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What do a recent college graduate and someone five years from retirement have in common? They’re both applying for jobs in the same hiring market.
But here’s the catch: their experience of the hiring process…couldn’t be more different.
Which means recruiters and talent pros are facing a challenge: how do you make one hiring process work for individual candidates across generations and career stages—expectations, deal breakers, and all?
How to Improve Candidate Experience Across Generations
Before we dig in, a quick definition: candidate experience is the sum of every interaction a job seeker has with your company during hiring. It includes everything from the first job posting they see to the final offer (or rejection).
To unpack what a great candidate experience really looks like across generations, we brought together three expert panelists—Ben Eubanks (Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse Research & Advisory), Kyle M.K. (Senior Talent Strategy Advisor at Indeed), and Candice Coker (Talent Acquisition Manager at Total Education Solutions)—for our live webinar, “What Different Generations Expect from the Candidate Experience.”
But while the conversation may have started with generations, it quickly shifted toward a much bigger question.
How can hiring teams create an experience that works for every candidate, not just every generation?
Because great hiring isn’t about memorizing what Gen Z wants versus Millennials or Baby Boomers. It’s about asking better questions, listening to the answers, and adapting the experience accordingly.
As Ben put it, “One size fits one. Even the hats are lying—they don’t fit everybody.”
(For a deep dive into how and when candidate expectations do differ across generations, check out this blog.)
3 Ways to Improve Candidate Experiences for Your Candidates
So, what did 1,500+ job seekers and four talent leaders teach us about the candidate experience? Here are three takeaways worth putting into practice.
Takeaway 1: Set Expectations Before Candidates Accept the Offer
Long before a candidate logs in on day one, they’re already forming opinions about what it’s like to work for your organization. Every interaction becomes a signal.
- How you communicate—does it feel personalized, or are candidates left feeling like a number in an Excel spreadsheet?
- Whether you follow through.
- How prepared interviewers are.
- Even how easy it is to ask questions.
Whether you realize it or not, candidates are asking themselves, “If this is what hiring is like, what will it be like to work here?”
As our moderator put it during the discussion:
“In many ways, candidate experience has become a preview of employee experience.”
And when the hiring process doesn’t line up with the employee experience? It’s going to cost you. According to Job Seeker Nation, 46% of job seekers who left a role within their first 90 days said the job or company wasn’t what they expected based on the hiring process.
That’s why setting expectations isn’t just about helping candidates make a final decision. It’s about helping them make the right decision.
As Kyle put it:
“You have to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly about what it’s like to work for your organization.”
It’s tempting to focus on selling the opportunity. But candidates don’t need a polished version of the job. They need an honest one.
But setting expectations goes beyond the role itself. Ben pointed out that candidates also want clarity around the hiring process just as much as they want transparency around salary, benefits, and day-to-day work life.
“Transparency means the process. [What] you should expect after this, if you go forward, here’s what happens next.”
TL;DR: The best candidate experiences don’t oversell the opportunity. They help candidates understand exactly what they’re saying yes to—from the role itself to the hiring process they’ll experience along the way. For quick reference, check out the advice our webinar panelists gave:
| Candidate expectation | What recruiters should do |
| Honest job preview | Share the good, bad, and ugly of the role |
| Hiring process transparency | Explain every stage and next steps |
| Clear communication | Follow through and keep candidates informed |
Takeaway 2: Flexibility Means Different Things to Different People
Ask candidates what they want from their next role, and across generations, chances are flexibility will be near the top of the list. But the real question isn’t whether candidates want flexibility; it’s what they mean when they say it.
As Ben explained, when his team asked candidates what flexibility means to them, the top answers had “nothing to do with where they work.”
For some candidates, flexibility is about a hybrid schedule. For others, it’s having more control over their hours, autonomy in how they approach their work, or opportunities to build new skills and advance their careers.
That means recruiters can’t treat flexibility as a checkbox. It has to be a conversation—about what it means to that individual, how the organization can meet those needs, and whether the role is a good fit or not.
Candice shared that her team builds questions into every recruiter screening to uncover what flexibility actually looks like for each candidate.
She also emphasized the importance of being honest about how your organization and the role line up with candidate expectations.
“You need to talk about what you can and can’t offer because it needs to come up.”
Putting this into action: When flexibility comes up in the conversation…which it most likely will:
- Ask candidates what “flexibility” means to them
- Listen to the answer
- Tailor the rest of the conversation accordingly.
