How to Own Your Candidate Experience – From an Employee and Manager

Last year at this time, I was faced with a professional decision.

Option 1: Stay in the company I loved, with people I admired, in an industry close to my heart

Option 2: Bet on radical personal growth by pushing myself out of my comfort zone, join a new team, in a new industry, in a remote setting

Setting Myself on a Growth Path

As an impulsive person by nature, I instead leaned into my rational side and took it upon myself to double down on my ‘candidate experience’ with Coveo.

Sure, every company aspires to engage talented professionals in a unique candidate experience, though ultimately, this will only contribute to 50% of the experience.

Understanding YOUR tolerance to risk and identifying where you stand within your professional journey are fundamental to your self-awareness. This will help you navigate your own candidate experience when evaluating new opportunities.

Self-Assess Goals and Values

I created a framework to share with you that is inspired by my own personal journey as a candidate – while also encompassing my learnings from interviewing and hiring hundreds of customer success professionals.

Step 1: Forget about titles – know what responsibilities ignite your passions and be prepared to talk about this!

Prepare questions to validate how these responsibilities translate into strategic initiatives.

Step 2: What professional values are important to you? What are you NOT willing to compromise on?

Eyeballing a website for its values is not enough to help you make a decision and mitigate the risk of this not being the right fit for you. Prepare questions that will help you validate how corporate values translate into real behaviours; embodied by employees, peers, and leadership.

Step 3: Dive deeply into the challenges a company faces and the priorities set to surface victoriously. Job descriptions are high-level and will not detail the short and long-term challenges you will be expected to help solve. Transparency and candor from the hiring manager will prove fruitful far beyond your interview process. Be prepared with your most burning questions!

Step 4: Meet with your future peers in an organized or casual context. While ‘work samples’ can be time-consuming and require prep-work; they are extremely telling and can paint an accurate picture of what it would be like to collaborate with your peers. If this is not possible with a company you are applying to, ask for a few names and reach out on LinkedIn.

Step 5: Expect feedback on your interview and work sample performance. The way in which a company provides feedback to candidates is often reflective of how you’d receive feedback once you become part of the team. If you are not offered the opportunity, feedback on your performance remains a game-changer for your career growth. Demand it!

Prepare and Focus

Interviews can be nerve-wracking. They don’t have to be.

Being prepared and knowing what you want will enable you with a laser focus, eliminate the noise, and help you effectively decide on your next big career move!

We are always looking for new colleagues. Join the Coveolife!