company’s brand starts to build. Candidates that experience a negative interview process go on to be disengaged from those brands and no business can afford that kind of fall out. So, we put together our heads, and years of experience, to find the things that have always worked for us when keeping candidates happy:

1.   Shorten the process

A while back, we wrote about the benefits of shortening your hiring process, and this is key to keeping your candidates happy. Long processes and multiple interview days are difficult to manage when you already have a job and can wear down the people you’re interviewing. The last thing you want to do is demotivate your people before you’ve even got them in the building. Streamline your process and make it as easy as possible for the candidates. Place everything within arm’s reach of desire.

2.   Build relationships

If you want a relationship to work, you have to invest time and effort into it, and your business relationships are no different. Take the time to get to know your candidates outside a business capacity. You might have had the same conversation six times already with other candidates, but they don’t know that. Behind every candidate is a human experience and individual story. Do your best to find those out and build on them.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Take the time to get to know your candidates outside a business capacity.” quote=”Take the time to get to know your candidates outside a business capacity.”]

3.   Give pieces of you

This sounds far more painful than it really is, but it’s important to remember to be human with your candidates and let them into your world too. Relationships take two, and you can’t rely on your candidates to unfold their personal sides without you doing the same. Let them into your lives a little bit, or even just your holiday plans, so that they can emotional engage and invest in you as a person.

4.   Deliver rejection right

This is always a pivotal stage because it could be the difference between a candidate never talking to you again, or building something even stronger. You might have written hundreds of rejection emails in the past, so this one doesn’t seem any different, except try to ditch the emails in favor of human interaction. Pick up the phone or even take them out for coffee. Explain why they didn’t get the job and what you’re going to do to try and get them a different job. Knowing that you’re fighting for them equally as hard will strengthen your relationship and keep them coming back to you.

5.   Be honest

Whenever we talk to our candidates or even clients, and we ask them what they value the most from recruiters; honesty is always top of the list. People have become so used to selling something at all times, they’ve forgotten how to cut through their own noise. Be honest with your candidates about what the job entails and what they’ll truly get out of it. Often, they don’t want to be sold the dream, but instead a solid opportunity.

[clickToTweet tweet=”They don’t want to be sold the dream, but instead a solid opportunity.” quote=”They don’t want to be sold the dream, but instead a solid opportunity.”]