CandE Benchmark Research Case Study – Delaware North

Welcome to the 2024 CandE Winner Case Study series. 

Each year, the CandE Benchmark Research Program collects case studies from CandE Winners – the employers with above-average candidate experience ratings in our research. These CandE Winners answer the following questions:

• What recruiting and candidate experience improvements have you made?
• How did you build support and commitment to make these improvements?
• Which improvements were the most innovative?
• How will you use your CandE Award in your employer branding?
• Do you use any of your CandE data to quantify business impact?

These are the employers from our 2024 CandE Program that invested in improving their recruiting, hiring, and candidate experience, reaping the ultimate benefits of a positive business impact – candidates more likely to apply again, to refer others, to be a brand advocate, and to be a customer for consumer-based businesses. 

This case study was from Delaware North. Delaware North is an American multinational food service and hospitality company headquartered in Buffalo, New York.

If you’re interested in participating in the 2025 CandE Benchmark Research Program, you can learn more about it here.

1. What recruiting processes and candidate experience key improvements have you identified and completed in the past 6-12 months? What data or evidence prompted you to make these changes? (Be as specific as possible with examples for each.)

We’ve implemented a lot of new processes and programs to improve the overall candidate experience:

Career Pathways program:

• Interview training: We have implemented comprehensive interview training programs to ensure that our interviewers are well prepared and consistent in their approach. The training is being rolled out across the U.S.
• Interview guide creation: We created a new guide to provide a standardized framework for conducting interviews. This initiative was driven by the need for a more structured and fair interview process. The interviewer can select the competencies to review as well functional questions, and a customized guide is generated to help guide them through the interview.
• Emails to current managers: We have added email notifications to the hiring process managers to keep them informed about their team members’ status on internal job opportunities and to encourage them to support their team members in pursuing new roles within the company.

Pre-boarding communications:

• Recruiters are taking over the responsibility of pre-boarding communications to ensure a smooth transition for new hires. Previously there was an inconsistent handoff to HR or the hiring manager after the background check process, but now the recruiter maintains contact through the pre-boarding phase. As part of this process, we’ve created standard email templates with packages of location-specific information for our U.S. properties. This change was made based on feedback from new hires who reported confusion and lack of communication during the pre-boarding phase.

Leadership assessments:

• We have introduced assessments for leadership roles to better evaluate candidates’ suitability for these positions. This decision was based on the need to ensure that our leaders possess the necessary skills and competencies to succeed in their roles. The assessments are used to help guide the interview as well as individualized development plans for internal leaders.

Improved instructions on accepting an offer:

• We have provided clearer instructions on how to accept a job offer, which has significantly reduced confusion among candidates and led to a higher percentage of completed offers without the need for follow up from our recruiters.

Talent Community emails:

• We are in the process of rolling out a regular calendar of Talent Community emails to keep potential candidates engaged and informed about opportunities within the company. This initiative aims to build a stronger talent pipeline and improve candidate engagement.

Team member life videos:

• We have started building a library of team member life videos, which we are adding to our microsites and job descriptions to improve the candidate experience through engaging and informative content.

Revised all job templates:

• We have revised all job templates to make it clear when experience and degree/qualifications are not required. This change was made to attract a broader pool of candidates and to ensure that we are not unnecessarily limiting our talent pool.

These improvements were driven by a combination of candidate feedback, internal assessments, and industry best practices. By implementing these changes, we aim to enhance our recruiting processes and provide a better experience for our candidates.

2. How did you build support and commitment within your team and the broader organization to make these improvements? How did you demonstrate and report on the importance of a quality candidate experience with your leadership team? (Be as specific as possible with examples.)

Here’s how we approached building support and commitment within Talent Acquisition and the broader organization while reinforcing the importance of a quality candidate experience:

• Clearly articulated to leadership that a poor candidate experience can lead to a direct loss in potential customers. Showcased data correlating a positive candidate experience with stronger brand loyalty, especially within the hospitality industry, where guest experience is paramount.
• Presented data on candidate satisfaction scores alongside guest satisfaction metrics to reinforce the connection. Demonstrated how candidate engagement impacted brand perception, particularly on social media and review platforms.
• Emphasized the cost benefits of internal hiring compared to external recruitment efforts. By highlighting the reduced expenses associated with internal mobility, we made a strong case for investing in employee development and career paths.
• Showed the need to grow talent internally as external market talent is increasingly limited and competitive. Highlighted the diversity benefits of internal promotions and the positive impact on leadership representation, which resonated strongly with organizational values and diversity goals.
• Introduced quarterly reporting that includes candidate feedback scores, time-to-hire metrics, and candidate drop-off rates. This reporting demonstrates areas for improvement and helps keep the focus on candidate experience at an executive level.
• Ran pilot initiatives to improve the candidate experience, such as new internal mobility processes and enhanced candidate communication, then presented measurable ROI through higher offer acceptance rates and improved candidate satisfaction.

These specific strategies helped align our team and organizational goals, allowing us to focus on fostering a quality candidate experience that’s intrinsically tied to our brand and operational outcomes.

3. Which of these improvements do you think are the most unique and innovative and why? How do you know that your changes are making a difference? What data or evidence validates the innovative improvements you made? (Be as specific as possible with examples for each based on your people, your processes, and your technologies, and include any candidate quotes that validate the improvements made.)

The Interview guide mentioned previously is one of our most innovative implementations. We had a few key challenges in building the guide: First, we did not have a tool to use or the budget for a new tool and, second, we did not want to create the infinite number of guides necessary for our diverse hiring needs. To solve these challenges, we came up with an Excel spreadsheet that dynamically builds a customized interview guide based on selections the interviewer makes. The interviewer selects the competency to focus on and the type of role, then they’re presented with a library of relevant questions that they can select to then build out their custom guide dynamically. In addition to the questions, there are instructions for conducting a consistent and fair interview. We did this because, while we are also training interviewers, just-in-time reminders of key points help drive these points home.

4. Whether you’ve won your first CandE Award or multiple CandE Awards, how will you publicly use the CandE Award, and what it represents, in your employer branding and recruitment marketing? (Be as specific as possible with examples.) 

Here’s how we publicly use the CandE Award to enhance our employer branding and recruitment marketing:

• Featured on Key Platforms: Prominently displayed on our Careers site job description pages, “About Us” page under the awards section, and updated profiles on Indeed and Glassdoor. This visibility reinforces our commitment to a quality candidate experience for prospective applicants.
• Social Media Promotion: Shared the Award news across our social media channels, with posts highlighting its significance and our team’s dedication to improving candidate experience. This helps build credibility and attract talent that values a strong candidate-focused organization.
• Internal Celebration and Global Communication: We celebrated internally with a special feature in our global newsletter and an email to the global HR team. The email included templates and creatives to empower team members to share the achievement on their LinkedIn profiles, further spreading awareness and pride across our networks.
• Country-Specific Promotion Plans: Developed specific internal and external promotion strategies for the U.S. and U.K. This targeted approach ensures alignment with regional branding and recruitment needs.

These efforts communicate the award’s importance in shaping a positive candidate experience, strengthening our employer brand, and demonstrating our commitment to excellence in talent acquisition.

5. Do you use any of your candidate experience benchmark data to quantify and demonstrate financial, referral, and/or employer branding business impact to your leadership team, your recruiting, and/or hiring managers? If yes, how? (Be as specific as possible with examples.) 

We regularly report on our candidate experience data. We also share overall data on our cost per application and cost per hire, highlighting how we can reduce our spend by improving the candidate experience. We share trends across regions, subsidiaries, and individual locations.