When applicants are looking for a new job, they are hyper-aware of everything happening around them. They are looking for something in those first interactions that may stop them from accepting a job offer, attending an interview, or even responding to you at all. Applicant ghosting is at an all-time high, and it could be because people are looking for more information than ever before, and it’s out there!

Unfortunately, you can only control so much of the information on the internet. That’s why you must make a great first impression on potential employees.

• Your Company Culture

What’s it like at your company? Company culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and practices that shape a workplace’s social and psychological environment. It encompasses how people interact with each other, how decisions are made, how conflicts are resolved, and how work is organized and accomplished.

A company’s culture can be reflected in various aspects, such as its mission and vision statements, code of conduct, hiring and promotion practices, communication and collaboration processes, and physical and virtual workspaces. It can also influence employee motivation, job satisfaction, productivity, retention, and the perception of customers, partners, and stakeholders.

A positive company culture fosters a sense of purpose, belonging, trust, and innovation among employees and helps to attract and retain top talent. In contrast, a negative or toxic company culture can lead to high turnover, low morale, poor performance, and reputational damage.

• Perks of Working With You

Why should someone leave the job they know and work with your company? It’s an important question to be able to answer because it’s part of your pitch. If you can’t answer the question, it’s worth discussing internally. 

Even if you can’t put it into a single sentence, it’s important to weave this throughout your conversations.

• Benefits

What benefits do you offer? This should be listed in your official job description! People aren’t going to apply for your job if they don’t see things they already have or things they want. Increasingly, benefits are the most significant selling points for someone making the switch – and can help attract more qualified candidates.

Listing your benefits and clearly defining them is important – “a robust benefits package” might not be enough.

• Recognition of Hard Work

Do you recognize hard work? Think about how you talk about your workforce, the person exiting the role the new applicant is taking over, and other people in the department. It’s easy to make off-handed jokes to seem approachable or fun, but be careful not to cross the line.

Explain to your applicant how you recognize and reward hard work – this all ties back to company culture.

• Work-Life Balance

What’s the work-life balance like at your organization? Is it something that you think about? Burnout is a huge thing people are thinking about, and having a life outside of work is important to many people. Especially for the younger generation, having a workplace that prioritizes that balance is essential. 

How can someone know about this from their first interactions with you? It’s in the way you talk about the job, your reviews online, and whether you talk about it or not.

• Room for Advancement

Do you have a succession plan for your opening? Are there a lot of successions within your workforce? Showing room for growth and development within your organization from a role perspective is essential. Room for advancement within a role is also important (more on that in a bit), but showing that someone can grow within their career is vital. No one wants to stay in one place for their entire career. If someone doesn’t see room for advancement, they may not take a role that seems perfect for them. 

If you can, map out what success looks like for this role and what that success could mean. A succession planning tool could help you do this.

• Education and Training Opportunities

What opportunities do you have for someone to learn something new? This doesn’t necessarily have to be something for advancement, but it could be. Most people are wired to want to learn and do new things. Some people appreciate doing the same things every day, but most enjoy some variety. Make it clear if your organization has the training, education, and upskilling opportunities. For example, you can show off your learning management system or highlight other people in the department who did the same thing. These are the types of things that show you really care about your employees.

• Reliability

How reliable are you? No one expects you to answer them in a few minutes, but if their emails go unanswered for over 24 hours, things start to be questionable for the applicant. Sometimes life does get busy, so some applicants may be willing to overlook it. However, you likely notice if someone goes too long without an answer, so they’ll notice the same thing.

If you do go over 24 hours, it doesn’t mean all is lost. You can still get a great applicant, but it significantly reduces your chances of them signing. People want to know that the HR team, in particular, is reliable and trustworthy. 

• The Tone of Your Workplace

What’s the overall feeling around your workplace? People can pick up on these feelings and understand the environment they’ll be working in on a daily basis. Do your emails sound rushed and like you’re struggling to fit everything into your day? Or are they composed and thoughtful? 

You can’t always control the way someone receives your words and thoughts. What you can control, however, is your approach. Setting up automated email templates within your applicant tracking system can help you send a response email in a shorter amount of time and still have it seem thoughtful. For things like offer letters, you can have the format perfected so that, while it should take you some time, it doesn’t have to take hours.

• Whether They Want To Work For You

That’s right – within the first few interactions with you, a candidate is going to know whether or not they want to work with you, your team, and your organization. Why? They’ll be able to tell how you treat each other, how much pressure you’re under, and so much more. This will give them that “gut feeling” that so many of us rely on to make decisions.

Think about it, if you had a bad experience with a hiring process, our team in Reqruit Asia is happy to help you to find the most suited candidate. Just feel free to contact us and our team will reply to you soon!