What recruiting can learn from e-commerce.

You are looking for a job and you have stumbled upon a job platform. The job descriptions all sound the same and nobody really wants to tell you what you will earn either.

You click through to the company's website to apply and are greeted by a long form. To top it all off, you have to enter the details from your CV into the form all over again, just to make it easier for the company to process the data.

After submitting the form, nothing happens at first, except silence. You are not sure whether your application has even arrived and have no way of checking.

A week later, you still haven't heard anything and you write to the company to ask if your application has arrived. A friendly member of staff replies to say that the application has arrived and that they will get in touch if they are interested. Unfortunately, you are not told when that will be.

The scenario described happens every day in all sorts of variations (many of them even more absurd) in the application processes of countless corporations. We think things could be a lot better than that. For this, a small thought experiment: How would an e-commerce expert approach it?

Job advertisement

In recruitment, we don't want to sell a mattress in this case, but something else: ourselves as a suitable employer for qualified candidates.

The days when recruiting just consisted of filtering and rejecting applicants are long gone. The job market is more competitive than ever and in many sectors, it is now an employee's market, not an employer's market. Nevertheless, many companies design their job advertisements and career pages as if they would prefer fewer applicants.

Seen through the eyes of an e-commerce expert, we would first think through exactly what information is truly relevant for the visitor to the site and how we can best present it. After that, we would test different variations to find the best “conversion rate”, because after all, we don't want to lose any applicant unnecessarily.

Furthermore, we would differentiate between products / jobs precisely. Instead of just looking for generic “software developers”, we would create several postings with different areas of focus, where we think specific applicants would feel addressed directly.

Application form

Once inside the application form, we would remind ourselves of one of the most important ground rules in e-commerce: every additional step and every additional field costs customers. Customers expect us to make it as easy as possible for them to spend their money. If we don't do that, they have plenty of time and frustration as a reason to change their minds.

We would give digitally active applicants the opportunity to simply connect their LinkedIn profile. And for everyone else, a PDF upload would suffice; we would automate the analysis in the background using OCR software. With a chat plugin, we would ensure that applicants have someone available right away if they have questions.

Application process

As soon as the application reaches us, we would immediately send an automated confirmation that the application has been received and communicate a timeline for when the applicant can expect a response. Additionally, we would provide a link to an FAQ with important information about the company and the application process. Instead of “order received”, “order being packed” and “parcel is on the way”, we would send the applicant updates on the application process and whether they are still in the running. If we have to disappoint them, we would send a personal message explaining the circumstances and invite them to try again in the future.

Conclusion

As customers, we would never accept what is still standard today on career pages and in application processes. With small changes, the experience for applicants can be significantly improved, and with it the quantity and quality of applications. That is why we have specialised as a company in this area, among others, and have our own sister company, Sociahiro, which focuses on automated job applications. But even we are still at the beginning, and we believe that a huge leap in quality is still to come in this area over the next few years. Our ambition is to lead this quality leap.