How Onboard Express Helps HR Teams Deliver a Standout Candidate Experience
Australia’s employment participation rate increased to 67.1% in July 2025, almost reaching the highest in history. Today’s job market is more competitive than ever for prospective employees and employers, but one area that can set your organisation apart is the candidate experience.
64% of job seekers say a poor candidate experience makes them less likely to purchase goods and services from that business. As well as your customer reputation, a poor experience also negatively impacts your recruitment efforts.
Attracting and retaining top talent means building an engaging employee experience, from offer acceptance to exit. To capture their attention and make a great first impression, your company must show that it values its employees, starting with onboarding.
At Onboard Express, we’re proud to have helped over 150,000 candidates have a standout onboarding experience. Discover how our purpose-built platform can transform candidate engagement for your organisation.
Why is a Standout Candidate Experience Important?
A great candidate experience provides a positive first impression of your company and the employee’s new role. This impression is vital as it reflects your workplace culture, including how employees are treated. It helps current and future candidates decide whether to accept a role at your organisation or look elsewhere.
Today, candidates are re-evaluating what’s important in a job role. Beyond good pay, job hunters are looking for companies that prioritise work-life balance and career development opportunities. A standout candidate experience provides the chance to demonstrate this from the beginning, helping organisations to:
Secure Top Talent
Job hunters are no longer restricted by location in many industries, with over one-third of Australians working from home last year. This means they can be more picky about the roles they choose. Just like HR teams assess the suitability of applicants, candidates also decide whether the role and company are best for them.
“At a time when high-quality talent is scarce, a highly professional first impression, speed in making the offer, and a positive employee experience are essential,” says Ryan Ray, General Manager of Culture and Capability at UnitingCare Queensland.
The aged care charity achieved this by replacing its all-in-one recruitment software with Onboard Express’s best-of-breed onboarding solution. And the benefits speak for themselves.
Like UnitingCare Qld, creating a good candidate experience helps you build a reputation as an employer that cares about its workforce. A caring culture appeals more to prospective candidates looking for roles within your industry.
Employees who feel connected to their workplace culture are six times more likely to recommend your organisation to others, whether friends and family or through recruitment websites like Glassdoor.
On the other hand, of those candidates who have had a poor experience, 72% have shared it online or with another person directly. Future applicants can easily access this information and make an immediate decision, even before applying!
Retain a Productive Workforce
The Australian labour market currently has a 7.7% average turnover rate, hitting highs of 15.5% in some industries. That’s why 88% of organisations are concerned about employee retention, according to a LinkedIn Workplace Learning report.
HR teams must ensure new hires feel comfortable in their roles from day one to keep employees engaged in the long term. This begins with effective online training programs, delivered at a manageable pace through purpose-built software, that properly onboard successful candidates and inform them of key responsibilities.
Nearly half of learning and talent development professionals see a skills crisis today. 49% are concerned that their “employees do not have the right skills to execute our business strategy,” which leaves them feeling lost.
Building these skills early in the journey encourages confidence and loyalty, meaning candidates are less likely to leave before they’ve even started!
Boost Engagement
From onboarding to day one in their role, creating the best candidate experience helps organisations build trust and connections with new hires.
Prioritising a seamless journey helps candidates move higher up the Employee Experience Index:
- Belonging: Feeling part of a team, group, or organisation
- Purpose: Understanding why one’s work matters
- Achievement: A sense of accomplishment in the work that is done
- Happiness: The pleasant feeling arising in and around work
- Vigour: The presence of energy, enthusiasm, and excitement at work
Organisations that score in the top 25% of this index report nearly double the return on sales compared to those in the bottom quartile. Besides financial gain, these companies are rewarded with high candidate engagement and a workforce that is fully onboard with their mission and values.
Gallup research indicates that highly engaged employees are 14% more productive. They also influence positive long-term business outcomes, including 23% higher profitability and 78% less absenteeism.
