Candidate experience in recruitment: why trust is the signal that matters

Jobylon has gathered more than 5 million data points on candidate experience over several years, mostly from European markets. The picture is clear. Applying for a job is tough right now.

On Jobylon's platform, the average number of applicants per job has risen about 43% since 2021. AI explains part of the rise by making applying easier, and candidates also describe recruitment as:

• Impersonal: they meet AI bots, screening tools and automated steps, often with no explanation of why these are used.
• Slow: processes keep getting longer, with more steps added along the way.

For the CEO of a global company, hiring is one of a million priorities, and candidate experience is a small part of it.

Alex's first answer was simple. "Recruitment is always about humans," he said. Every applicant has hopes and ambitions, and they chose your organisation. It's easy to forget that once the conversation turns to automation and predictive validity.

Compassion doesn't move the share price, though, and the business case is just as strong.

• The bar is low, so small improvements stand out. "Generally, candidate experience is quite bad," Alex said. "So if you're slightly better than average, you're actually differentiating yourself."

• Your employer brand is your brand. Think about why someone visits a company website. Very often, it's because they're looking for a job. A large share of your web traffic is potential candidates, so their experience shapes how they see your whole company.

• Bad experiences shrink your talent pool. People who have a bad experience as a candidate tell their friends, and word spreads. That's easy to ignore while every posting attracts hundreds of applicants, but it starts to cost you when the economy picks up. "Your candidate pool always shrinks the worse your experience is," Alex said. Competitors who invested in candidate experience will have the larger pool.

Emilia asked whether candidates should simply choose how they're assessed. Jobylon's data points to a better fix.

A typical process includes a psychometric test, a skills evaluation, a case-based interview and reference checks. Candidates generally understand why each step exists, but when asked whether they trust these methods to show they're a good fit, the numbers drop sharply.

Interviews score relatively well, because candidates feel they get to show who they are. Psychometric assessments score lower. Candidates often can't see what the test has to do with the job.

One change makes a clear difference: explain your assessment process. When employers say which methods they use and why, candidate trust grows. Alex was clear that nobody will suddenly love taking tests, but candidates move from "why am I doing this?" to "I understand, and I trust it more."

Employers should still choose the methods, because they know what the role requires. A single sentence that starts "We use assessments because…" closes much of the trust gap. You can put it in the job ad, on a landing page, or in the email that invites candidates to the next step.

In Assessio's white paper The Science of Selection, Emilia explained, choosing a selection method means balancing four things:

1. Prediction: how well the method identifies the right person for the job.

2. Cost: a six-month trial for every applicant would be accurate, but it isn't realistic.

3. Fairness: whether the method treats every group of candidates equally.

4. Candidate experience: how the process feels to the person going through it.

Fairness has two sides. Research measures objective fairness through adverse impact, meaning how likely a method is to structurally disadvantage certain groups. Candidates judge perceived fairness, and that depends largely on face validity, meaning how relevant a method looks.

These two don't always line up. For example, candidates trust contextualised personality assessments, which ask about behaviour at work, more than general ones. Meanwhile, a well-designed psychometric assessment can be more objective than a conversation between two people. "If we put a human in a room with another human, you're going to have bias," Alex said. Explaining this to candidates helps them see that a test can give them a fairer chance, not a worse one.

Emilia added that candidates judge fairness on several levels:

• The method: does the way I'm assessed seem fair?

• The outcome: does the result seem fair?

• The information: am I told what I need to know?

• The treatment: am I treated as a person, not as a number?

The last two depend almost entirely on communication.

Automation itself is not the problem, since some of Assessio's clients receive 5,000 applications for a single role, and nobody can interview all of those people. In high-volume recruitment, automation and AI are necessary.

The risk lies in automating too much, too fast, without telling candidates. Alex shared an example he liked. A recruiter told applicants upfront that the team uses AI and automation because of the volume of applications, and that personal feedback isn't possible. They were honest about the limits and fast at telling people whether they were moving forward.

A fully automated process can still treat candidates with respect, as long as you're honest about how it works.

Alex's advice for quick improvements is to start with the role, not the tools.

Your competency profile describes what you need to know about a candidate. For each item on it, pick a method that actually measures it. For choosing the right selection method, the trade-offs look like this:

• Personality assessments are cost-effective and work well for measuring personal characteristics. Candidate experience can dip, which may be acceptable at high volume.

• Behaviour-based interviews give rich insight into how someone handled past situations. They take time, though, so consider how many candidates you expect and when you need the information.

A process designed this way also works for candidates, who are assessed on what actually matters for the role and are more likely to land in one that fits them. The wrong role can lead to burnout, or to "bore-out" from not being challenged enough.

Framing matters here as well. Candidates may doubt personality assessments, yet people often say their personality explains much of their success at work. When you show how an assessment connects to the job, it starts to make sense.

When the audience asked what employers most often get wrong about signalling in hiring, Alex pointed to Jobylon's data. Year after year, candidates ask for the same three things:

1. What the culture is really like. They want a feel for it, ideally on video, rather than lofty value words.

2. What a normal day looks like. Who will I meet? How does the morning start?

3. Whether they can grow. Is there a path to new roles and responsibilities

Employers often answer these questions too late or too vaguely. Culture gets described in abstract terms, and growth only comes up a year into the role. Make these signals clear early, in the job ad, on your career site, and in the interview.

At the end of the session, Emilia asked Alex for three takeaways to improve candidate experience and turn it into a competitive advantage. He kept it short:

1. We're all humans.

2. Communicate. Explain what you do and why you do it.

3. Remember that your candidate pool shrinks the worse you treat your candidates.