Candidate Experience Survey Questions

Candidate experience survey questions

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 Candidate experience survey questions are the foundation for a strong focus on candidate satisfaction for most organizations. At Survale, we are often asked by prospective clients “do we have to come up with questions or do you have them?” Oh, we have them alright. Our pre-built templates provide candidate experience survey questions that clients can use as is or customize. But if you don’t use Survale, you are welcome to use our questions which I’ll provide shortly. But first…

Candidate Experience Survey Questions and Frequency

Please don’t use these questions to do one survey and assume you are getting a strong value. The key to candidate experience surveys is to request feedback often, keep it brief and DO something with the feedback. So many organizations gather up their applicants from the previous 6-12 months, send out a candidate experience survey and then move on to the next item of the day. They often discover areas they can improve and they may or may not implement those improvements. But the value is weak at best and here’s why. Candidate experience survey questionsRemember your most recent job search? How many places did you apply? Dozens? Hundreds? Now imagine getting a survey from an organization asking you what your experience was with their process. I guarantee you won’t remember unless a hiring manager disrespected your time or they presented you with a parting gift after the interview. The point is, most candidates can remember little about your organization let alone what happened within the hiring process. So take these questions and please, please, please use them at least monthly. Better yet, send specific candidate experience surveys at each stage of the candidate lifecycle:
  • Career site visitor
  • Applicant
  • Phone screen
  • Interview
  • Offer letter
  • Declined/accepted offer
  • First week of employment
  • Three month check in
  • Six month check in
  • First year quality of hire survey

Create a Recruiting Feedback Culture

Many Survale clients use candidate experience surveys as a first step toward creating a recruiting culture that thrives on feedback. They get feedback from candidates, feedback from hiring managers, feedback from recruiters and more. And they use that feedback to optimize every facet of their processes. With this kind of focus (and a platform that automates gathering and analyzing all this feedback) how could you NOT deliver world class recruiting results?

The Candidate Experience Survey Questions

Now that I’ve put these questions into a greater context, have at ‘em: Pre Applicant
  • Searching for the job was: Difficult, Neutral, Easy
  • If you filled out an application, the application process was: Difficult, Neutral, Easy
  • BEFORE applying my perception of [company] as an Employer was: Negative, Neutral, Positive
  • AFTER applying my perception of [company] as an Employer was: Negative, Neutral, Positive
  • Based on your experience with [company] SO FAR, how likely are you to refer someone to work here?  (Net Promoter score)
  • What went well with your search/apply experience? How can we improve? (open ended question)
Post Applicant – Interview
  • How prepared was your interviewer? Not Prepared, Prepared, Very Prepared
  • Did the interviewer have a copy of your resume? No, Yes, I Don’t Know
  • How were the interviewers manners? Poor, Neutral, Great
  • How knowledgeable was the interviewer about the role? Poor, Neutral, Great
  • Did the interviewer make good use of your time? No, Somewhat, Yes
  • Please provide any additional information that would help us improve your experience. (open ended question)
  • Based on your experience so far, how likely are you to refer someone to work at [company)? (Net Promoter Score)
A couple of notes on questions. Always include an open ended question to get specific feedback you can use to understand what is going well and what is not from an anecdotal standpoint. Always use a Net Promoter questions to measure overall satisfaction at each stage. This will allow you to benchmark your results against other organizations. Survale, for example will benchmark your results against the Talent Board’s Candidate Experience Award participants and winners. Finally, you can use three point, five point, 10 or 100 point scales. The answers above simply define the low, middle and high points of whatever scale you choose.

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