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 Room & Board. Founded in 1980 and 100% employee owned, Room & Board manufactures modern furniture & home decor and has more than 1,100 staff members from our Minneapolis, Minnesota, headquarters to stores and delivery centers nationwide.
If you’re interested in participating in the 2025 CandE Benchmark Research Program, you can learn more about it here.
- 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 committed to providing candidates with an update from a human about their application status within five business days of submission, reduced from our previous timeframe of 10 days.
- We created a process for putting newly approved requisitions “on recruiting hold” when our requisition workload is high. We implemented a proactive strategy by establishing a threshold for active requisitions. Once this threshold is reached, we place additional requisitions on a “recruiting hold.” These roles are documented in our weekly recruiting summary, which is shared with senior leadership. Additionally, we collaborate closely with our leaders to prioritize these roles, ensuring that as capacity becomes available, we focus on the most critical positions first. This approach not only helps us manage our workload effectively but also enhances the overall candidate experience by allowing us to dedicate the necessary time and resources to each search.
- We enhanced our ATS dashboard to empower recruiters with actionable insights for prioritizing candidate outreach more effectively. The updated dashboard highlights candidates nearing the five-day follow-up deadline after applying, as well as those who are “stalled” in the workflow without any recent activity. By providing essential data to our team, we can prioritize effectively and uphold our commitment to delivering a candidate experience that surprises and delights. This enables our team to work with greater confidence, knowing that things are less likely to slip through the cracks.
- We are continuously expanding our library of email and text templates to enhance our communication with candidates, while keeping the effort minimal for the recruiter.
- 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.)
At Room & Board, we are deeply committed to delivering exceptional products and services to our customers —whether it’s through the shopping experience, our delivery to homes or businesses, or continued support long after their furniture has arrived. This dedication is reflected in our impressive customer Net Promoter Score (NPS), which consistently averages 88%. Equally important, we recognize that our employer brand and candidate experience are vital components of our overall consumer brand. After all, today’s customers can easily become tomorrow’s candidates.
Our leadership’s support became particularly evident when we proposed participating in the CandE Awards in 2023. We effectively demonstrated how enhancing the candidate experience parallels improving the customer experience, making a compelling case for our initiative. By sharing our initial CandE results, we kept our leadership engaged and informed as we worked to elevate our candidate experience.
During a challenging transition period earlier this year, we faced a surge in job requisitions. In response, we implemented the “recruiting hold” strategy, strategically linking it to our commitment to a quality candidate experience. This alignment not only reassured our leaders but also garnered their continued support, reinforcing the importance of prioritizing candidates as valuable stakeholders in our brand.
- 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.)
Among the improvements we’ve implemented, establishing a threshold for open requisitions and placing them on hold once that threshold is reached stands out as particularly unique and innovative. Traditionally, many organizations underestimate how a recruiter’s workload can impact the candidate experience and the ability to effectively address the hiring needs of the business. Recognizing that there is a finite limit to how many requisitions a recruiter can manage simultaneously is a crucial insight.
When recruiters are overwhelmed with a large volume of requisitions, their efforts become reactive, which can severely hinder their performance in meeting both immediate and long-term hiring goals. This overload not only disconnects recruiters from the business but also limits their ability to identify and implement strategic initiatives that foster talent pipelines for future needs. Additionally, it constrains their capacity to engage in project work that enhances operational effectiveness and promotes their professional growth.
By implementing this threshold, we prioritize quality over quantity, enabling recruiters to maintain a high standard of engagement with candidates. This approach allows them to effectively identify the best candidates for each requisition while proactively building talent pipelines for future hiring.
To evaluate the effectiveness of these changes, we have been closely monitoring key performance indicators related to candidate satisfaction and recruitment efficiency. The feedback we’ve gathered from candidates has been overwhelmingly positive, indicating that they are experiencing a more personalized and responsive hiring process. Our candidate ranking went from 35th place in 2023 to 17th in 2024. Another significant impact has been a recruiter’s capacity to identify applicants to nurture for future hiring needs decreasing time to fill from a standard nine weeks, down to three weeks on average.
Furthermore, while the shift from managing data in disparate spreadsheets to centralizing it within our ATS may not appear revolutionary at first glance, it is, in fact, a crucial enhancement that significantly elevates our recruitment process. By integrating data management directly into the ATS, we have enhanced workflows, enabling recruiters to quickly and efficiently access vital information without the cumbersome task of tracking and monitoring data in separate spreadsheets. This transformation not only saves time but also improves accuracy and collaboration across the team.
We measure the impact of these changes through several key indicators. Notably, there has been a significant reduction in the time spent on administrative tasks, which has freed up recruiters to focus on building meaningful relationships with candidates. Furthermore, team feedback indicates increased satisfaction with the recruitment process, as they now have the necessary tools to elevate the candidate experience. Overall, this shift to a more data-driven approach within our ATS is proving to be transformative for our recruitment strategy.
- 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.)
We will add posts to our company’s LinkedIn page and promote our CandE Award and our candidate experience in our professional posts to LinkedIn. We’ll also talk about the Award in conversations with candidates as well as peers throughout the industry. Additionally, we’ll include it in the footer of some of our email communication templates to candidates.
- 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.)
While we have not yet pinpointed specific benchmark data that directly correlates with business impact, a high NPS score often signals that candidates are not only satisfied but are also likely to recommend us to others, which can enhance our employer brand and increase referrals. This recognition through the CandE Award further validates our efforts and reinforces the importance of investing in a positive candidate experience, making it a compelling point of discussion for our leadership team and hiring managers, emphasizing the strategic value of investing in candidate experience.