Usually, when we wonder, "why did someone apply and interview only to walk away from the offer?" we think about the question on an individual level. What was the issue with that person or interaction? But when you look more systemically, you might see that things like messaging, branding, and candidate experience timeline have just as much of an impact. CNBC asks why 50% of offers end up being rejected.

If you are being forced to re-think your candidate experience (because you can't just have them show up to the office at the moment), here are some suggestions on leveraging human-centered design to re-invent the entire experience.

I love talking about rejection letters (sorry... disposition messaging ...rolls eyes...) because they are deeply impactful messaging opportunities we tend to phone in. Which is why I loved this article about how Intel re-designed its rejection experience (and it is an "experience," is it not?).

Brands are things humans build feelings around. Are you thinking about what emotions you want to encourage and when?

Here’s some good thinking on how to think as deeply around your employee experience as one might for their consumer experience.

My feeling on over-indexing on candidate experience are well known (your CX should reflect your brand and work reality, not just “white glove”), but there are still great online ways to engage talent online outside of tests and (god help us all) the ATS. Here are some examples from the consumer world we could all steal ideas from.