Why Candidate Experience Is Your Hidden Hiring Advantage

A great candidate experience is more than good manners – it’s good business.
Discover how aligning candidate and customer experiences can drive brand loyalty, talent retention, and long-term results.

Summary

In this episode of Advancing Talent Acquisition, Jenna Hinrichsen sits down with Eric Gregg, founder of ClearlyRated, to explore how customer experience directly influences the hiring process. They discuss why treating job candidates like consumers is critical, how employee and customer experience are deeply connected, and what companies can do to build a more candidate-friendly, experience-driven hiring strategy.

Episode 9

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Welcome to the Advanced RPO Podcast, Advancing Talent Acquisition. Our guest today is Eric Gregg, founder of Clearly Rated. Welcome, Eric. 

Eric Gregg  
Thank you for having me. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Will you tell us a little bit about your background? 

Eric Gregg 
Yeah, so I came to the customer experience space through the employee experience space. So our topic today is really near and dear to my heart. And I’ve got about 20 years focused on employee and customer experience, specifically in professional services space.  
I founded a company that helps firms measure the client experience, the employee experience in the staffing and recruiting space, also the temporary employee experience, with the goal being that really the best performing organizations have a really clear North Star, which is experience-based. And it’s been pretty exciting as you look at how these industries have evolved. I know we’ll talk a lot about that and that employee experience and how that impacts and kind of how it ties into that customer, that client experience as well. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
We love working with Clearly Rated, by the way.  
Our topic today is how customer experience impacts the hiring process. So let’s dive right in. First, if you would tell us, why does the customer experience even matter in the hiring process? 

Eric Gregg  
I love it. The customer experience matters in the hiring process. And let me start by saying that the bar is actually quite low. The customer experience that most employees have when going through the hiring process is quite abysmal. And you don’t have to have too many friends that are in the job search to really have the anecdotal evidence that the data really supports on this, which is that power construct holds with whoever is doing the hiring. And so, what we see happen is people sort of ignore things that would be really reprehensible, right? If customers that were paying customers of yours and they all reached out to see, to get an update on a project you were working on and you didn’t respond to any of them – or you told them to expect something in a week and you hadn’t even talked to them in three weeks as a part of that… you would be out of business, right? The business would fail in that mode. And yet we do this to our job candidates all of the time.  
And we do it at our own detriment, right? Because my belief is that retention and engagement starts the second that somebody starts to interact with your brand. And so what we really want to do is we really want to architect an experience that we can really adhere to, to where we are giving people feedback. We are giving people deadlines and milestones that they can move through so that if they’re not moving through there, then we will have the ability to really help them out as they go through. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
And you are so right. It feels very one sided. It feels very like back in the day, when people were interviewing with companies, there was always that power, as you mentioned, where the employer sort of held that power. But I think as technology has evolved and continues to evolve, then you look at like remote work after the pandemic, job seekers have so many more options and they have access to so many more options, yet employers a lot of times treat job candidates like they are second in the process, when really it should be an equal playing field, in my opinion.  

Eric Gregg  
I think you’re exactly right. And what’s interesting to me is that when we’ve tracked this and we’ve really followed this for close to 20 years now, what we have seen is it sort of follows the unemployment rate. So as the unemployment rate goes up, diligence on the job candidate experience really falls. But then as soon as we start to get into a tight labor market, people start to pay more attention to it and focus on it. Yet they really still don’t focus enough, in my opinion. They really focus kind of beyond the offer being made and they try to ramp up at that point. But the reality is, you’re not just hiring for this position and you’re not just increasing the challenge of getting the person that you want for this position, you’re actually creating a headache that is going to follow you for the next hire that you make and the next hire that make. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
So customer experience teams have become a really key player in most companies today. And this just goes back to what we were just talking about. Do you see employee experience teams becoming equally important in the future? Or do you see that continuing to lag like it does today or cyclical with the hiring, the labor market? 

Eric Gregg   
I remember one time, Jenna, having a conversation with somebody that’s in the staffing recruiting space and we were talking about job candidate experience and how important that was. And they said, well, why are we going to be caring so much about the job candidates? If we have jobs, the job candidates will be there for us.  
What we should really be caring about is the client experience. And I thought that that was such a hollow response, it’s such a short-sighted response as we look at that. But I give that example because the fact of the matter is that the customer, the client is always going to receive additional focus for most firms as they look at that component. 
And I think that what you’re going to see is you’re going to see the continue evolution of employee experience and you’re going to see people continuing to focus on those elements, but you’ll see it continue to ebb and flow, unfortunately, based on what’s happening in the market and based on the perception of how hot a job market it is.  
And I think that that’s the difference between the firms that really get it and the firms that are just sort of playing the game, which is the firms that really get it understand that building out a true employee journey from the first interaction through the interviewing process, through the offer, or potentially even through the lack of an offer, into the onboarding and that experience once they’re fully engaged with the firm. The ones that really are critical on architecting wow into that process are going to have a distinct advantage over those that don’t, now and in the future. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
You’re absolutely right. And I think companies look at it a lot of times. If you look at marketing versus recruitment marketing, you look at how companies advertise to consumers. But there’s not really in most companies a lot of thought put into how you are marketing to candidates. And it all ties together. So it’s just interesting. And I think the cyclical piece of going back and forth sometimes will cater to candidates. Sometimes we won’t is just as you mentioned, it’s a very short decision and it’s something that I talk to clients about a lot.  
Your strategy should be consistent across the board no matter what labor market you’re in. It’s kind of like karma. You know you get what you give. And so if you’re going to give service to candidates 90% of the time and then when you really need it, you’re going to amp that up. You’re probably not going to get a very good response because the word is already going to be out in the market that this is how this company treats seekers. 

