Not even a quarter of the Belgian applicants should expect an answer after their job application. The StepStone survey with 44.500 Belgian jobseekers also shows that it typically takes 18 applications to get a single interview. StepStone encourages employers to put themselves in the candidate’s shoes.
The difficult journey of the Belgian jobseeker
Over the last three years, StepStone has interviewed over 44.500 applicants on their job search. The survey shows that only 24% of Belgian jobseekers hear back from employers in the 45 days after applying. While the war for talent goes on, a painstakingly low number of jobseekers gets a response.
This is despite 85% of all the applicants finding themselves to be a good or even perfect match for said job. This discrepancy between response and self-image shows how important and valuable employer feedback can be for candidates. Moreover, responding and giving feedback are crucial ways of preserving one’s employer branding and image towards candidates.
Belgium has a lower level of response than neighbouring countries
Nationally, we notice a difference between the French and Dutch speaking parts of Belgium. The applicant response index is higher for the Dutch speaking population with 28%, while only 22% of the French speaking Belgian jobseekers get a response.
Internationally, there are some big differences as well. Both the Netherlands and Germany have better results with respectively 35% and an impressive 52%. In France, however, the response index is much worse with only 15% of the interviewed jobseekers getting a response.
18 applications result in one interview
Unfortunately, in addition to the low response index, the difficult journey for the candidate only begins. Typically, it takes the Belgian job seeker 18 application letters to get a single interview. The same goes for the Netherlands, while in France it takes 21 applications on average. In Germany, however, only ten attempts are needed.
Of course, the conversion rate from interview into an actual job offer is the crucial statistic for candidates. Here we see fairly similar results for the different countries: in Belgium it takes, on average, 3 interviews to get one job offer. The same goes for the Netherlands, while our German and French neighbours only have to go through two interviews in order to receive the all-important job offer.
“StepStone encourages customers to put themselves in a jobseeker’s shoes”, says Customer Experience Manager B2B & B2C Eva Ba.
Eva Ba who works at StepStone as Customer Experience Manager B2B & B2C, concludes the following: «We encourage customers to put themselves in a jobseeker’s shoes. That way we help them being more transparent in the recruitment process & providing feedback to candidates systematically. »
« We even facilitate personalized feedback in our StepStone application management tool. Companies should rethink the full application experience to be simple and accessible. »