5 Tips to reduce Interview No-Shows

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!