Eric Gregg  
Yeah, you can really tell very early in the process whether somebody talks about employee engagement being important or whether they believe that employee engagement is important and it’s actually quite different. You’ll see it show up in the actions, right? They’ll have something on their website talking about how important their employees are and how impactful it is and what a strong culture they have. And then you’ll look on Glassdoor and you’ll see, well, that doesn’t really read through or you’ll have a conversation and immediately they’ll start to see disconnects, right? “Okay, they said they would get back this week and now it’s been a week and a half.” “They said to reach out if we had any questions and now I’ve not heard from anybody.” And so that whole experience is pretty terrible and the job candidates really feel it.  
We asked in a survey one which of the following life events are more stressful than your current job search? And we had things that we know are stressful, like having a baby or planning a wedding. And the vast majority of people still said that their current job search was more so when you have that kind of stress, like you’re looking for somebody to really deliver and you’re very keenly aware when they don’t. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Yes, and people pay that forward. They’re going to talk about that. They’re going to talk about good experiences. So, companies should really be eating that up. 

Eric Gregg  
Well, and Jenna, you think back to kind of the evolution of this and years ago, we talked a lot, maybe it’s even 15 years ago now, we talked a lot about the employee brand, the employment brand. And the reality is, is that with the transparency that we get to the experience that customers are having and that employees are having, there’s not really an employment brand that differs from the consumer brand, right? Or from the market brand. two intertwine so significantly.  
Employees are looking for not just a strong culture, they’re looking for how you treat the clients. They’re looking for an impact that they’re going to be able to have, that they’re going to feel proud about the work that they’re doing and the purpose that they’re delivering on. And if we don’t have that, we’re going to be fighting for top talent forever, right? Just look at the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry has one of the biggest challenges in recruiting. In large part because young people start out with a belief that they don’t want to be a part of the oil and gas industry. Now, I’m not saying that that’s right, wrong or otherwise, but that’s a massive thing that they have to overcome in their recruiting efforts and it costs them more because of that. And so everybody else is playing some version of that game, right? They’re either getting a benefit and they’re getting better talent than what they would otherwise get based on their benefits and and pay positions and things like that because they really have that purpose built in to their employment engagement or they’re paying a premium because they don’t have that. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Well, and arguably, if you’re going to prioritize one over the other, you should prioritize employer brand for the job seekers. If you treat your employees well and you take care of your employees, they’re going to take care of your customers. We know that quote. if you’re going to prioritize one over the other, it feels very backwards how we do it today. 

Eric Gregg  
Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. One of my mentors in this business, Dan Campbell, founder of higher dynamics, he’s very clear. said, “Look, we, we always felt like you had to know who really is first. Is it your internal employees? Is it your temporary employees or is it your customers?” And for us, he said, it’s always been our internal employees because our belief was that one you have to get right to execute on the other two. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Absolutely. 100% agree with that. What are your thoughts on candidates being considered consumers of the hiring process? And I ask this because I was talking to someone recently and read this on something that he had posted on LinkedIn and it really stood out to me as impactful, consumers of the hiring process. What are your thoughts on that? And do you think companies will start to adapt that? 

Eric Gregg  
I think that’s a really good way to think about it, Jenna, because if you look at how we consume anything else, right, how we go through any other major decision like this, we have access to information through reviews, access to where we are in the process and things happen quickly. We can self-direct, right? The technology is there to allow us to do a lot of it on our own. But we also have off-ramps to be able to get help and coaching, whether it’s from a really good recruiter or whether it’s within that process, the ability to engage with the company as a part of that. And so, I think if we put that lens on it, we’d be sort of appalled, right? That we would be asking our consumers of the hiring process to be going through the type of process that they’re going through in a way that we would never expect a customer to actually go through and build a business on that side of it. And so I think that that lens, even if you’re not able to get true parity between kind of the hiring process and what maybe a buying process would look like for your organization, I think it’s a great lens to put across that because you’ll look at things very differently if you do that. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
So true. I think that makes a lot of sense. Looking at it, would you ask your customer to go through this if they’re buying that’s a very clear way for a client or a company to look at that and say, wow, there really is a big difference in how we’re doing this. 