For UnitingCare, Onboard Express’s smooth onboarding process minimised more than just the financial administrative costs. It also removed the expense of replacing candidates who left due to poor onboarding experiences, which costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary. Not to mention the valuable knowledge and skills lost from top-tier candidates!
How Onboard Express Enhances the Candidate Journey
Google searches for “employee experience” have increased 130% in the past five years. Despite this growing interest in the area, a survey of over 800 candidates found that more than half have had a poor candidate experience.
If you’re seeing offer acceptance rates decline while first-year attrition and turnover numbers increase, it’s time to improve your candidate journey beyond the interview and job offer stage.
Here’s how Onboard Express can enhance your organisation’s employee experience:
Streamlines Contract Creation Time
Onboard Express’s powerful employment contract construction tool features dynamic document control. This speeds up the preboarding process while ensuring new employees have all the documents and policies needed to start their career journey positively.
The process is simple:
- Begin by using pre-made contract templates. Or, customise your own with brand logos and fonts that create a sense of belonging for candidates from the beginning.
- Personalise your template to each employee, switching specific clauses or pages on and off to ensure only relevant details are included. Our automated calculations also quickly apply new contract rates for consistent, standardised updates.
- Contracts and job offers are delivered to candidates automatically through their own personalised portal, where they’ll also receive customised notifications to keep them on track.
- Candidates must only enter their details once, as our review workflows pre-populate all eForms. They are then sent to all relevant departments and personnel for secure digital approvals.
60% of candidates say better communication throughout and after the applicant process would make the most positive impact. With this contract creation process, candidates will no longer be waiting to hear from you!
Not-for-profit organisation Southern Cross Care wanted to prepare its systems to onboard 750 new employees each year, while making current manual processes and the overall candidate experience smoother.
By integrating Onboard Express’s contract creation tool with existing recruitment and IT systems, they were able to secure top talent in a candidate-scarce market. HR teams also reduced the total time to onboard a new employee, from creating an offer through to payroll processing, by more than 80%.
Helps You Maintain Compliance Easily
Meeting complex compliance regulations often creates a slow and challenging start to the candidate journey. This happens particularly in heavily regulated industries like health and aged care, where background and qualification checks are essential.
Maintaining compliance for organisations in the aged care sector is crucial for avoiding penalties and meeting Aged Care Quality Standards. It ensures older Australians receive the high-quality care they need from qualified, highly trained staff.
Instant Work Rights verification checks via the Department of Home Affairs’ VEVO system are fully embedded within the Onboard Express system. These checks automatically make sure new hires meet the regulations necessary for the job role.
“This digitisation has been a game changer for compliance and candidate experience,” says Katie Le Page, Chief Talent Officer at Infinite Aged Care.
Onboard Express’s compliant onboarding processes helped Infinite Aged Care win the Best Tech Stack award at the 2024 ITAs, beating technology giants like Deloitte and Optus. The residential care providers lowered onboarding time to just 45 minutes, while maintaining a compliant process.
Minimises Onboarding Costs
By switching to Onboard Express’s purpose-built platform, aged care charities like UnitingCare Queensland have reduced their onboarding costs by up to 80%.
UnitingCare’s candidates were able to complete their onboarding packs instantly via mobile or desktop browser. They also established onboarding pods that distributed the required information on a needed basis, without overwhelming candidates.
This reduced the cost of physical paper and ink, plus the time spent creating and completing contracts manually for hundreds of recruits.
Start Building a Seamless Candidate Experience Today
Creating a standout candidate experience is key to delivering a good impression of your organisation to new employees. This impacts your brand’s reputation, helping you build a strong, engaged workforce while continuing to attract and retain first-choice candidates.
Onboard Express enhances this journey by integrating smoothly with your existing HR, IT, and payroll systems, without disrupting seamless candidate experiences. Every setup comes with a dedicated project manager to guide you through the process, personalising the platform to help your organisation deliver a 5-star experience for every candidate.
Book a demo today to see how we can help you craft the best candidate experience and stand out from the rest.