{"id":32816,"date":"2019-06-06T15:57:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T15:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/job-application-forms-secrets\/"},"modified":"2019-06-06T15:57:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T15:57:33","slug":"job-application-forms-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/blog\/job-application-forms-secrets","title":{"rendered":"Job application forms: the secrets to getting the best response rate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most important elements that can powerfully affect the outcome of a recruiting campaign is the application form.<\/p>\n<p>A too-complex application form can drastically reduce the response rate by prospective job candidates, resulting in a large drop in the number of CVs received by the company. This applies especially to the large share of job applications that are filled in <b>via smartphone<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>There are many studies that support this conclusion. One of them, conducted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.appcast.io\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Appcast website\" style=\"text-decoration:underline\">Appcast<\/a>, showed that job applications that needed more than 15 minutes to complete saw a drastic drop in completion rate, of up to 365%.<\/p>\n<p>A misconception that some companies still fall prey to is that of thinking of the application form itself as a filtering tool, much like a sieve through which to thin out the number of applications from the start.<\/p>\n<p>The argument goes like this: if we build a complex application process that requires answers to dozens of questions, we will only get CVs from people who are really interested in the position.<\/p>\n<p>This strategy, adopted mainly by the big brands that receive thousands of CVs per day, has a number of weaknesses that can lower the final quality of the candidate selection process:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are other instruments, first and foremost the <b>job description<\/b>, that can be used to influence the quality of the applications. The clearer and more detailed the job offer, the more appropriate the applications received will be.<\/li>\n<li>A too-complex application process effectively shuts out those candidates who don\u2019t have enough free time to spare. Typically, this means those who already have a job, maybe even at one of your competitors, and who could turn out to be very valuable candidates.<\/li>\n<li>With the features provided by a good <a href=\"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/software\/recruitment-software\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"text-decoration:underline\" title=\"recruiting software\">ATS<\/a>, you can always perform a fast first screening that will eliminate the CVs that are a bad fit, regardless of the number of applications received. Thus, trying to restrict the number of applications from the start makes little sense.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>So, <b>what is the ideal number of fields for an application form?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>At first glance, for companies using recruiting software that is able to read the information from the candidates\u2019 CVs, it might be enough to have a form with just four fields:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First name<\/li>\n<li>Last name<\/li>\n<li>E-mail address<\/li>\n<li>CV in attachment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>In practice, no company is using such a minimalistic form. That is because a too-brief application form can deprive the company of some information that would be useful during the selection process.<\/p>\n<p>Our recommendation\u2014based on our experience configuring our digital recruitment platform for hundreds of different companies\u2014is to <b>limit the number of fields on the form to those which are truly useful<\/b>, meaning those that are needed for one of the following purposes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Identifying the candidate.<\/li>\n<li>Contacting them.<\/li>\n<li>Yielding statistics that are useful for that particular selection process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Thus, if you plan to filter and evaluate candidates primarily on the basis of a particular skill, language, level of experience, etc., you should ask explicitly for that element on the application form.<\/p>\n<p>We also recommend providing a field where a candidate can attach a cover letter\u2014a useful tool to evaluate their communication skills and other soft skills\u2014and, if using an ATS, to add another field where they can attach a photo, so that the candidate will become immediately recognizable on the selection platform.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><i>Copyright: \u00a9relif\/Fotolia<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most important elements that can powerfully affect the outcome of a recruiting campaign is the application form. A too-complex application form can drastically reduce the response rate by prospective job candidates, resulting in a large drop in the number of CVs received by the company. This applies especially to the large share [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":32817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[350,353],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hr-online","category-recruiting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altamirahrm.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}