Eric Gregg  
Yeah, and I think you have to think about how you engage people in that mode, right? Because you may be getting a lot of people through that hiring process the way that you have it architected today, but you may still be losing out on that really top tier, you know, A plus talent that’s going to be transformational to your organization because they don’t have to go through that. They’ve got multiple areas that they’re looking at and an ability to choose to be a part of your process or not. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Right, and that’s ultimately who companies want is those A players.  
How can a company’s customer experience be integrated into the overall hiring strategy? So, give us some tips, some things that a company could do, quick action items that a company could do to integrate those processes. 

Eric Gregg  
I think the first thing is expectation setting, right? This is kind of consulting 101. You don’t want to have surprises. want to give people a good view as to what’s happening that’s baseline important aspect on the hiring process as well.  
The second piece of this is that if you are really building or you have built an organization that can consistently deliver remarkable experiences for your customers, your clients, then get credit for that. That’s, you know, all else being equal and employee would much rather come in where they get to work with customers that are thrilled and love them every day. Right. Can you imagine even just like a basic level, can you imagine being customer support for Apple and their products versus being customer support for Xfinity and, a legal provider and that side. The percentage of times you’re talking to somebody that’s really angry and really frustrated, that’s hard to shake off, right? And if you could be helping people on the margins where they’re already having a great experience and they just need a little bit of help, that’s going to have a huge impact on your employee satisfaction, your engagement on it.  
And then the last thing that I’ll say on this, to be able to integrate that into the overall hiring strategy is you need to understand what delivers outsized positive customer engagement and customer satisfaction. And people always ask me like, what are the really in customer satisfaction? What do they do differently? everybody wants there to be like three bullet points and a magic statement that makes this. truth is Jenna, really they just care more.  
If I look at two recruiters and oftentimes they’ll have gone through the same training, same organization, same everything, same leadership. And yet you’ll have one that if you talk to the job candidates that go through their process, they’re thrilled and you talk to another one and they’re so frustrated as a part of it. it’s, you know, same training, same technology, same process, same everything. The difference is, that recruiter number one just cares more. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Such a great point. And you can’t fake that. You can’t fake caring. So you can tell someone, you can say that, you know, it’s the company that cares more, the individual that cares more. You just can’t fake it. People can see right through that. 
Well, this is awesome. So I have one last question for you. I’d like to end every podcast with the same question for every guest. And this does not have to be about this topic specifically, but I love everybody’s different perspectives on career tips. So if you give one piece of advice or one career tip to our audience, what would it be? 

Eric Gregg 
If you are strongly considering two positions and one pays significantly more than the other one, take the one that pays less. And that sounds a little bit counter, right? To most advice that you’ve had, but everything societally tells us that we need to maximize our pay and that our worth is tied to our pay. And so if you find yourself really excited about two different positions and one of them has dramatically lower pay, oftentimes the mere fact that that one’s even in consideration means that that’s actually the one that you’re more excited about. If the pay was equal, you would take that one in a heartbeat and never look back on it. If that is the case and you’re still elevating it to where you’re considering it, to me, that means that that is by far the one that you’re more excited about. And so go after that one and ultimately, the money will follow, right? Because you’re following your passion and you’re following the opportunities that are most exciting to you. And when you do that, I’ve just seen time and time again, those are the ones that really drive you to that next amazing opportunity. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
That’s a great tip. And a lot of times in those situations, the offers aren’t that much different. there’s not the money difference is not that much in a lot of cases. And so what you’re saying is you find out that you took a little bit more money, but you’re unhappy. So how much is your happiness worth really doing that? Like risk analysis when you’re looking at that? I if there’s a huge differential and you have to do something that I understand that. But in most cases, it’s not huge. So really asking yourself, what is the pay? If I take this offer that pays a little bit more, what am I losing that I’m going to get from this other company? And then, like, look at that on paper, and it will tell you your answer. 

Eric Gregg  
I think so. Every time in my career, and those close to me, every time when they’ve been faced with a decision where the masses and society would tell them that clearly this is the better opportunity, and they’re still kind of having a hard time pulling the trigger on that, and they think of the other opportunity, they just need to follow, right? That’s your gut overcoming a whole bunch of things that are pushing you from the outside. That internal voice matters and trust yourself and go after the thing that really has you excited. You’ll figure out the money thing. To your point, right, there’s some places where that’s not possible, but if it’s close and if it ultimately doesn’t dramatically impact how you can live your life, take the lower priced one, the lower cost one, and follow what your gut’s telling you. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
I love that and I’ve actually done that in my career. So, looking back on it, I never really thought about it the way you positioned it, but I have done that and it has worked to my advantage. So I will say that that is a very, very good tip. So thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for all this information. This is so great and I’m excited for our audience to hear this For our listeners, please subscribe to this podcast and if there’s a topic that we haven’t covered that you’re interested in hearing about, please leave it in the comments, and we’ll pick that topic up for a future episode. Thanks again, Eric, and we’ll see you next time. 

Eric Gregg  
All right, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Jenna.    

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