{"id":11333,"date":"2020-07-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scouttalent.com\/?p=11333"},"modified":"2026-05-01T09:12:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T09:12:02","slug":"the-talent-scout-episode-19-what-do-candidates-actually-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scouttalent.com\/us\/blog\/the-talent-scout-episode-19-what-do-candidates-actually-want\/","title":{"rendered":"The Talent Scout Episode 19: What do Candidates actually want?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen now\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been following our posts here at Scout Talent, you may have noticed references to a Candidate Experience survey that we carried out internally. Today we\u2019re going to deep dive into the findings of that survey and think a little bit more about what Candidates actually want.<\/p>\n

For contextual information, this survey was carried out in the summer of 2019 long before anyone was talking about Coronavirus or recession. We reached out to 10,000 of our most recent candidates, these being people that had passed through our recruitment solutions on behalf of our clients. Geographically the individuals that were targeted were primarily focused in Australia and Canada, though some candidates were based in New Zealand and the US due to some of our clients having roles based there. In terms of industry and seniority, the candidates we surveyed spanned every industry and ranged from entry-level to C-Suite and board members.<\/p>\n

The Survey<\/h3>\n

To keep things relatively concise and to the point, we limited ourselves to 9 questions with as few open text questions as we could manage. Our first 3 questions were segmentation questions which allowed us to better segment the feedback we received so that we could more clearly spot trends. These questions were:<\/p>\n

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  1. Were you successful in obtaining the role that you most recently applied for through Scout Talent?<\/li>\n
  2. How did you apply for the role that you most recently applied for through Scout Talent? As in did these candidates apply using a computer or a phone.<\/li>\n
  3. How long did it take for you to apply for the role that you most recently applied for through Scout Talent?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Once we had those questions out of the way, it was then time for getting into the nitty-gritty of finding out exactly what it was that candidates wanted. To source this information we asked our former candidates the following questions:<\/p>\n

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    1. Do you like screening questions when applying for a role?<\/li>\n
    2. What was the best part of the recruitment process with Scout Talent?<\/li>\n
    3. What was the worst part of the recruitment process with Scout Talent?<\/li>\n
    4. What do you think would make our recruitment process better?<\/li>\n
    5. How does Scout Talent\u2019s Recruitment process compare with other recruitment processes you have been part of?<\/li>\n
    6. How likely would you be to recommend a family member or friend to apply for a role through Scout Talent on a scale from 0-10?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The results<\/h3>\n

      Overall the results were interesting and there was a lot to unpack and plenty of areas for us to improve. In terms of Candidate feedback some of the high-level findings were:<\/p>\n