If it comes to contact with candidates, there will actually never be a ready-made candidate ship. Through targeted messaging and monitoring metrics are key indicators of your success, there’s just no simple or normal way to give anyone else an experience that’s existentially superior without putting in the time and tracking the metrics needed to show that your plan actually works.

It seems like the easiest way to go is to completely automate a human interaction based on combinations of several different factors that actually exist, but it won’t give you an advantage over your competition. There are so many different people in the mix and every sector and place can be very different.

Below are a few tips when designing or enhancing your candidate engagement strategy that will help your company simplify the recruiting process while maintaining relationships intact:

• Measure Candidate Ghosting: Where applicants do not answer at an appropriate pace. Ensure sure your job requirements are streamlined, your company brand plan evolved and the candidate path analyzed, including all correspondence, to ensure that you are doing what you can to boost candidate participation and overall interest in your organization.

• Stop Candidate Limbo: Kindly let them know if the candidate is a poor choice so that they can move on with their lives. Do not wait for them because of other concerns, or worse, so you can meet internal success targets. Stringing candidates around create an awkward environment for all parties which in the long run could hurt the bottom line of the organization.

Here are 5 key metrics some of our clients track when developing their candidate engagement strategy:

1. Level of completion of the application

Throughout the course of many years, Recruiter looked at the click-to-apply ratio for 500,000 career applications. Such programs came from over a dozen industries and were accessed on desktops or handheld devices and on various major application monitoring systems. The study found that 10.6% of job seekers are going to complete an application with less than 25 questions on it.

If you’re in touch with your candidates, they’re more likely to take the time to get on with the process. What are you doing to differentiate yourself from making the application process meaningful, maybe even fun?

2. Drop-Off Candidate

It depends on the industry, but if there are more than 30 percent of the drop-off levels, I suggest regrouping and looking at where better focus can be drawn. Also, what is your cadence of contact and what is your average response time for recruiters?

According to CareerBuilder’s “2019 Candidate Behavior Study,” which surveyed 5,016 candidates from the U.S. and Canada, “Most candidates (83%) say it would greatly improve the overall experience if employers could set expectations by providing a clear timeline of the hiring process.” Furthermore, 52% said they get frustrated most by the lack of response from potential employers during the job search process.

3. Time to Settle

I sometimes see the filling time hitting five weeks, and in some cases even more. Beyond an unreliable scheduling or interview process, the time it takes to fill a vacancy can be extended for different reasons. For different purposes, such as relocation, contractual obligation, etc., candidates can not always begin a position within the standard two-week period. This is why measuring the time it took from the day the job was available to the day an offer was finally accepted is always the easiest way to.

4. Cost of a poor candidate experience

The candidate experience has a huge impact, according to a study from the Talent Board, on whether or not candidates apply again, whether or not they refer others and whether or not they make purchases. Bad candidate experience will have an everlasting impact on the bottom line of your company.

You can start monitoring the cost of a bad candidate experience by measuring the total number of candidates applying to your open positions, as well as the number of candidates rejected. Then consider the total candidate dissatisfaction rate of 11 percent, according to the analysis of the Talent Board, and the average dollar spending of the client. This will help you uncover future missing clients and a starting point for recognizing the effects of bad candidate experience.

5. Stats

Make sure you’re promoting a user-friendly, search-engine-optimized career platform that provides candidates the opportunity to sign up for work notifications and the opportunity to stay in contact with your employer brand through various marketing initiatives.

What makes an accomplished applicant excellent is building a shared practice within the team that everyone will rely on. However, without monitoring these metrics, you can not improve your applicant experience because they will help promote your results, strengthen your employer brand, and help identify what may be wrong with your recruitment process. In addition, being able to monitor your progress would help you build a business case for more investment to enhance the overall recruiting process.