Question 1: What key recruiting processes and candidate experience improvements have you identified and completed in the past 6-12 months? (Be as specific as possible with examples for each.)
In today’s highly competitive talent landscape, organizations must continuously innovate to attract, engage, and retain top talent. At BASF, we recognize that the candidate experience is not just a reflection of our employer brand, it is a critical driver of our business success and a key differentiator in the market. Over the past year, the Talent Acquisition team supporting the US & Canada has embarked on a transformation journey, reimagining every step of our recruitment process to deliver a more unified, data-driven, and human-centered experience.
The team has created a recruitment framework that is not only aligned with BASF’s global Talent Acquisition strategy but also sets a new standard for candidate care and operational effectiveness.
These efforts resulted in tangible improvements in candidate satisfaction, process efficiency, and business alignment. They also underscore our commitment to fostering a transparent, engaging, and inclusive hiring journey that empowers candidates and hiring managers alike.
This business case outlines the strategic innovations and measurable outcomes achieved through our multi-pronged approach to candidate experience excellence.
1. Organizational and Role Clarity Enhancements
Over the past year, the Talent Acquisition team built a more unified, efficient, and business-aligned recruitment framework. These changes were designed not only to support BASF’s global Talent Acquisition strategies and broader business goals, but also to elevate the candidate experience. As a result, candidates now benefit from a more streamlined, responsive, and engaging recruitment process.
Enhanced Resource Allocation: The redefinition of the Talent Acquisition operations and roles & responsibilities led to a more candidate-focused process:
- Hiring Managers now have a dedicated Talent Acquisition Partner (TAP) as their single point of contact.
- Candidates are guided throughout the entire journey by a Recruiter who manages everything from initial outreach to interview scheduling, ensuring consistency and responsiveness. This enabled faster, clearer communication and a more personalized experience for candidates, ultimately improving satisfaction and engagement.
2. Data Integrity and Candidate Experience Optimization
As part of a broader initiative to elevate candidate experience, the Talent Acquisition team implemented enhancements that enabled more reliable insights and data-driven decision-making. A cornerstone of this effort was the launch of Qualtrics for candidate experience, marking a significant milestone in our commitment to human-centered recruitment. By embedding Qualtrics surveys at multiple touchpoints (application, withdrawal, rejection, and hire), we ensured that candidate feedback was captured consistently and meaningfully. This allowed us to move beyond anecdotal observations to gain a deeper understanding of the candidate journey, uncovering specific pain points and opportunities for improvement.
To ensure sustained visibility and accountability, a dedicated Power BI dashboard was developed in-house for leaders to continuously monitor and act on these insights. This dashboard not only tracks candidate experience metrics but also integrates data from our Marketing BI module, offering real-time visibility into pipelines, sourcing channels, and conversion rates. By visualizing key data points, teams are empowered to make informed decisions, proactively address gaps in outreach and recruitment strategy, and continuously refine the process based on direct candidate feedback.
3. Interview Process Improvements
As part of our ongoing commitment to aligning our hiring practices with BASF’s evolving culture, the Talent Acquisition team successfully rebranded the assessment approach across all roles and implemented new hiring guidelines. This transformation introduced a refreshed set of evaluation criteria and a new interview framework that shifts the focus from traditional competencies to observable behaviors rooted in our CORE Values. By embedding these cultural pillars into the interview process, we’ve created a more authentic and meaningful experience for candidates that goes beyond skills and qualifications, to assess how individuals embody the principles that drive our success. This behavioral lens fosters deeper conversations, helping us to identify candidates who are not only capable but also culturally aligned and poised to thrive within our teams.
Feedback from one of our candidates:
“The process moved quickly, and a large effort was put into scheduling interviews promptly in spite of some of the interviewers having busy schedules, upcoming time off, and different local time zones. As a candidate, I had some technical difficulties with MS Teams during my first interview with BASF that delayed the interview somewhat, yet the interviewers were accommodating and shared suggestions on how to avoid those issues in future interviews. While the job posting was for an experienced technical role, the interview process abstained from lengthy technical assessments and focused more on the personal and behavioral fit, which contributed to making the interview process more relaxed for me as a candidate.”
4.Enhanced feedback mechanisms to ensure timely and productive communication with candidates
Candidate experience scores improved from ~3.5–3.8 in 2024 to 4.02 in May 2025 (data gathered from Qualtrics) for US & Canada, marking the first upward trend since improvement initiatives began. Survey completion rates increased in 2025 due to new templates and reminder systems for hired candidates, which were not in place at the start of the surveying process.
