Managers will sometimes be in the market to hire someone new only to find there are no good candidates? Everyone they interview is a dud.
Sound familiar? If so, it might be time to look in the mirror.
If you’re relying on recruiters to find the best candidates and you’re having trouble, there might be something you don’t know. Don’t get me wrong. Many recruiters are amazing. They can sift through stacks of resumes and find the perfect candidates.
Then there are the other recruiters. They are doing you and your company a disservice, but you’d never know it. Why? Because candidates are eliminated if they complain.
Nobody wants to hire a complainer. And the candidate is labeled a “sore loser” if they complain after being eliminated.
The biggest issue is some recruiters are unwilling to take the candidate into consideration. A recruiter might contact the candidate with only an hour or so of notice to request an interview. Or they might call with no notice at all.
If the candidate wants the job badly enough, the recruiter believes, they’ll make themselves available.
They believe the company and the hiring manager are very busy people. The candidate should cater to them. And this is true, in many ways.
But a great candidate is not available all day, waiting for interviews. Successful candidates have things to do. They have commitments to their existing company that they need to keep.
As a hiring manager, how would you feel if the recruiter expected you to interview someone with an hour of notice? That would be a little strange, right? Now, imagine you weren’t just asking questions; you were answering them.
Very often, recruiters are late to interviews or miss them completely. They expect the candidate to understand that something came up. It’s also common for a recruiter to interview a candidate without ever having seen their resume.
And then there are the illegal questions. It’s not uncommon for a recruiter to ask the candidate about their marital status or whether they have children. The candidate rarely objects to these questions, but I can assure you they take note.
Candidate experience is real. More companies should give candidates a way to give feedback on their experience. Instead, candidates are never asked about how they felt.
I do believe a candidate should be as flexible as possible. They’re selling themselves, after all. But, if you expect the candidate to drop everything multiple times, you’re going to end up with the candidates who don’t have much going on professionally.
You won’t be happy with the selection.
Angela Copeland, a career expert and founder of Copeland Coaching, can be reached at copelandcoaching.com.