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Recruitment Survey: Measuring the Candidate Experience

1 min read
December 3, 2025
Recruitment Survey: Measuring the Candidate Experience

The current job market poses a challenge for many companies. What’s going on? Let’s review some illustrative CBS figures with you. In the Netherlands, there is a historically low unemployment rate (3.1% in 2023 compared to 3.6% in 2022). Moreover, there has been a growing vacancy rate for three consecutive years; in 2023, this number was 123,000.

In a job market where labor participation is high (72.2%), this means that organizations must make an effort to attract candidates. In short, candidates have many options. When a candidate shows interest in your organization and applies, you want to provide them with a good candidate experience. This is how candidates are treated during the application process, from the first contact to the final decision, as it greatly influences their perception of your company.

Let’s illustrate this with research and opportunities during an application. We look at three personas: Candidates, new employees, and rejected candidates.

Candidates in the recruitment process

It is extremely important to provide candidates with a positive recruitment experience for the following reasons. When they have a positiverecruitment experience, they are more likely to:

  • Accept a job offer (Maurer et al., 2013)
  • Recommend the company to others (Ambler & Schminke, 2009)
  • Become a loyal employee (Hinkin & Tracey, 1996)

A positive experience is built from various elements, such as:

  • Clear and transparent communication (Arvey et al., 2009)
  • Fair and respectful treatment (Bauer & Erdogan, 2011)
  • Smooth and efficient recruitment process (Rynes & Barber, 1992)

Candidates who have a negative recruitment experience are more likely to:

  • Reject the offer (Organ & Ryan, 1995)
  • Give the company a bad reputation (Gatewood & Feild, 1998)
  • Be dissatisfied with their job (Griffeth et al., 2000)

Elements of a negative experience include:

  • Rude or unprofessional recruiters
  • Long waiting times
  • Lack of feedback
  • Questions irrelevant to the position

Candidate experiences

  • When a candidate and organization decide to move forward together and the candidate joins as an employee, they carry this experience with them. The recruitment experience impacts the employee’s performance, both positively and negatively.

    With a positive recruitment experience, ‘new hires’ are more likely to:

    • Be engaged in their work (Meyer et al., 2006)
    • Be productive (Kuvaas & Dysvik, 2005)
    • Stay with the company long-term (Hom & Griffeth, 1995)

    New hires who have a negative recruitment experience are more likely to:

    • Be dissatisfied with their job (Griffeth et al., 2000)
    • Experience stress (Saks & Ashforth, 1997)
    • Look for another job (Mobley et al., 1979)

    As you can see, the experience during the recruitment process can have a significant impact on the employee and (in)directly on business operations and customer experience.

  • Of course, not every candidate is ultimately hired. However, it is important that candidates who are rejected during the recruitment process have received a good and positive impression of your organization. This way, they can continue to function as ambassadors.

    Rejected candidates who have a positive recruitment experience are more likely to:

    • Continue to follow the company (Saks & Ashforth, 1997)
    • Recommend the company to others (Ambler & Schminke, 2009)
    • Apply for another position at the company in the future (Maurer et al., 2013)

    Elements of a positive experience:

    • Quick and friendly rejection
    • Explanation of the reason for rejection
    • Opportunity to provide feedback

    Rejected candidates who have a negative recruitment experience are more likely to:

    • Give the company a bad reputation (Gatewood & Feild, 1998)
    • Be dissatisfied with how they were treated (Organ & Ryan, 1995)
    • No longer consider the company for future applications (Maurer et al., 2013)

Data-driven Talent Acquisition

It remains essential to continue measuring candidates’ perceptions of the quality and effectiveness of your recruitment process and staff. This includes:

  • Candidate satisfaction: How did they experience the process? Was the communication clear, and did they feel valued?
  • Recruiter effectiveness: Was the recruiter friendly, helpful, and professional?
  • Process efficiency: How long did the process take, and was the turnaround time acceptable?

Based on this, you can establish KPIs for Talent Acquisition, such as eNPS per recruiter and evaluations from candidates and managers on turnaround time, friendliness, and responsiveness.

By making data-driven decisions and improving your recruitment process based on concrete feedback, you can strive for a better candidate experience and thereby increase the chances of attracting top candidates for your company.

Highberg Solution

At Highberg, we offer a recruitment procedure questionnaire that evaluates the experiences of the candidate, manager, and recruiter. This provides a balanced insight into the experiences of all parties involved throughout the process, making it easier to identify and address areas for improvement, such as communication, turnaround time, and expectations.

Our solution can be seamlessly integrated into your daily recruitment process, so it is automatically triggered by certain actions, such as rejections or acceptances. This closes the feedback loop and allows for immediate improvements.

The results of the evaluations can be displayed in a standard PowerBI dashboard, which can flexibly run within your own infrastructure or that of Highberg, depending on your preferences and requirements. This provides a clear and visual representation of the data, allowing you to quickly gain insight into the performance of your recruitment process and make necessary adjustments if needed.

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