I wanted to share this article not to moan but to portray the impact of not showing up to scheduled interviews has on a group of people, not just the recruiter. The client, the recruiter, others in the business, and even the interviewee themselves, even though they are the person not showing up, are all affected.
We are all guilty of missing an appointment here and there but in most cases, people just say sorry about that or offer an explanation, common decency and completely fair, we all have things that happen that are unavoidable.
However, the below isn’t one of those cases.
Recently I was asked to work a role by one of my FinTech clients. Great client, always sends a strong job spec, gives clear guidelines on what they want and what they are offering, all in all, a fantastic company people want to work for and in this case, there were two vacancies wanting the same skill set.
Four of my candidates were offered an interview for the two positions, I called the candidates who were overjoyed and accepted the dates/times set.
The day before or the day of an interview I always check in with the candidates, they were all happy, prepped and raring to go…..things are looking good. The day of the first two interviews arrives, I message to just say good luck, both respond. The first candidate goes in, great feedback on the business, they are very keen to proceed to the next round. The second candidate’s interview was at 3 pm, it reaches 3.15pm and the candidate has still not arrived for their interview. I call, I email, I text, at this point, I did become worried, has something happened, something must have happened, they confirmed twice including the morning of the interview to say that they were happy and attending.
Needless to say, I had to tell the client to cancel the interview and I proceeded to try and contact the candidate throughout the next few days as it was slightly alarming.
The third and fourth candidates turn was the following day, candidate three turns up, again very positive about the role, candidate four was again a no-show. The same process is followed, trying to call, email and text to clarify what has happened so I can explain to the client and make sure the candidate hasn’t been in some kind of accident.
Luckily, my client was very understanding but they were concerned themselves for the individuals as the scenario was very odd to confirm the morning of the interview then not show up.
Despite being understanding, it was 2hrs of their time that could have been spent interviewing other candidates or doing other tasks in their busy day. It was also several hours of my time spent sourcing, preparing and chasing them when they went AWOL on the day of the interview.
I know recruiters have a bad rep for being pushy, salesy and just downright annoying in some cases. I get this, and believe me I have worked with and been approached by these very people. Some of you will now be saying:
“I never got feedback from that interview”
“I never had a response from my email”
The process works both ways, I like to treat others how I like to be treated, if someone emails me directly I always reply, even if it is to say I can’t assist them in their search, not every application can have a response but if I say I am going to call someone or meet them I show up, if for some reason I can’t I would always notify the individual.
The vast majority of recruiters are the middleman, in between the client and the candidate, trying to please both sides but remaining impartial. A difficult job but with rewarding results if done right.
I would really appreciate your views on this so feel free to comment below.
