SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2015) - Talent Board, a non-profit organization focused on the promotion and data benchmark research of a quality candidate experience, today shared details about a new recognition among the 2015 Candidate Experience Award Winners, known as the "Story Tellers." Of the 50 winning companies, 10 were identified for their unique candidate experience offerings and associated examples of recruiting success.

"This year, Talent Board introduced an updated selection process, recognizing the companies with the highest benchmarking scores as well as the most interesting candidate experience processes," said Gerry Crispin, Talent Board co-founder, and principal and co-founder of CareerXroads. "Since the inception of the Candidate Experience Awards and all throughout our tremendous growth over the last few years, it has become increasingly apparent that there are standout stories even amongst those high-ranking companies. We created the Story Teller designation as a way to help infuse these stories into the larger conversation about best practices and positive recruiting outcomes."

All 2015 Candidate Experience Award winners were celebrated during an Awards Ceremony and Banquet that took place on Thursday, October 1, 2015 during the Second Annual Candidate Experience Symposium. To qualify, each participant had to commit to a series of strict academic standards, solely data-driven and encompassing a statistically significant candidate response in addition to exceeding a specification of the proportion of candidates not hired. Winners were selected based on their performance against a set standard, which was created at the outset of Round One. From there, those employers that went above and beyond the benchmarks were invited to continue participating in Round Two.

Those that successfully met the criteria established in the first two rounds were asked to submit a video interview describing the details of their candidate experience process. Ten of the 50 CandE winners were judged the best "Story Tellers" of the 2015 winning benchmark class. The judges included Dwane Lay, vice president of Customer Experience at Dovetail Software; Craig Fisher, head of Employer Brand, CA Technologies; Stacy Zapar, founder and CEO of Tenfold, brand strategist; and Tom Becker, CEO and founder, Talennium. This year's Story Tellers class includes:

AT&T - By focusing on the metrics behind the process, AT&T looks at the ROI of its candidate experience-related changes. Since implementing this approach, the company has demonstrated significant cost savings based on changes to its career site, reducing application fields from 75 to 31, monitoring the length of time each step of the process takes candidates as well as the communication used to ensure each question is answered.

BlueCross BlueShield of Michigan - Feedback is provided to every candidate, not to just those interviewed or hired, as part of the disposition stage. Even BCBS of MI rejection letters invite candidates to update their profiles on the career site for maximum visibility to recruiters, while candidate status remains available to them at every point in the process.

Comcast - Comcast's approach to candidate experience includes dedicated candidate care, personal touch "white glove" service when on-site and personal responses from recruiters to let candidates know their status. As an organization, Comcast empowers recruiters to give instant feedback and measures each instance of personal contact.

Cumming - Transparency is the key to Cumming's candidate experience success, and the company understands the business impact of a bad experience. Currently, the process involves requesting a Glassdoor review from every candidate, an ongoing commitment to a five-day turnaround on resume decisions, providing greater visibility into the process and how its ATS rates and ranks candidates on the Cumming career site.

Enterprise Holdings - With the company pledging to get back to candidates within five days, recruiter contact information is made available to candidates, including photos and social links. In addition, Enterprise Holdings treats internal candidates equal to external ones, measuring candidates' time during each step in the process and showcasing the rate of promotions within the company in real time.

Humana - Humana has set up an innovative military and wounded veteran hiring initiative and process which includes preparing accommodations in advance of the candidate's start date. The company continues to incorporate technological solutions to help improve candidate experience, such as video interviewing, and measures the impact of each on the candidate experience.

Progressive Insurance - As an insurance company, Progressive focuses on the numbers. As such, the company instituted Candidate Experience progress teams to study and benchmark for future state and hold recruiters and managers alike accountable for good Net Promoter Scores. The company also created "The Progressive Candidate Experience Promise," focusing on candidate experience goals, reflective of brand, core values and culture at each step in the recruiting process.

Sodexo - Sodexo believes in a great digital experience, which includes microsites that encourage direct connections to recruiters, a mobile job application and a tailored, personalized experience. On the business side, Sodexo also uses funnel metrics to demonstrate how to continuously improve the hiring process and in turn the candidate's experience.

Spectrum Health - Hiring managers and recruiters are partners in the candidate experience at Spectrum Health. Both commit to follow-up with candidates; for recruiters, within three days upon receiving a resume and for hiring managers, within seven days of receiving candidates from the recruiting team. In addition, disposition emails include the recruiter's name and phone number for easy follow-up.

T-Mobile - The keys to a great experience at T-Mobile include listening, responding and transparency. The company lets candidates know how long a position has been open, how many have applied and how soon to expect an update, plus video and infographic content about the process. For leadership, T-Mobile offers continued insight into what they are doing to enhance the candidate experience.

The annual North American CandE data results and report will be published early next year and will include the 2015 "Benchmark" for Candidate Experience. The complimentary report will be available to all interested organizations and employers as well as this year's 200 participating companies and honorees.

Information about participation in the Candidate Experience Awards is available at: http://www.thetalentboard.org.

About Talent Board
Talent Board is a non-profit organization focused on the elevation and promotion of a quality candidate experience. The organization, awards program and its sponsors are dedicated to recognizing the candidate experience offered by companies through the entire recruitment cycle and to forever changing the manner in which job candidates are treated. More information can be accessed at www.thetalentboard.org.