With 67,400 jobs available on the market, it looks like 2019 is set to be a great year for job seekers in Singapore. ManpowerGroup reported that 40% of Singaporean employers surveyed, found it difficult to fill their vacancies. A majority of the respondents reported that the lack of suitable applicants was the main reason behind their difficulties.

The jobs on offer were typically white-collar roles in the areas of accounting, sales, and marketing amongst others. Given the highly competitive nature of the Singaporean job market, this situation is highly unusual. In fact, it highlights a clear disconnect between both employers and potential employees.

To help organizations get ahead, we’ve prepared a guide that outlines 3 methods for organizations to improve the candidate experience.

Respond to candidates efficiently

Candidates who are kept in the dark are more likely to accept a job offer from competitors. Lengthy waiting times and zero feedback often lead to frustrated candidates who will perceive your organization in a negative light.

This is why it’s especially vital that your organization has a mechanism in place to communicate with applicants in a timely manner. Post-interview, candidates are often anxious to hear from your organization. In fact, 90% of candidates expect to receive some form of feedback after the interview.

Unfortunately, many organizations tend to leave candidates guessing as to the status of their job applications. Treating potential employees in such a manner only serves to alienate them. Besides losing out on potential talent, research has also shown that a negative candidate experience can have a detrimental effect on your organization.

Thus, while difficult, it should be regarded as a good business practice to send out rejection letters to unsuccessful candidates. A rejection letter provides candidates with a form of closure while helping to build your organization’s brand.

Recognizing the challenges faced by employers, our HR management system enables HR professionals to track the status of each individual applicant. Hence allowing for the HR department to easily reach out to an unsuccessful applicant.

Faster processing & candidate experience

As any job seeker will tell you, nothing is more frustrating than waiting to hear from a potential employer. HR in Asia reported that many Singaporean applicants cited slow feedback and lengthy decision-making processes as one of their main frustrations.

Recognizing the challenges faced by both HR professionals and job applicants alike, we at IQ Dynamics believe in optimizing the recruitment process. Our unified recruitment platform enables HR professionals to monitor and track manpower information across the organization with ease.

This eliminates the need for rework which allows for faster recruitment. Alongside this, our online job portal allows candidates to submit job applications with ease. From here, HR professionals are able to filter and track applications to be reviewed. All of this contributes towards a significantly faster recruitment process and candidate experience, allowing you to reach out to potential employees faster.

Provide clear job descriptions

Nothing turns candidates off a job application faster than a wall of text. When posting a job application, use terms that are clear, concise, and easily understood. While candidates are most likely familiar with industry jargon, it’s best to keep clear of it.

Your job advert should communicate the job’s description and responsibilities clearly. All too often, companies have been guilty of writing misleading job adverts in an effort to improve response rates. This leads to misinformed and frustrated candidate experience with a negative impression of your organization and should be avoided at all times.

As was reported by the Robert Half agency, transparency at the recruitment stage is a point of concern for many Singaporean applicants. Many have cited that organizations within Singapore have been less than transparent about their rewards and benefits programs. This leads to a growing sense of frustration amongst Singaporean job candidates.

At IQ Dynamics, we believe that employees should never be deceived or misled. Our recruitment management system encourages hiring managers and HR professionals to work together at all stages of the recruitment process. Because of this, we have designed our system to ensure that hiring managers are responsible for all manpower requisition requests. In turn, this helps improve the overall candidate experience.

This ensures that job descriptions are drafted by those who are most suitable which contributes towards clearer job descriptions.

With employers struggling to fill vacancies, HR professionals need to step up their game to address this issue. For more information on HRM systems or HR administration, please feel free to visit us at www.iqdynamics.com.