How you handle the screening, interviewing, hiring, and subsequent onboarding of a candidate sets the tone for their entire experience as an employee. In fact, studies show that improving the onboarding process can increase long term retention by up to 50%,
Candidates who have accepted an offer within your organization enter a period of time with relative silence during pre-onboarding that oftentimes can last upwards of two to four weeks. During this time, they continue to evaluate and consider the life-changing decision they have made to join your team. What you do during this time can make or break the long-term potential for your hire.
Finding ways to stay in contact with your candidate during pre-onboarding and onboarding can greatly increase their feelings of contentment with the decision they’ve made, keep them engaged with the brand, and support the long-term goal of retention. While adding extra steps and touchpoints once you’ve already secured a viable candidate for a role may feel counterintuitive, in the long run you’ll save time in reducing candidate ghosting and reopening requisitions.
During this time between offer acceptance and the first day, consider adding additional emails, calls, and text messages to your usual procedural messaging. Use these extra touchpoints to build a sense of excitement and communicate nuanced details that will make their first day easier. Consider the things you think about before starting a new venture. Examples include first-day logistics, parking, payday details, insurance benefits overviews, welcome messages from teammates, office setup, and orientation details.
During this time you have a unique opportunity to build a long-term relationship between your new hire and the employer brand. As you build these messages out, consider the culture and voice you want to bring forth and give them insights into daily life in your organization through language queues and the use of photos as appropriate.
You may find it easiest to take advantage of email and text message scheduling tools within your ATS, CRM, or email software to keep messages consistent and timely. However, use care to include details that are personalized to the individual’s experience and role. While there is a time that generalized messaging can be helpful to a candidate’s experience, the later in the process you are with them, the more personalized your message should be.
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