You’ve found the perfect candidate (or your recruitment agency has), you think it is all going well. They have applied to your advert and interviewed really well. And you’re ready to offer them the position.
Then the worst happens: you experience the great candidate cold shoulder. No replies to your emails, and before you know it, that great candidate has officially withdrawn out of your recruitment process.
But why did it happen? Was it the position? Or worse still – your candidate process?
When your staff recruitment doesn’t go as planned, it can impact your organisation as you wait to fill your vacancy.
For many recruiters, the answer to why the candidate dropped out is not always clear. Here at The Recruitment Alternative our in-house team of consultants works closely on a day-to-day basis with candidates. And as such, have spotted a few common trends amongst the reasoning behind candidate drop-outs.
In this blog we look at some common situations where a candidate may drop out of the recruitment process. And advise what you can do to your own process to ensure you minimise this risk.
Before Interview
Misleading Job Advertisement
Making your job as desirable as possible is important. However, its also important to also ensure your job advertisement is accurately correct. Stay clear of vague job titles, loosely explained duties and unclear requirements in your advertisement.
Try not to oversell the role. This may result in a high volume of applications, but when your perfect candidate find out the truth about what the job really entails, this high number of applications is likely to go hand-in-hand with an equally high number of dropouts.
Perfect candidate applicants who drop out will often do so due to finding out during the interview that the job is not as they had imagined based on the information advertised. When a candidate attends an interview this is when they find out, in a lot more detail, the details of the role.
The Recruitment Alternative consultants are highly skilled in conveying an attractive, and factually correct overview of your role.
Need a bit more guidance? Check out some of our past blogs.
The Interview process
First impressions count
Your first impression given to your candidate goes a long way to securing great candidates.
How do you leave a positive lasting impression? Simple tips include looking smart, remembering your candidate’s name and not going into too much detail of any office politics.
Delay in feedback
Speedy feedback post-interview is imperative for successfully snapping up a desirable candidate. If there is a delay in progressing a candidate through the stages of an application, keep them updated of this. Remember, these candidates might be attending numerous interviews which could mean you run the risk of a competitor offering them a position before you.
Remember the more updated your candidates are, the less chance there is that they will lose interest.
Plan for the future
It is at this final hurdle that you want to ensure you have thought about how you can come out on top to your candidate. Remember you could likely face multiple competition from other companies offering them a new role, as well as their current employers fighting to keep them.
If you want the best for your business and you have the perfect candidate to offer the role to, act immediately. Consider giving yourself some wiggle room from the get go by budgeting in advancing the salary, or benefits if need be.
A big no in staff recruitment is advertising a role and then offering it at a lower salary, this is likely to greatly insult candidates and make them instantly feel undervalued. Understand the market value of the role you’re recruiting for.
Conclusion
Throughout the stages of staff recruitment, there are numerous measures that can be taken to keep your candidates informed and engaged but, ultimately when it comes to preventing candidate dropouts, 3 things are key: courtesy, transparency, and honesty.
Suffering from a high rate of dropouts? The team of resources here are The Recruitment Alternative can help; our highly trained team work closely with clients at all stages of the recruitment process to keep candidates engaged and help to minimise candidate dropouts. Request a call from one of our trained consultants today.
The Recruitment Alternative offer affordable recruitment solutions. Servicing companies nationwide, our experienced consultants are waiting for your call.
Contact us today on 1300 548 546
