Treat Candidates Like Customers or Lose Them, with Eric Smuda

Candidate experience is no longer an HR side conversation, it is a direct reflection of your brand.

In this episode, Denise Chaffin sits down with Eric Smuda, customer and employee experience leader and former executive at major consumer brands, to unpack why candidates should be treated like customers, not transactions. Drawing from decades of experience in highly competitive industries, Eric explains how moments of friction, lack of communication, and poor process design quietly drive talent away long before an offer is made.

The conversation explores practical parallels between customer journeys and candidate journeys, how transparency and communication reduce anxiety, why AI must be managed, not deployed blindly, and what happens when companies ignore the experience of contractors, gig workers, and referrals. As hiring begins to accelerate again, this episode challenges TA and HR leaders to rethink how experience, culture, and trust are built from the very first interaction.

Key Episode Segments:

• Candidate experience is brand experience
  Every interaction shapes whether a candidate trusts your company, even if they never get hired.
• Silence creates anxiety, communication builds trust
  Candidates disengage when they do not know where they stand or what to expect next.
• AI requires ownership, not autopilot
  AI tools must be actively managed, monitored, and improved to avoid damaging trust.
• Contractors and gig workers still define your culture
  How you treat non-full-time workers sends a clear signal about values and leadership.
• Employee referrals fail when experience is broken
  Poor candidate experience discourages future referrals and damages internal trust.