You may have heard discussion in the past year or so about companies shifting their focus from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to Customer Experience Management (CXM). Simply put, CRM focuses on improving processes to better support customers, increase satisfaction and reduce costs. CXM incorporates the principals of CRM, but takes a more proactive approach. Companies focusing on CXM don’t just work to improve relationships; they work at 
building relationships over time by enhancing the entire customer experience and making every touch point a positive interaction.
While CXM is still new and may not be the answer for all organizations, it is definitely applicable to recruiting. It’s nearly impossible for recruiters to build strong relationships with the thousands of high quality candidates available; however, it’s very possible for companies to ensure that all interactions – human and non-human – between the candidate and the company are pleasant. The best place to start is your online job board.
When searching for a new opportunity, the first place most candidates start looking is some type of job board. Whether it’s an agency, a corporate job board, social media, or a public job board, candidates have hundreds of options. If you want applicants to read your job postings and, more importantly, want them to come back, you have to differentiate yourself with an exceptional user-friendly experience. If not, your hard-to-use job board and application process could cost you your next star employee. Here are a few tips to improve the candidate experience on your job board:
Search Functionality: If a candidate can’t find a job, they won’t apply to it, so keep your search functionality simple and intuitive. Also, check out these tips to include SEO in your job descriptions.
Application Process: When the right job, if your application process is long and difficult, you may lose people. Make it easy to apply and ask yourself, “Do I really need to collect all of that information right now?” A name, email address and resume are probably enough.
Mobile Friendly: More and more people are using their smartphones and tablets for day-to-day tasks, including job searches. If your site isn’t smart phone or tablet-friendly, don’t expect these applicants to apply to your jobs.
Innovation: CXM is about being proactive and understanding customer preferences, often before the customer knows they need it, so think outside the box.
At Eagle, we know how essential the job board experience is to our business and while our job board is pretty good, our soon to be released upgraded job board will include all of the elements above… and then some! This will result in a better customer experience for job applicants. Our low-cost job posting service Virtual Recruiter is one way we improve customer experience for our clients. Our clients get a more targeted set of resumes to review than they would get from regular job boards, together with a pre-screen that identifies the potential top matches.
Where can you improve your customers’ experience?
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Kevin Dee is CEO of Eagle (a Professional Staffing Company)
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Have you tried Eagle’s (very cost effective) VirtualRecruiter service?
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