Delayed Responses, Lost Opportunities: The Cost of Ineffective Candidate Engagement

Now here’s Janine Davis. She’s a driven recruiter at “Apex Talent”. Always in-between screening candidates, sifting job openings, employer requirements, matching candidates credentials with the prerequisites. Above all, she is living up to the expectations of hiring managers, and she was just acing it all!

Apex Talent, the recruitment firm, has been her professional home for 12 years. Over the time, the firm had flourished well, in fact, it has evolved into a powerhouse of talent acquisition, all thanks to her dedication and insight.

Janine has been instrumental in creating efficient processes because of which her team has always been a step ahead in identifying the perfect candidates.

Lately, however, things were no longer working as seamlessly as they used to.

Janine’s professional life suddenly took an inexplicable turn. Now she would have to wait endlessly for candidates to reply, with all follow-ups seeming like echoes in a void. When candidates did respond, they often dropped off mid-process, without a clear explanation.

But a deeper shift was happening. She started observing a growing challenge with the influx of profiles from younger generations, especially the fresh graduates. This new segment of individuals were tech-savvy, or in other words, these people were more mobile oriented and hence, slightly  difficult to engage. Ironically, emails sent to these cohort went unanswered. The responses, if any, were delayed and often lacked the engagement expected.

As Janine struggled to make sense of it, she realized the younger generation was not really very much in sync to co-ordination via traditional channels the way previous candidates had. Due to  which,  her recruitment process, was becoming increasingly hard to converge.

Realizing the landscape had changed, and now candidates spent most of their time on smartphones, Janine decided to touch base according to their terms - and that is, mobile-based communication. After all, she thought, the freshers might be more responsive to texts.

However, managing the influx of text messages became even more complicated. Candidates started reaching out across different messaging platforms.

The Result!

Janine became overloaded with work. She, constantly, found herself juggling conversations on her mobile device. The daily schedule went haywire.

Missed calls became a constant issue. The new order was - every time she was on one call, she would surely miss the other. As candidates experienced delayed responses, some grew impatient and moved on to opportunities elsewhere.

To make things worse, her ability to manage multiple channels effectively was crumbling, and her frustration mounted.

If this was not enough, when she tried to provide hiring managers with updates, unfortunately, the information wasn’t always complete. It seemed as if she is totally oblivious of her role, making her appear out of sync. Every unanswered email and unreturned call, made sure her reputation was getting tarnished.

Her workload kept escalating. Although Apex Talent scaled, the number of roles she needed to fill skyrocketed, but the resources to support her remained the same.

Outdated spreadsheets, clunky CRM systems, and dozens of email threads became instrumental in pushing her to the brink of burnout. It was no longer just a question of hiring efficiency - Janine’s mental and emotional resilience was being tested.

And then came the feedback!

Hiring managers began voicing frustrations:

• “What’s causing the delay?”
• “Candidates are choosing our competitors over us, why?”
• “Is this really that difficult to find someone for this role?”

Janine doubled her efforts but the results were not showing, causing her to doubt her potential. She thought, “Am I the problem, or is the process not working as it should?”

So, what was actually happening?

Here’s the bigger picture:

• Non-responding Candidates: A lack of timely follow-ups from candidates caused delays and throws the process off track.
• Broken Communication: There was no automation so manually reaching out across channels caused fragmented conversations.
• Overburdened with tasks: Tracking various roles and multiple candidates without any assistance of tools became slightly messy.
• Missed Prospects: Top talent moves on because the process isn’t quick or engaging enough.
• Distracted Candidates: While Janine reached out, the candidate was either in their personal space or not in a good mood to talk.

What’s the cost of these challenges?

• Extended hiring timeline, frustrating hiring managers and damaging relationships.
• Letting the best candidates to slip away.
• Mental drain from recruitment like Janine experienced, consequently the effect would make it even harder to retain top recruitment talent.

What will it take Janine or recruitment firm, like Apex Talent to succeed?

How can they adapt to the changing expectations and remain agile in a competitive market? How can they enhance their communication to stay ahead of hiring managers needs and demands? What can they do to improve the candidate experience throughout the recruitment process?

And above all, how can they maintain the same level of enthusiasm and energy that fueled their early success?

The answers lie in small but significant shift - something that could be unfolding soon. Stay tuned!

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