5.Optimization of job ads to better market roles and attract qualified talent
Optimizing job advertisements has been a game-changer in elevating the candidate experience and driving stronger hiring outcomes. By refining job descriptions, aligning keywords with market trends, and tailoring postings to specific talent pools, we have made roles more visible, relevant, and engaging. This shift has led to clearer communication, improved role clarity, and higher-quality applications-reflected in a rise in role clarity ratings from ~3.5 in 2024 to 3.71 in 2025 (data gathered from Qualtrics).
In Q4 2024, we further strengthened our strategy by embedding real-time market insights into the posting process. Leveraging platforms like Talent Neuron, we transitioned from reactive to intelligence-driven sourcing, aligning job ads with labor market dynamics, candidate behavior, and competitive benchmarks. A newly implemented strategy meeting framework ensures these insights actively shape each requisition, while a dedicated Power BI dashboard provides ongoing visibility into performance. Together, these enhancements have boosted candidate confidence, increased satisfaction scores, and positioned BASF as a more attractive employer in a competitive talent landscape.
6. Artificial Intelligence in the Recruiting process
With the advent and subsequent massification of use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in all aspects of professional life, we leaned into using AI in a way that ensured that our processes remained compliant with the legal environment, yet improved parts of our process that were transactional, repetitive, and prone to human error. Talent members are empowered to focus on making the process more humane, providing quality feedback, and focusing on higher level tasks.
Earlier this year, we implemented an ongoing project to optimize and streamline recruiting processes where the usage of our AI partner, Microsoft Copilot, created a significant improvement in the recruiting process. The first improvement consisted of using Copilot to automate the note-taking process during a Phone Screen, which allowed our recruiters to focus on the conversation, engage with the candidate, and produce a meaningful exchange.
This ensured harmonization of note taking, improvement of document filing and storing, and changed the way that recruiters conducted the conversation with the candidate.
Question 2: How did you build support and commitment within your team and your leadership to make these improvements? (Be as specific as possible with examples.)
The team strategically positioned the Talent Acquisition Optimization Project as a catalyst for advancing BASF’s broader business objectives. By clearly linking the initiative to our Talent Acquisition strategy and our unwavering commitment to operational excellence, we demonstrated how these improvements would elevate the quality of service delivered to our internal stakeholders. This framing helped leadership see the project not just as a process enhancement, but as a strategic enabler, aligning everyone around a shared vision and purpose from the outset. The initiative was launched in response to the following longstanding operational challenges in North America:
1) Fragmented workflows;
2) Inconsistent candidate experiences; and
3) Role ambiguity that hinder responsiveness and scalability.
Recognizing these pain points, the team led the transformation by introducing a centralized Talent Acquisition model designed to streamline operations, reduce redundancies, and enhance service delivery across North America.
To build team commitment, the Talent Acquisition team prioritized organizational and role clarity by defining detailed escalation paths/engagement models and educating the team on how to initiate them. Further, responsibilities across all levels, from Recruiters to Senior Managers, were codified ensuring that each team member understood their scope, impact and interdependencies with other roles. For example, by introducing a dedicated TAP role as the primary point of contact for Hiring Managers throughout the hiring lifecycle, communication was simplified, and decision-making was expedited enhancing the candidate-centric experience.
Change cannot be implemented without the support of Talent Acquisition members. In a change-oriented environment, connection between technical teams and leadership is vital to steer the ship forward in a timely manner. But change needs to be accepted by anyone involved or affected by it. Therefore, we have conducted extensive surveys to understand overall sentiment, need for technologies or modifications in the process, and even requested their participation in significant projects.
Question 3: Which of these improvements do you think are the most unique and innovative and why? (Be as specific as possible with examples for each.)
In transforming Talent Acquisition, we didn’t just optimize our team- we redefined our work. The following initiative stands out as the most innovative, not only for its originality but for the tangible value it delivered to candidates, hiring managers, and the business.
Power BI Dashboard
We built a dynamic, in-house dashboard that tracks the full candidate lifecycle at scale, from application to disposition, delivering far more than just reporting. This solution functions as a strategic compass, empowering decision-making at every level while driving financial efficiency and cost savings. By building our own solution instead of buying one, we avoided significant licensing and integration costs, gained flexibility to adapt quickly to business needs, and secured a scalable platform that can expand in scope and intelligence over time.
