Even in these unprecedented times, organizations everywhere are still fighting to acquire and retain top talent. Just as the customer experience becomes ever more important, so do our candidates’ and employees’ experiences. Candidates require fast turnaround and quick responses, and yet, it’s rare for organizations to offer this kind of open communication.

Here are 7 ways that live chat can bring value to your recruiting operations.

1. Get more candidates

Conversations happen where the candidate wants and you can use live chat to meet this demand. Proactive chat is great for this. Instead of waiting for candidates to click the button to chat in, a message box is appearing in front of them, asking a specific, tailored question, such as, “do you have any questions about our Javascript Engineer position?” Add pictures so your recruiters feel more approachable. Make it easy for candidates to engage.

Remember, it takes effort to apply for a job. Most candidates won’t invest that time without being sure. Engaging with them pre-application enables you to keep the visitors you want and helps others redirect. You can even capture their email and track your chat to application conversion.

2. Communicate better

Recruiting seems to require update after update and it’s still not enough to keep candidates informed. According to a Glassdoor study, the aspects that job seekers find most important to a positive experience include clear and regular communication (58%), clear expectations (53%), and feedback regarding rejection (51%). By utilizing live chat, you put the candidate in control of seeking information when they need it.

Believe it or not, you can meet this demand without creating work for your team. Live chat offers shortcuts that make it possible to do things like auto-populate answers from a customizable bank of responses. You can plug in responses to frequently asked questions, such as “we expect to have an update on this role by the end of the week.” This enables recruiters to autofill in answers from FAQs with a fast click.

3. Speak more languages

Chat tools, like SnapEngage allow you to speak with anyone in the world with auto-translate. For global organizations especially, this means your candidates could have support around the clock and in their language. It allows you to extend your recruiters’ capacity and creates flexibility with the talent you recruit. Prospects from anywhere and any background can chat in and get answers.

4. Prescreen

While some positions have few candidates, others have many. For both cases, live chat eliminates a significant step in your recruiting process, screening. You can conduct quick screens, on the spot with a live agent, or you can use pre-chat forms.

Pre-chat forms are customizable and are best used when they include just a few, but meaningful questions. Sometimes they’re deal-breaker questions, such as “Are you authorized to work in the US?” or they can be more qualitative questions like, “What interests you about this opportunity?”.

5. Differentiate

Perhaps the most compelling reason for live chat is that, by simply having live chat available to candidates, your offering is unique. Giving this kind of access to candidates up front will also inspire confidence and achieve more loyalty and excitement. Live chat enables you to stand apart from the competition without expending more people resources.

In addition, it creates opportunities for you to highlight the strengths of your organization. You can use automation and chatbots to both answer FAQs or respond with selling points based on keywords. An example of this might be:

Make this a differentiator. Put conversations front-and-center, and make every touch-point count, not just the ones with your customers.

6. Get feedback!

In a recent article, Forbes recommends reinforcing how much you care about the quality of your candidates’ experiences by asking for feedback. Use shortcuts to ask quick, simple questions to gauge the effectiveness of your careers site, your visitors’ experience, candidates’ interest levels, and more. Continue the feedback loop by offering a post-chat survey where candidates can leave notes and ratings. This will build your brand and help you assess strengths and its improvement areas.

Take this a step further by ending positive conversations with an invitation for candidates to leave comments and reviews on sites that will drive more traffic to your site, like Glassdoor.

7. Engage

To sum it up, by having live chat, you’re offering something unique and memorable to your candidates. Top talent is looking for an exceptional experience, with an exceptional company. Using the tools that come with live chat, such as proactive chat, pre-chat forms, and automation makes this possible without expending more team resources. Earn your candidates’ attention and commitment by creating a place for open conversations and unprecedented transparency.

To learn more about how to choose the right live chat and automation platform for your organization, download our whitepaper “2020 Buyer’s Guide.”