Employee experience encompasses what individuals encounter and observe during their tenure in an organization. Companies with strong employee experience are able to attract the best and most talented talent. In this regard, the present study aimed to understand the experience of knowledge workers in the recruitment process in knowledge-based companies.
This study is based on the interpretive paradigm in terms of philosophical foundations and uses the interpretive phenomenological method to understand the lived experiences of knowledge workers. The participants in this study were 30 employees of knowledge-based companies who were recently recruited and had master's and doctoral degrees with specialized work experience. The data collection tool in this study was interviews. The Dickelman et al. technique was used to analyze the data.
The results of the study were divided into 3 main themes, 8 sub-themes, and 81 pleasant and unpleasant experiences: The main themes are: attracting job applicants, the assessment and interview process, and integration (acceptance and starting work). The sub-themes, which are themselves subsets of the main themes, include: attractiveness of the company and job position, transparency and quality of the job advertisement, how to interact with applicants (initial assessment), the interview environment, the structure and quality of interview questions, interviewers' characteristics and behavior, acceptance and announcement of the result, and the familiarization program. the study showed that knowledge workers have different lived experiences from each other. knowledge-based companies in the health sector should pay attention to individual differences in designing and creating an enjoyable experience for job applicants.