If promising talent keeps dropping out of your hiring process, your candidate engagement strategies may have gone stale. Employees are like internal customers and nowadays they expect to be treated accordingly. And it begins right from the recruitment stage. Engaging candidates effectively is a key driver for the candidate’s experience and eventual decision in joining an organization. Provided he is the right fit. It can also be a moving target. To be effective, your candidate engagement strategy should be responsive to your changing talent pool and be cognizant of advances in every-day technology your candidates use.

Following are four incredible ideas used by the best recruiting teams to achieve results:

1. Consider using a Chatbot

Your candidates will have a lot of questions about the job role, about the application process or the timeline between applying and hiring. If you have a pile of candidate resumes, you won’t be able to answer all of the questions personally. Boost candidate engagement by employing a chatbot to answer some of the most common questions immediately and prevent candidates from losing touch with you. This strategy not only helps the HR team to save time but also lets them focus on other tasks that are not repetitive and need strategic thinking.

2. Seek Feedback

Whether or not you hire a candidate, you should try to collect candidate feedback as often as possible, so you can continue improving your hiring process and job applicant experience. Deploy an interviewing platform that can automate recruiting logistics, enable you to do on-demand and live voice and video interviews, and one that facilitates online collaboration with your hiring managers.

Research carried out by The Talent Board shows that candidates are 52% more likely to put more effort into ensuring they have a relationship with a company – refer friends, reapply for other positions, purchase from the company, etc. – if they receive feedback on the same day they are interviewed. This insight is valuable!

3. Make Your Recruitment Site Engaging

High bounce rates on career sites and applicant tracking systems are a well-known problem. Numerous studies have shown that the majority of job seekers who begin an application online don’t complete it. Instead of only paying to attract talent on job boards, invest in a career site that can act as your brand hub. Think of your career site as a window for the candidate into the employment experience he/she will experience in your organization. You need to have a landing page that builds on this experience and encourages the candidate to take that leap. A well-designed career site converts the right candidates to new hires.

4. Stay Connected

Engaging candidates using social media is on the rise, with many companies moving solely to finding candidates on social media sites. While it may act as a hiring ground, there is no doubt that it is an excellent way to judge a candidate’s attitude and ability to fit into your corporate culture. If you use social media effectively, you can share success stories and keep potential candidates updated on new opportunities as they arise. Like they say “Out of sight is out of mind.”

To Wrap It Up!

As you consider new or refined approaches to your candidate engagement, leverage technology as an integral part of your plan. More responsibilities mean more stress and less time to focus on individual candidates. This creates the risk of candidate engagement eventually dropping. Smart or intelligent use of technology not just keeps top talent engaged in the hiring process, but also captures the attention of candidates in the pipeline.