The importance of candidate experience

Recruitment in 2026 isn't just about finding someone. You now need to engage them with your company as well.

Candidate experience is all about giving all applicants in a recruitment process as positive an experience as possible. Whilst the ultimate goal is still to find the best fit for the role, making sure that unsuccessful candidates come away feeling positive about the process is a good secondary goal to have. Here's a few factors that are worth considering if you wish to give Medical Devices talent a solid candidate experience.

A job description/advert that is true to the role

Starting off strong, you can set the tone for your recruitment process straight away with the first real touch point they will have with your company, the job description. Every job needs a clear job advert that lays out exactly what a prospective candidate would be expected to do as part of the role. But not all adverts are made equal…

A great job advert should be clear whether a candidate is right for a role. This can include a decisive list of nice-to-have and must-have skills and experiences, the outcomes that will be expected of them within the role, and a salary range (where possible). Ambiguity of expectations and responsibilities is not ideal on an advert; you can either end up with suitable candidates not thinking they're a fit, or candidates getting into a process only to realise the role isn't what they thought it would be down the line.

On top of this, making the application process as simple as possible instantly enhances the candidate experience. 57% of candidates have quit halfway through job applications because they were either too long or too complicated. This doesn't mean you shouldn't ask any questions of applicants, but these should be relatively easy to answer instantly and (of course) relevant to the role at hand. For roles in Medical Devices, you may look to test someone's immediate knowledge on the industry, but it's worth taking time to consider how crucial that is for the role they are applying for - a Sales role will likely need less knowledge than an Applications position.

Consistent outreach and transparent timelines

The next step in the candidate experience is the initial outreach after an application is made. Upon completion of the application, an automated confirmation to their email/account that it has been received is a strong start to reassure them it's been received. Including a set timeline for when their application will be reviewed and when they should expect to hear about next steps is another great way to make the candidate feel seen and appreciated in the early stages of the process.

This consistent outreach should stay exactly that way throughout the length of the process, consistent. If there are any unexpected delays that occur then passing this information on to any candidates in waiting is good practice. Offering up a point of contact if applicants have any further questions about the position or the process is another strong way to sure up the outreach process and enhance candidate experience. This also helps as a strategy to keep candidates invested in the process, so dropouts between stages can be limited. 

For those in the Medical Device industry, they may have further questions about the products the company produce and sells, so having a point of contact that is both happy and able to answer these in-depth questions between stages can be another addition to a recruitment cycle that leaves candidates with a positive view of the experience.

Structured interviews

There's nothing that frustrates in-process candidates more than an interview that feels a little bit all over the place. Great candidates are likely to have invested many hours into the process before even reaching an interview through company research and customising their CV to fit the role. A poor interview, whether that's poorly prepared interviewers or wasteful lines of questioning, can make these candidates feel like they wasted the time they already invested, which can lead to them feeling detached from the process. A bad interview not only leads to a poorer candidate experience, but it's not a great reflection on the company as a whole.

So basically, you want to find ways to make the interviews both engaging and worth the candidates' time. The easy steps for this are to have well-structured interview processes and prepared interviewers. Allocating time in interviews to receive questions and dive into a bit more detail about the role as well as what you offer as a company are also important. Interviews are a two-way thing; candidates are selling themselves to you, but it's also the best place to sell yourself to the candidate. The very best candidates have options up their sleeves in the market, so pitching to them and making them feel wanted can help reduce drop-out.

An interesting development that makes sense to bring up here is providing candidates with the interview questions beforehand. It's a bold take that we're still not fully sure how we feel about it, but for some candidates, it helps them feel more confident about attending interview stages. It can also be a great way to make certain neurodivergent candidates feel more comfortable coming into an interview scenario, helping to plan answers and retain any complex information prior to being questioned and making an altogether more inclusive experience.

Decisions made personally

The final stage of candidate experience is the big decision. No matter what the decision is, candidate experience should still sit at the heart of the process. 

If you're offering the role to a candidate, then naturally, they should be easier to please in this situation but it's far from a guarantee. Firstly, the offer itself should be consistent with what has been discussed across the course of the process. There's nothing that kills momentum more than an offer coming in below the expected level, and it can also ruin any good faith that's been built across the process. There should also be an expectation for some negotiation at the offer stage, particularly the more senior the role is, so making room for this to happen either in person or on a call again helps in getting the offer over the line.

When the decision is that a candidate will not continue in the process, this does not mean that you should give up on giving them a good candidate experience. If it's a candidate that is rejected at the first stage, they still expect some sort of response letting them know that they've not been successful; around 45% of candidates admit to being 'ghosted' by a recruitment team at the first stage. And for candidates that make it even further before being eventually rejected, then a personal touch, ideally on a call, can still leave them with a positive feeling of the company, despite receiving disappointing news. A sincere thanks, genuine feedback, and an offer to come back if other positions open are just a few ways to keep the candidate experience at the heart of a rejection.

Those are just a few ideas that can help take your candidate experience from 'meh' to 'yeah!' If you need a bit of assistance in finding top candidates to give a great experience to, feel free to reach out to me on francesca.garrod@fmctalent.com to see how we can work together on your most important hires.