Overcoming the 5 Biggest Gripes We Hear From Our Candidates

In a jobs market where talented candidates are becoming harder and harder to attract, improving candidate experience and offering a seamless recruitment and onboarding process should be a priority for businesses looking to hire. If you want to stand out from your competitors, then you need to be offering an employment experience that nobody else is, which starts by addressing what the competition is lacking.

We spoke to our engineering candidates about their biggest pain points when it comes to starting a new job and narrowed down their responses to create this list of their 5 biggest complaints. In this article, we go through each of these gripes and explain why organisations need to avoid them and the best way to do just that. We also offer advice for candidates currently facing these challenges and suggest the best ways to make the situation work for you.

1. Inflexible Working

The last couple of years have seen a significant shift to more and more businesses offering flexible working options to their employees. With home and remote working growing increasingly popular, along with the option to work as a contractor, companies have a lot to gain from moving with the times and giving their staff the ability to choose their own hours and come into the office as and when.

In response to this, one of the biggest issues that we hear about from our candidates is employers that are unwilling to offer or even consider flexible working. Whilst some roles cannot be done remotely and certain hours that employees are often expected to be available, demanding that candidates must work in the office 5 days a week is a quick way to ensure that you don’t get many new applicants for jobs coming through your door.

Virtual Meeting

How Candidates can Overcome

As a candidate in a new role, or even someone at the final stage of the recruitment process, it can be incredibly frustrating to receive a dream job opportunity that’s perfect in every way…except for the rigid working hours. There may be some roles that require you to be onsite or stick to certain core hours, but the majority of jobs nowadays can allow for at least some flexibility, as long as your employer is amenable.

It’s definitely worth negotiating the possibility of remote or flexible working with a new employer, especially whilst you’re still ironing out the specifics of a new role and the terms of your employment. If total flexibility isn’t possible, see whether you can adopt hybrid working with some days in the office and some at home, or agree on core working hours that you can enjoy more freedom around.

How Organsations can Overcome

The simplest way to overcome this common gripe is to ensure that you offer candidates flexibility with their working hours and location when they join your company.

If you’ve not yet made the shift to flexible/remote working however, it can be difficult to know where to start. If your company needs some staff on-site at all times as well, it can also be tricky to negotiate which employees can work remotely and which won’t be able to make the change.

To begin with, assess the work that each of your employees does and whether it needs to be completed in the workplace. Then, consider the kinds of equipment they might need if they were to carry out their work in a different location. 

Next, consider whether you want to offer the option for employees to work fully remotely, or whether you want to implement a hybrid working model where there are core days that all staff need to be in the workplace. You may also decide to begin by implementing a hybrid model for a trial period with the possibility of offering fully remote positions if the first attempt is successful.

When you have staff working remotely or flexibly, many businesses implement core working hours so that there are times each day when all employees are available. You’ll need to decide if this is necessary for your company and also communicate this to recruitment candidates so that they know when they’ll be expected to work even if they have a flexible contract.

Once you’ve decided on a flexible working policy, ensure that this is expressed in your job advert and recruitment process to target candidates that are looking for these kinds of options in a new role.

2. Lack of Support

Another significant pain point that our candidates identified was a lack of support when they started a new role. This left them feeling forgotten about and impacted how quickly they felt they became a part of the company, often resulting in seeking a new role after only a couple of months of employment.

A lack of support could mean that an employee isn’t given a mentor or ‘buddy’ when they start a new job and therefore don’t have anyone to go to with general questions or have someone to introduce them to others in the company and show them around. It could also mean that a new employee isn’t given any training or inductions when beginning a new role and is left to figure it all out for themselves.

How Candidates can Overcome

The best way to overcome a lack of support in a new role is to take the initiative to go out and find support for yourself.

This can be nerve-racking when you’re starting a new job, but it’s actually a really good way to build productive relationships with your new colleagues and demonstrate a drive to learn and improve. Whether this involves asking other members of your team to set aside time to run through internal systems or platforms with you, or reaching out to employees in more senior positions and asking for mentorship, taking matters into your own hands is the most efficient way of getting the support you’re seeking.

If you think that a lack of support is a wider problem in the organisation, you could also suggest setting up an official mentorship or ‘buddy’ program to ensure that everyone gets the help they need.

How Organsations can Overcome

Overcoming this issue means taking the time to set up support schemes or systems for new employees to ensure that their first few weeks at your company are as good as possible. It can be worth starting this process by asking existing employees what they found useful when they began their jobs, as well as what other support or help they wish they had been given.

Setting up a mentoring scheme for new hires is a brilliant way to provide support in the first few months of their employment, as well as giving existing employees a chance to share their skills and practice taking on a more managerial position. Workplace mentorship can take many forms, from official schemes with regular check-ins and structured training to more informal arrangements where a more experienced team member is tasked with supporting a new coworker at the start of their job.

Offering sufficient training is also a key part of providing adequate support, especially if the employee is at the start of their career. Getting other employees to deliver training is another great way to provide internal opportunities for teaching and leadership, as well as helping the new hire to get to know their coworkers more quickly. You may also set up digital training programs if you’re frequently hiring new staff which takes them through the systems and software you use or gives them a training environment to practice the skills they’ll be using in their role.

3. Disorganisation

Leading on from a lack of support, disorganisation is another of the biggest problems our candidates identified when they joined a new organisation. Seeing a lack of structure and the stress as a result of this gave candidates a poor impression of a company when they started, as well as deterring them from accepting a job offer at the end of the recruitment process.

Another issue with disorganisation is that it often means that management is too busy to offer structured support to new hires. We’ve discussed why this is an issue above, but it can also impact a candidate’s experience because it means that their manager never gets to know them properly and is unable to offer praise or suggestions for improvement because of the lack of relationship.

