1. Building Bond with the candidate:
Very often, I have found in my experience that
recruiters while engaging with the candidate ask very minimal questions for
which the answers are binary in nature i.e Yes
/ No.
Recruiters need to thoroughly
validate and enjoy asking relevant questions. I always say,
“Ask
the right question to get right answers”. Ideally, a screening process
should consume 15 to 20 minutes per candidate in which you can understand a lot
about the candidate and know his genuine interest for the Job. If you are
successful in creating a bond with a candidate, he /she will never skip your
calls and he will keep you posted of any unseen developments well in advance. One
of the important information to probe is, if the candidate has any other
offer/s in his hand. This is an indicator for us to be cautious.
2. Tall claims and exaggeration: It is
always good to play safe about the job requirements, Project requirements,
Project duration, Conversion to perm roles, overseas opportunities, salary,
perks benefits and client profile.
Many a times, we recruiters get
into a conversation and give out false information which will boomerang on us
in later stages of selection process.
Let’s
call a spade a spade. It is always good to know some pointers
about the projects that these candidates will work if hired. It becomes handy
to get candidate’s buy in.
3.
Client side pitfalls: Very recently,
some candidates did not show interest regarding an opportunity with one of our
clients.
The reasons were: No proper
seating arrangement, Interview Panel was not available, technical panel asked
irrelevant questions that were not in line with job requirements. Many of these things can be avoided if we
recruiters are proactively communicating with the stakeholders’ i.e
Client & Candidates.
4. Logistics:
Helping the potential candidate in all possible ways to get him to the
interview venue is our primary responsibility.
Give him/her all the information
about the venue and send a meeting invite and google map well in advance. In
some cases, I used to send Linkedin link of the interviewer to candidate which
is of great help. This has reduced my last minute stress and No shows. Some
potential candidates were very finicky and have openly expressed to provide cab
facilities to the venue. Although, I don’t encourage this
aspect, have taken judicious call on case to case basis.
5. Forcing
candidate to attend: In my experience, nothing could be achieved by forcing
anyone for anything.
If there is a
scheduling conflict, it is always good to reschedule amicably instead of
forcing the candidate to attend the interview. If a candidate shows resistance,
please respect it and never ever force them.
You may think that you are convincing him but actually, you are forcing
him to attend the interview process, which leads to No-Show. Never do that!!! If the candidate has a valid
reason, it is the duty of the recruiter to make interview arrangements for an
alternative date!!
By
implementing the strategies and tactics above, you’ll stand a much better
chance of cutting down on no-shows and finding the right candidate for a job
for your client.
The talent
is out there—now go get it!