Agility is at the heart of our approach. Our platform enables us to quickly adapt to new requirements, integrate emerging technologies, and implement stakeholder feedback without the delays and constraints of vendor roadmaps. For example, when hiring managers requested new pipeline visualization features, we were able to design, test, and deploy them within two weeks, compared to the months-long timelines typical with external vendors. Similarly, when new compliance reporting requirements emerged, our team built and rolled out custom reporting modules in a matter of days, ensuring uninterrupted operations and full regulatory alignment.
Customization has also been a game-changer. Unlike off-the-shelf solutions, our platform allows for rapid iteration and continuous improvement, ensuring that our tools remain tightly aligned with our business objectives and candidate expectations.
Previously, requesting a custom report from the technical team involved lengthy back-and-forth exchanges and could take days or weeks. Now recruiting team members can access dashboards to run multi-level analyses and filter data by time, location, or role. That means Talent Acquisition can answer hiring-manager questions—whether operational or marketing-related—within a day, without intermediaries.
Improved data integrity has fundamentally transformed our hiring process. Recruiters and hiring managers now have real-time visibility into pipeline health, enabling proactive adjustments and faster, more informed decisions. For candidates, this translates into more timely updates, a greater sense of transparency, and ultimately, increased trust in the BASF hiring process. By embedding strategic insights directly into daily operations, our dashboard has shifted Talent Acquisition from reactive tracking to forward-looking orchestration, delivering measurable business impact, operational agility, and a sustainable competitive advantage in talent acquisition.
Artificial Intelligence:
We’ve embedded AI at the forefront of our Talent Acquisition process to strategically elevate decision-making. AI acts as a precision filter, rapidly identifying resumes that meet core role criteria such as skill and experience fit. But this is only the beginning, as every candidate slate is then curated by a recruiter and validated through a TAP review, applying a rigorous 4-eye principle to ensure fairness and quality. For candidates not selected, while we don’t audit every rejection, the AI’s filtering is governed by transparent, role-specific parameters, ensuring consistency and objectivity at scale. This hybrid model of intelligent automation and human oversight exemplifies how innovation can drive both efficiency and integrity in hiring.
Utilizing AI to delegate transactional, repetitive tasks has elevated the roles of Recruiters and Talent Acquisition Partners. By leveraging proven prompts, we overcame language barriers in communication, optimized reminders and weekly emails, and improved report clarity and comprehension.
Ultimately, we ensure Talent Acquisition can focus on candidates—their needs and how we can improve the process—resulting in a more humane experience.
Question 4: How do you know that your changes are making a difference and what data or evidence validates the innovative improvements you made? (Be as specific as possible with examples for each based on your people, your processes, and your technologies, and include any candidate quotes that validate the improvements made.)
Real innovation is proven by results. We assess every change through clear data and direct feedback, demonstrating measurable impact on our people, processes, and technologies.
- In 2024, the TA team underwent a strategic reorganization, centralizing sourcing and operations across North America. This led to reduced redundancies and a harmonization of the Talent Acquisition process. Consistent candidate experience is achieved regardless of the assigned recruiter. Consistency also allows us to respond to change faster and more efficiently, keeping the focus on delivering a smooth candidate experience without needing to adapt to individual approaches. While we typically meet time-to-hire KPIs, our key achievement this year was standardizing the process so roles across businesses and seasons close within similar timeframes as shown on the graph below:
- Being one of the 66 global CandE-winning companies with near to above benchmark average ratings in this year’s CandE Benchmark Research Program validates the improvements we’ve made are impactful. The Executive Summary sites marked improvement:
“BASF’s candidate experience NPS improved from -27 (2024) to -7 (2025), earning another CandE Award. Candidate resentment dropped from 20% to 11%, now matching top benchmarks.”
- Strengths:
- Hourly (nonexempt) candidates report excellent experiences (NPS 34), far above industry averages.
- Interview fairness is high (NPS 66).
- Withdrawn candidates feel respected (Withdraw NPS 42).
- Recruiters are praised for professionalism.
We made strong progress, especially in hourly roles with drastic improvement noted in the Interview and Offer process. Most candidates responded with the maximum score for each of the experiences and few candidates reported them as undesirable processes. Below are some candidate quotes captured through our Qualtrics dashboard.
