Explain Your Hiring Process to Candidates
When to use it
Give candidates a clear picture of what's coming, which is the cheapest way to reduce mid-process drop-off.
The prompt
Write a candidate-facing explanation of our hiring process for a {{Job Title}} role. OUR STAGES: {{list them in order, with who's involved and roughly how long each takes}} TOTAL ELAPSED TIME, REALISTICALLY: {{your honest average, not your best case}} ANY WORK TEST OR TAKE-HOME: {{what it is and how long it should take}} WHAT WE'RE ASSESSING AT EACH STAGE: {{be specific}} OUR POLICY ON AI USE: {{what candidates may and may not use, and at which stages}} WHERE THIS WILL APPEAR: {{the careers page, an email after the first screen, or both}} Give me: 1. The explanation, stage by stage: what happens, who they'll meet, what we're looking for, and how to prepare. 2. How long they'll wait between stages and how they'll hear from us, including what happens if they're unsuccessful and whether they'll get feedback. 3. What accommodations are available and how to ask, phrased so nobody has to explain why. 4. A short FAQ with the questions candidates actually ask: can I reschedule, can I use AI, who decides, when do we talk about comp. 5. A three-line version for the bottom of a screening-call follow-up email. Then flag anything in my inputs a candidate would read as a warning sign, such as an unpaid take-home of more than a few hours, or six rounds for a mid-level role. No corporate throat-clearing. Write it the way you'd explain it to a friend.
Tip
Publish the realistic elapsed time, not the best case. Candidates who know a process takes five weeks wait five weeks; candidates told two weeks start disengaging in week three.
How to use it
Paste the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or whichever assistant you use, then replace every {{bracketed}} part with your own detail. The more specific and messier your input, the better the output — a model given raw notes has more to work with than one given a tidy summary you wrote first.
More Employer Brand prompts
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