How you treat candidates can affect your revenue

A recent study has HR professionals reconsidering their recruitment processes as profits could be at risk.

The way you treat job candidates during the recruitment process – even those you decide not to hire – can have a direct impact on the bottom line, according to the results of a recently released study.

“Companies might not realise the impact it has on their business when they don’t respond to job candidates or fail to update them on the status of their applications,” says Mark Bania, managing director at CareerBuilder Canada – the company that carried out the study.

“Not only do candidates share these negative experiences on social media, but they are less likely to do business with the company in the future,” he continued.

The study found that 23 per cent of those who have bad experiences during the recruitment process post about it online and 38 per cent say they are less likely to purchase goods or services from that company.

“So not only do employers risk losing potential customers, but they may be hurting their brand as well,” added Bania.

But behaving well with interviews isn’t the only thing that could affect your company’s bottom line – according to the survey, how easy you make it for potential applicants to even apply has an impact.

“Providing candidates the ability to search and apply to jobs from a mobile device is one of the easiest ways to prevent candidate drop-off – and, in effect, letting quality talent slip through the cracks,” said Bania.

The study showed that only 36 per cent of companies allow candidates to search for jobs on a mobile device while 55 per cent of applicants expect to be able to apply in this manner – something which makes a bad impression on potential new employees.