As the country gets back to work, you keep hearing that there are more job openings than ever before. But here you are, sitting at your desk, looking at your applicant tracking system (ATS), and wondering why it isn’t full of applicants. You’ve spent a lot more on ads, put a new banner on your company’s home page, and begged your employees to tell their friends. All of this should work. More people are going to your career site. They were interested in the jobs you had open, so why didn’t they apply?

It sounds like you are having trouble finding candidates. It’s time to put yourself in the shoes of your candidate and find out what it’s like to be one. This is how:

Show your employer what you can do for them

Now that job hunters are on your career site, are you showing them a place where people would want to work? They’ve read the job description, but they want to know what it’s like to work there before they apply. And since hiring is up this year, they can wait to find a flexible employer who meets their needs and supports diversity, equality, inclusion, and a sense of belonging.

Get rid of obstacles to applying

If you’ve done this well, candidates will look at how to apply next. Candidates want applications that are easy to fill out from start to finish and that don’t make it hard for them to get in. Some of the most annoying job sites force applicants to:

• Look through too many job postings to find the one they were interested in.
• Make a login (with an 8-character password that is complex and unique) and a profile.
• Click a ridiculous number of times to get to the application.
• Type their resume by hand into text boxes 

Candidates won’t fill out their applications if the application process isn’t quick and easy. Only 30% of people who start the application process actually finish it, according to averages in the industry. You have already spent time and money on seven out of every ten candidates, but they choose not to finish the application. Organizations that want to be successful should make it easier for people to get jobs. Eliminating registration requirements as the first step when a candidate applies is a simple way to increase the number of people who apply and boost your employer brand at the same time.

Eliminate Technical Issues

Next, think about what a candidate would do if they had a problem with technology or a question about how to apply. Companies spend a lot of time and money getting job seekers to their career site to apply, only to lose them because of technical problems or a lack of ways to get help. This lowers conversion rates and makes job seekers more frustrated. Think about adding a chatbot that can answer frequently asked questions or escalate the issue to someone who can help the candidate. This will increase your candidate conversion rate.

Optimize for Mobile

Are you mobile-optimized? We know you have a phone nearby, so pick it up and look at your application process on your phone. Over the years, the number of people who use mobile phones has steadily grown, so you should make sure that your application works well on any platform. Even better, make it easier for people to apply by giving them ways to apply and talk with you through text.

Cut the feedback loop in half

Lastly, think about how it feels to hit “submit” and wait for a response as a candidate. Think about how often you have to wait today to find out the status of something. We expect to know, and almost demand to know, where we stand in the process of getting an order or question answered. You can track your Lyft driver in real time, see where your Amazon order is in the delivery process, and even find out when your Grubhub food delivery will arrive. This is also what candidates think employers will expect from them.

Provide a Better Experience

In the end, if you want to hire the best people, it doesn’t matter how nice your career site looks or how many jobs you have open if your applicants are frustrated and don’t know what’s going on. Are you giving them an experience that makes it easy for them to apply for jobs? Or are you making them jump through hoops that they don’t need to? Are you keeping them up to date on the status of their application? Or do you just let them wait by the phone until they give up and try to get a job somewhere else?

Read More: Four Veteran Hiring Recruitment Strategies

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