“Everything went well. Communication from the recruiter to get me on-site was the best I have dealt with. The interview was timely, informative, and showed great people. Response on rejection along with reasons were also provided in a timely manner which a lot of companies don’t offer.”
— NA, June 5, 2025
“The application process was clear, agile, and easy to follow. The platform works intuitively and without technical difficulties.”
— NA, September 17, 2025
“It was honestly the most streamlined job application I’ve filled out in some time.”
— NA, September 17, 2025,
“The BASF online employment application system is a model of talent recruitment management for the industry to emulate. I appreciate the simplicity of uploading my credentials with confidence that it will be easy for the company’s recruiters to access, review, and share it effectively. The process is respectful and aligned with the values that make BASF a great place to build a career.”
— NA, September 13, 2025
“I appreciated everyone’s time. The recruiter was very good, and the interview team made the experience quite good. I clearly didn’t get the position, so I would have appreciated an email letting me know that, otherwise a very good experience.”
— NA, 2024
- Additionally, we built a data-driven ecosystem that validates every improvement through real-time metrics, candidate feedback, and operational outcomes. Here are two examples that illustrate how we’re making a difference:
- Time-to-Accept: Operational Efficiency with Human Impact
We reduced our median time-to-accept to 48 days, exceeding our SLA of 50 days. This improvement is not just operational—it directly enhances the candidate experience by accelerating decision timelines and reducing uncertainty.
- Qualtrics Survey Evolution: Listening and Acting
We revamped our Qualtrics Candidate Survey to include personalized templates and AI-structured feedback mechanisms and implemented a survey reminder which increased completion rates by proactively notifying hired candidates.
Question 5: Do you use any of your candidate experience benchmark data to quantify and demonstrate financial, referral, and/or employer branding business impacts and report to your leadership team, your recruiting team, and/or your hiring managers? If yes, how? (Be as specific as possible with examples.)
We’ve transformed candidate experience data from a passive metric into an active driver of business value. By embedding benchmark insights into our operational strategy, we’ve created a system where small, intentional changes, such as refining baseline questions or tracking silver medalist engagement, generate outsized impact at scale. These innovations have allowed us to quantify improvements in cost per hire, referral rates, and employer brand perception, and to share those insights across our EVP team, Talent Acquisition, and Hiring Managers.
We perform year-over-year analysis on our agency and third-party hires and always look for ways to improve our process. By offering more intelligent ways to approach the market, to advertise our jobs, to headhunt, and review candidates. Hiring Managers are choosing our services instead of opting for external agencies. Agency hires now represent 1.4% of our yearly hires compared to 1.8% last year, which directly impacts the bottom line. We continue to take measures to reduce agency hires and prove that our Recruiters, Sourcers, and Talent Acquisition Partners outperform agencies and preserve our employer brand identity and narrative to our candidates.
Our approach is rooted in collaboration and adaptability. We start by understanding what the industry is doing, then share those learnings internally with our EVP team and TA partners. Together, we use benchmark questions to surface actionable recommendations, which we then tailor to our context and implement through structured change management with Hiring Managers. This process has opened deeper conversations around cost per hire and candidate conversion, enabling us to make data-informed decisions that directly affect financial outcomes. For example, we’ve begun tracking the percentage of hires coming from candidate pools who applied to other requisitions, turning silver medalists into strategic assets. We’re also beginning to leverage recent hires to drive referrals, creating a virtuous cycle of engagement and advocacy. These efforts are not only improving efficiency but also strengthening our employer brand positioning.
We increased visibility of our employee referral program, which led to a dramatic rise in referrals: in the first six months of 2025 we matched all referral hires from 2024. This improvement reflects greater awareness of the referral policy, better role visibility, and a simpler referral process. We recognize referring employees through our recognition platform, which has helped reduce time-to-hire and lower recruitment costs.
Conclusion:
Our journey over the past year demonstrates that meaningful transformation is possible when innovation, data-driven insights, and a relentless focus on people converge. The measurable improvements in candidate satisfaction, operational efficiency, and business alignment are a testament to our team’s dedication and agility. By embedding technologies, fostering a culture of transparency, and leveraging real-time feedback, we have built a resilient, future-ready recruitment ecosystem. We are proud of the progress we have made, but we are even more energized by our commitment to continuous improvement. As we look ahead, we remain steadfast in our pursuit of excellence, ensuring that every candidate interaction reflects our values and strengthens our position as an employer of choice.