It’s one of the simplest ways to create a better candidate experience and help talent determine whether your organization is the right fit.
Takeaway 3: Candidates Are Choosing Companies as Much as Companies Are Choosing Candidates
The hiring process used to be centered on one question: Is this candidate the right fit?
Today, candidates are asking the same question about employers.
They’re comparing opportunities, researching company culture, and deciding whether your organization aligns with what they want next. And in many cases, they’re continuing to interview even after accepting an offer.
(Check out how candidate perceptions are shaping offer acceptance here.)
Ben shared that the majority of candidates in his research say they keep their options open after accepting an offer in case something better comes along.
But rather than seeing that as a sign that candidates are less committed, Kyle offered another perspective.
That shift changes how hiring teams need to think about recruiting. It’s no longer enough to simply identify qualified candidates. Recruiters also have to make a compelling case for why their organization is the right place to build a career.
As Kyle put it, the goal is to create a hiring experience that makes candidates think, “I’d be excited to work there.”
What Can Talent Acquisition Teams Do to Improve the Candidate Experience Today?
Hiring is complex. No way to get around it. And trying to create a hiring experience that resonates with every candidate—from Gen Z to Baby Boomers—can feel like mission impossible.
But here’s the good news: improvement usually doesn’t require massive, from-the-ground-up overhauls. Small improvements can make a huge difference.
Here are three simple ideas to get you started:
- Get real about the good, the bad, and the ugly: Candidates don’t expect perfection. But they do expect transparency. What it’s really like to work at your organization. What the team looks like. How projects work. What the culture feels like on a day-to-day. And the teams who are willing to get real? Have much better odds of keeping new hires around for the long-term.
- Listen—don’t sell: It can be easy to want to go right into pitching your open req. But here’s the thing. Even if you have the best pitch in town, if you don’t know what that candidate cares about, you’re probably not going to hit the target. Listen first, then tell them why your role fits their requirements.
- Take a stroll through your own hiring process: As recruiters, you know the ins and outs of your hiring process. But what you might not have as much insight into is how your hiring process feels for candidates. Take the time to apply, see how long wait times are between application and interview, test assessments. See exactly how the process feels so you can better assess where friction is and where it can be improved.
At the end of the day, so much of hiring comes back to connecting with the human being on the other side of the interview table (or Zoom call). And that’s what makes an experience worth saying yes to.
Frequently Asked Questions
This webinar covered several interconnected topics at a high level. If you’d like to explore any of them in more depth, we’ve linked to additional resources throughout this recap.
What is candidate experience?
Candidate experience is the sum of every interaction a job seeker has with your organization during hiring—from the first job posting they see to the final offer or rejection.
As our panel put it, it’s become a preview of the employee experience: how you communicate, whether you follow through, and how prepared your interviewers are all signal what working for you will actually be like.
Why is candidate experience important?
Candidate experience is important because it shapes decisions on both sides of the hiring table.
Candidates treat the hiring process as a proxy for the job itself—according to Job Seeker Nation, 46% of job seekers who left a role within their first 90 days said it was not what they expected based on the hiring process.
A strong candidate experience helps the right people say yes and stay; a weak one costs you offers, retention, and reputation.
How do you measure candidate experience?
You can measure candidate experience by combining direct feedback with process signals—a post-application or post-interview candidate experience survey, offer-acceptance rates, and where candidates drop out of the funnel.
The most telling measure is qualitative, though: whether candidates leave the process able to say exactly what they were saying yes to.
How can you improve the candidate experience?
To improve your candidate experience, start small and be honest. Set clear expectations before an offer (the good, the bad, and the ugly), ask each candidate what “flexibility” actually means to them instead of assuming, and walk through your own hiring process the way a candidate would to find the friction.
Improving the candidate experience rarely takes an overhaul—consistent communication and transparency do most of the work.
What do candidates across generations expect from the hiring process?
Less than you would expect in terms of generational stereotypes, and more than you would expect in terms of individual clarity.
As one panelist put it, “one size fits one”—the strongest predictor of a good experience is not age but whether the process is transparent, responsive, and honest about the role. The most reliable approach is to ask better questions and tailor the experience to the person in front of you.
Ready for more intel into what today’s candidates expect from the hiring process?
Watch the full webinar on-demand.
And download your copy of the 2026 Job Seeker Nation report.