How Candidates can Overcome

If disorganisation is a company-wide problem then finding solutions can be very tricky on an individual level. Whilst you may not be able to solve the problem of your manager being overworked and stretched for time, candidates can try and implement as much structure as possible into what their role requires to bring clarity and organisation into their individual work.

It may be that other employees are also feeling the strain of disorganisation and a lack of contact time with more senior team members, in which case you may benefit from speaking to your team and potentially raising the issue with management to see if a solution can be found.

How Organsations can Overcome

The process for overcoming this problem is a simple concept that can be tricky to actualise; remove disorganisation from your company.

To begin with, identify if there are any areas where chains of command are unclear, employees are unclear on what is expected of them, or a lack of time or resources are impacting your staff’s ability to complete their work to a high standard. You should also ensure that employees at every level are clear on their role in the company so that they know what tasks are their responsibility and what they should be handing over to others.

The main candidate gripe with a lack of organisation is that those in more senior positions never take the time to get to know new hires and build a professional relationship with them. Whilst this can be tricky to organise in a large business, ensure that heads of departments, technical leads and programme managers make time to speak with new employees and get involved with the work done in their area of the company.

4. Lack of Career Progression

When you’re on the hunt for talented candidates, you not only need to offer them an exceptional position in the present, but also the promise of a fulfilling career later down the line. Many of our candidates said that a key pain point for them when starting a new role was a lack of clear career progression and no obvious support in moving upwards in the company, which led to feelings of unfulfillment and an eventual move to another company.

Not only is career progression a great motivator for employees and a way to ensure that they are more engaged with their work, but it’s also the best way for businesses to hang on to their particularly talented team members and continue to nurture and benefit from this talent. Providing opportunities for career progression means creating a system where talent and hard work are rewarded with promotions, benefits and raises, and also ensuring that all employees receive support in planning career trajectory and taking the right steps towards success.

Businesswoman

How Candidates can Overcome

Having the support and guidance of your employer is one of the best ways to ensure successful career progression, but it’s not necessary for you to succeed. If your new place of work offers very little in terms of career support and assistance in planning your trajectory, you can seek support from other, more experienced employees or make the effort to make connections in the wider industry and seek our opportunities for learning and future employment that way.

Similarly to a lack of support, if you feel that your new workplace would benefit from a more structured career support program, you could propose this to someone higher up and offer to help setting this up.

How Organsations can Overcome

Overcoming this issue has two areas; facilitating progress within your company and supporting staff on their career path.

The first of these is pretty straightforward. Ensure that you have a fair system of rewards, recognition and promotion in your company so that employees understand what they need to do to progress in the business and also understand which roles are above them that they can work towards.

The second involves giving employees time and support for personal development and reflection to ensure that they are satisfied with their current role and know what they are progressing towards. Providing this support, even if it eventually means that an employee leaves you for another role elsewhere, will make current employees feel more satisfied with the work they are doing, confident in the progress they need to make, and motivated towards progression. It will also improve their overall experience of working for you, which is better for long-term candidate retention and your reputation as an employer. 

5. Repetitive Work

Finally, the fifth most significant complaint we heard from our candidates was that the work they were doing was repetitive and lacked variety. Of course, there are some instances where monotonous work is just part of a job, but it shouldn’t be the main feature of the tasks and responsibilities that an employee has.

Candidates in the engineering industry in particular want to be challenged and engaged by the work they do, with many seeking out employment opportunities that involve a range of projects that will allow them to utilise a range of skills and also get the chance to learn new things and gain new abilities. A lack of variety in a candidate’s workload can be a key reason for low retention rates, particularly if in combination with another of the gripes listed in this article.

Boredom

How Candidates can Overcome

Struggling with a repetitive workload is a tricky situation for new candidates, as some roles will require you to complete the same kinds of tasks over and over again. Once you have built up the trust and respect of your employer and colleagues, it can be worth asking whether there could be any opportunities to take on other work instead of your current responsibilities, especially if you can frame it as an opportunity to learn.

If the nature of your work is non-negotiable, see whether there is a way to bring more variety to your role outside of this. Whether it’s carving out time for personal development or offering to help out in other projects when you have capacity, it’s definitely worth putting out feelers to see if there are additional opportunities to mix things up a bit.

How Organsations can Overcome

Overcoming monotony in your employee’s workload involves ensuring that nobody is ever put in a position where they are asked to simply repeat the same tasks over and over again without any variety. There will be some businesses that handle a range of clients and projects and therefore avoid this simply because of the nature of the work they do, but others may need to ensure that staff’s responsibilities don’t just involve the same kind of work.

You may have some employees that are happy to do repetitive work, but the majority will likely appreciate some variety in their day-to-day activities. It can be useful to speak to the line managers or team leaders that dictate others’ workloads and ensure that they swap tasks around where appropriate and give their colleagues chances to work on new projects and ideas.

Repetitive work also indicates that employees are not progressing and improving their skillset, which is another reason why providing internal training and personal development time is a great way to improve employee experience.

Summary

Targeting pain points is one of the most effective ways of making a big difference to success, particularly when it comes to candidate experience in recruitment and employment. Whilst this list is not exhaustive, it covers the key areas that we are seeing most of our candidates struggle with and provides businesses with a simple list to work through to ensure that they are doing everything they can to offer an attractive and fulfilling experience to new employees.

Our experience in the recruitment industry allows us to gain valuable insights such as these which help our clients stand out from the crowd when it comes to sourcing new employees. To find out more about how a specialist engineering recruitment agency can make a difference for your company, get in touch and speak to a member of our expert team.