Most Common Steps for Applicants to Drop Off

How many applicants are you losing in your pipeline, without even noticing?

At StellarEmploy, one client told us only 6% of employees had been online applicants. However, we soon discovered that a full 84% of their total applicant pool were online applicants.

The online applicant profiles were just as good as the walk-in profiles, but were being hired at a much lower rate.

What was happening?

We broke down the online applicant process, evaluating the number of applicants who made it to various stages in the process. Check out our infographic for a few findings.

If we can answer the question more easily than the applicant can, don’t ask the applicant. Our client, a fast-food franchisee with many locations, asked applicants which location they wished to apply. Only 29% of applicants answered this question, presumably because the others didn’t know which location was most convenient for them. When we included a map for applicants to review proximity to their home, the number of applicants who answered this question shot up to 82%.

Lengthy applications dissuade applicants. At first, only 48% of applicants completed the online application. Applicants dropped out at some questions more than others, and the longer the test, the lower the completion rate. Stellar cut out some questions, and at 15 minutes, our evaluation is less than half the length of most competitors.

Applicants expect quick interview turnarounds. Managers keep a hectic schedule, often limiting how quickly they can interview top candidates. StellarEmploy learned that managers struggled to reach candidates by phone and succeeded in doing so within 48 ours only 5% of the time. So we implemented an automatic interview scheduler, allowing applicants to request specific interview windows when managers would be available.

There are always opportunities to improve an applicant-evaluation process, but we recommend that companies look first at making small adjustments at the points where large numbers of applicants are dropping out.

Sara Nadel is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of StellarEmploy.