Three employee engagement Questions to enhance recruiting

3 mins, 13 secs read time

As a recruiter, you have many tools in your arsenal to find and nurture candidates. However, one tool that might not come to mind (but is a great source of information) is your company’s employee engagement survey. If your company uses an employee feedback platform, like Culture Amp, you’re probably already familiar with the survey process and the rich, actionable insight it can provide.

Employee engagement surveys are used on a regular basis to help companies collect, understand, and act on employee feedback. As a recruiter, you can dive into those organization-wide learnings and find information that will help you in your day-to-day role.

At Culture Amp, we put together a list of twenty employee engagement questions every company should ask. Here, we’ll dive into three employee engagement questions that you can use to have more informed conversations with candidates and improve the new hire onboarding experience.

Question 1: “I have access to the things I need to do my job well.”

This question is what we at Culture Amp call a “hygiene factor.” Without agreement to this question, you can’t move forward in enabling employee performance. For recruiters, the higher the level of agreement to this question, the better. When scores here are positive, you can talk with candidates about the things they’ll have access to once they start with your company that will help them succeed in the role.

If your company has low agreement (low scores) on this question, taking a look at the comments can provide some detail as to what people are missing. This is also a good question to monitor over time, so you can see if and how new hires are being set up for success.

Question 2: “I know what I need to do to be successful in my role”

This question falls into the “alignment” category in Culture Amp’s engagement survey. All of the questions in this section are aimed at understanding how connected and involved an individual is with the organization. This is another hygiene question, meaning that if people don’t feel like they know what they need to do to be successful, they won’t be able to move forward with development.

Data from this question can tell you if there is role alignment or if expectations need to be more clear for candidates and new hires. Looking at variance in response to this question across departments and tenure can reveal more insights. Use feedback here to better set expectations for people’s 30-60-90 day plans when they start.

Question 3: “I believe there are good career opportunities for me at this company”

Development is a consistent driver of engagement, meaning it has a high impact on whether or not employees feel engaged at work. Development opportunities are also something candidates look for in a new role, making responses to this question particularly important for recruiters.

If your company has high agreement to this question, you can use this as a selling point when meeting with candidates. Talk about how new hires have found success and moved into different positions, and what your company does to support learning and development. If scores here are lower, this is a good topic to discuss with your people team to understand why people might be feeling this way.

How will you use employee engagement questions in recruiting?

The three questions we’ve covered here are just the beginning of how you can use employee engagement data to improve recruiting. This type of employee feedback is invaluable, because it offers insight into what matters most to people at your company. From here, you can take action on it by strategically using it in your hiring efforts.

Take a look at the other employee engagement survey questions we recommend. What questions could you use to improve your recruiting process?