Free template · Planning

Candidate Experience Survey Template

A candidate experience survey is a short questionnaire you send to applicants after their process ends, asking how the recruiting experience felt from their side - not what you thought of them. Employers use it to hear from people who were hired, rejected and withdrew, and to spot friction in the process before it costs you future applicants.

Send this once a hiring decision is final, ideally within a few days while the experience is still fresh. Keep it short, keep it anonymous where you can, and build in a version for every outcome - a hired candidate and a rejected one notice very different things about the same process.

Copy & adapt — replace every [placeholder]

Survey Invitation Email

Subject: [YOUR RECENT APPLICATION WITH COMPANY NAME]

Body: Thanks for going through our hiring process for [JOB TITLE]. We would like to hear how it felt from your side - the survey takes about [X] minutes and your answers are [ANONYMOUS / SHARED ONLY WITH THE HIRING TEAM].

Survey link: [SURVEY LINK]

Sign-off: [YOUR NAME / TEAM NAME]

Which Stage Did You Reach

[ ] Application only, no response yet

[ ] Phone or initial screen

[ ] Skills assessment or task

[ ] Interview, one or more rounds

[ ] Offer stage

Outcome: [HIRED / NOT SELECTED / WITHDREW]

Rating Statements

Communication throughout the process was clear and timely: [STRONGLY DISAGREE - STRONGLY AGREE]

I understood what each stage of the process would involve: [STRONGLY DISAGREE - STRONGLY AGREE]

The interview or assessment felt relevant to the job: [STRONGLY DISAGREE - STRONGLY AGREE]

I was treated with respect throughout: [STRONGLY DISAGREE - STRONGLY AGREE]

The process took a reasonable amount of time: [STRONGLY DISAGREE - STRONGLY AGREE]

Open-Text Prompts

What was the best part of applying with us? [OPEN TEXT]

What was the most frustrating part, if any? [OPEN TEXT]

Is there anything you wish we had explained better? [OPEN TEXT]

Rejected or withdrawn only - what, if anything, would have kept you in the process? [OPEN TEXT]

Wrap-Up & Consent

Would you apply with us again? [YES / NO / NOT SURE]

Would you recommend a friend apply here? [YES / NO / NOT SURE]

May we quote your feedback anonymously to improve our process? [YES / NO]

Thank-you note: Your answers help us improve the process for future candidates. [WHAT YOU WILL DO WITH THE RESULTS]

Get the editable template pack emailed to you

We'll send the full, editable recruiting template pack — plus the occasional hiring tip. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

No spam — just the resource and the occasional hiring tip. Unsubscribe anytime.

How to use this template

  1. 1 Send the survey within a few days of the final decision, while the experience is still fresh for the candidate.
  2. 2 Keep separate short intros for hired, rejected and withdrawn candidates so the wording matches their actual outcome.
  3. 3 Ask which stage they reached before showing rating statements, so answers can be grouped by where in the process they exited.
  4. 4 Make the anonymity or confidentiality promise explicit, and honour it when you report results back internally.
  5. 5 Review answers by stage and outcome rather than as one blended average, since a rejected candidate and a hired one flag very different things.

Tips

  • ▸Keep it under five minutes to complete - a long survey after a rejection gets abandoned fast.
  • ▸Baseline against your own earlier results rather than any published figure; what counts as a strong result varies too much by industry, role level and how the survey was administered to compare fairly.
  • ▸Send it to rejected and withdrawn candidates too, not just people you hired - their answers usually surface the sharpest friction points.
  • ▸Read open-text answers alongside the stage reached; a complaint about slow communication means something different at application stage versus after a final interview.
  • ▸Close the loop by acting on at least one piece of feedback each cycle and saying so internally, or response rates will fall over time.

Turn templates into a real hiring workflow

More free templates

Internship Offer Letter TemplateFirst Week Onboarding Plan Template30-60-90 Day Plan TemplateExit Interview Questionnaire Template

Related tools & guides

Free JD generatorInterview question generatorJob description templates
FAQ

Candidate Experience Survey Template — FAQs

How is this different from a candidate feedback form? +
A candidate feedback form is filled in by your interviewers about the candidate, to help the panel decide. A candidate experience survey is filled in by the candidate about you, to help you improve the process. They measure opposite things and go to different people.
Should we survey rejected candidates as well as new hires? +
Yes - rejected and withdrawn candidates often give the most useful feedback, since they experienced the process without the goodwill of getting an offer. Just keep their version of the survey short and considerate given the outcome.
Is there a good candidate experience score? +
There is no reliable published benchmark, because surveys are worded, timed and administered too differently across companies to compare fairly. Track your own results over time instead and watch the trend, rather than chasing a number from somewhere else.
How do we get a decent response rate? +
Send it soon after the outcome, keep it short, and explain plainly what you will do with the answers. Response rates also tend to improve once candidates notice you have visibly changed something based on a past survey.
Pitch N Hire ATS

Send this from your ATS instead of an email thread

Pitch N Hire is an applicant tracking system. Offers, interview invitations, feedback requests, and rejections go out from the candidate record — so nothing is retyped and nothing is lost in someone's inbox.

  • Send offers and candidate emails from the candidate record
  • Every message and document stays attached to the candidate
  • Templates your whole team reuses, so the process stays consistent
Start free — 1 user Explore the ATS

Free for 1 user · No credit card · Talk to a real hiring expert

Built for recruiters & hiring teams

Hire faster with structured, AI-assisted recruiting

Pitch N Hire unifies sourcing, screening, and async AI interviews on one platform. Start free with the 1-user plan, or book a demo on your real roles.

Prefer to talk? Book a demo · Talk to sales · View pricing

Free 1-user plan · No credit card · Talk to a real hiring expert

One Hiring Infrastructure.
Zero Tool Chaos.

Demos are consultative. We respect privacy and enterprise
governance. No lock-ins.

Start free Book demo