It's easy to feel like a gatekeeper as a recruiter. You're the one sifting through resumes, researching candidates,
and scheduling interviews. Lest we forget, interviewing is a two-way street. The best candidates you manage to get in your offices for interviews will be assessing you as much as you're assessing them. Just like an errant typo, off-color comment, or delayed communication can be a huge turn off to recruiters, there are a whole host of tiny errors you could be making that sour top talent to your opportunity. Read on to see if your hiring process is guilty of talent's pet peeves.
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Is there anything worse than a candidate waiting idly on your front couches for their interviewer to turn up? It's one thing if the candidate is there early, but once the allotted interviewing time has begun, they had better be in a conference room or an office strutting their stuff. Any delays and you're conveying a lack of organization as well as a supreme disregard for your candidate's time. Remember, your candidate could be taking time off of their current job to come in to hear about this one. Make sure your candidate knows that you view their time as being as valuable as your own.
Wait, Who are You Again?
I feel as though this should go without saying, but always make sure the interviewers are knowledgeable about the candidates before the interview. Remind all relevant team members about interviews first thing in the morning so they have time to do their research and read through the candidate's experience and employment history. Speaking from personal experience, there is nothing so frustrating as speaking with an interviewer who is clearly looking at my resume for the very first time upon arriving in the interview room. If I'm not important enough to command even 10 minutes of your time prior to the interview, why would I want to join your team?
No Broken Records
Another great way to frustrate and annoy candidates is to ask them the same questions over and over. Typically, an interviewee will meet with anywhere between 3-6 members of the team. Make sure team members aren't individually asking them the same question over and over, as this can be frustrating and annoying. Also, this cripples your own interviewing potential by covering limited ground. The pre-interview pow wow to discuss who is responsible for asking what types of questions is a great way to avoid asking the same questions over and over, so as not to annoy and frustrate candidates.
Hello. Is it Me You're Looking For?
Being a hyper-responsive professional is never a bad thing. Make sure that candidates are clued in to what's going on in your own hiring cycle and what the next steps are. Letting days go by between responses may make candidates feel as though they're not a priority, and further, will leave them confused and in the dark. Even in the case of candidates with whom you're not planning to move forward, keeping them in the loop will instill goodwill for your company. The ripple effect of a poor candidate experience could turn future talent off to your company as well, so make sure no one's left with a bad taste in their mouth.
What strategies do you enact to ensure great candidate experience? Leave a comment or tweet @EnteloRob!
