Collectively, the top 10 rated Candidate Experience Award Winners this year in North America have earned 56 awards over the past 12 years, averaging nearly six awards each. One company is a first-time winner, but the rest have won multiple awards.
Why does it matter? It matters because these awards are solely based on the employers’ candidate feedback and ratings via our annual benchmark research program. Most of the candidates are rejected candidates – 90% of them. You can read more about the CandE Awards this year in our announcement from mid-September.
Okay, but why does it matter? It matters because we’ve all undergone many changes over the past 12 years, especially four years. Before the pandemic and since the mortgage crisis, we conducted our benchmark research in a growth market. Our candidate experience ratings were very consistent over those years, with minor fluctuations.
Then came 2020, and ever since, the world has experienced significant challenges that have impacted the economy, job growth, and society in general:
- Recession and Economic Contraction: Many countries faced severe economic contractions in 2020, leading to a global recession. Recovery has been uneven across different regions and sectors and continues to be volatile.
- Inflation: Rising inflation has been a notable concern, driven by supply chain issues, increased demand, job growth, and the effects of stimulus measures.
- Job Insecurity: There has been a rise in temporary, part-time, and gig economy jobs, leading to greater job insecurity and fewer worker benefits. Layoffs continue, and the unemployment rate has increased in the past year.
- Skill Gaps: Rapid changes in the job market and the growth of AI have highlighted skill gaps, with many workers needing retraining to adapt to new roles and industries.
- Dismantling DEI: Since the Supreme Court decided to strike down Affirmative Action, some corporations have dismantled their DEI programs and laid off DEI staff, sending confusing values and culture messaging to underrepresented groups.
- Widening Inequality: The pandemic exacerbated existing social and economic inequalities, disproportionately affecting marginalized communities and low-income households, and these inequalities continue.
- Widening Insecurity: Political polarization and global conflicts like the war in Ukraine, the Israel–Hamas war, and the threat of other authoritarian governments continue to add to the world’s instability.
- Mental Health Crisis: Increased levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues have been observed, driven by isolation, financial stress, and uncertainty.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacts every facet of our lives and will impact us positively and negatively in the future. However, the regulations that are needed are few and vague.
Add in climate change and extreme weather. I should probably stop. But closer to the world of work, we’ve had business leadership turnover, HR and recruiting leadership turnover, and recruiting team turnover and reductions that have left organizations struggling with their recruiting and retention efforts.
Nine of the top 10 North America CandE Winners (yes, there are CandE Winners in EMEA, APAC, and Latin America) have sustained a quality candidate experience over time, especially within the past four years. Who are the top 10? What industries are they in? How big are they? Well, here they are:
We’ve only just begun to write up our benchmark research for this year, so in the meantime, some key differentiators for the top 10 CandE Winners include:
- Aligning recruiter performance with candidate experience
- Utilizing AI recruiting technologies
- Dispositioning candidates in a timely manner
- Having a (more) structured interview process
- Having a (more) structured pre-boarding/onboarding process
- Having strong hiring manager relationships
- Having the highest interview fairness rating from candidates
- Providing more feedback to candidates than all participating employers
- Providing more timely offers than all participating employers
- Having a resentment rate that’s 95% lower than all participating employers
95% lower. Resentment meaning, the percentage of candidates who said they had a poor candidate experience and will no longer engage a business and brand because of it. This includes applying again, referring others, being a brand ambassador, and making purchasing decisions for consumer-based companies. This is important to note because we’ve never seen resentment rates as high as we’ve seen them this year. The industries with the highest resentment rates worldwide in our data are technology and finance & insurance; three of the top 10 are in those industries.
Not even the highest-rated employers above are doing all these things 100% of the time. That’s just not possible. They all freely admit that it’s a constant work in progress and that they don’t always get recruiting right. They just get it right most of the time. Ensuring a quality candidate experience day after day, month after month, and year after year isn’t easy for even the most efficient and effective TA team.
But again, these employers are doing it right. They have sustained resilience and the CandE-winning edge. We’ll be writing more about them soon, including our annual research and case studies. You can also learn more about the top 10 and all the CandE Winners at the upcoming ERE Recruiting Conference in Anaheim, CA, November 12-14.