Ask Steve – EP 2- How do I get Candidates to turn up to interviews
Hello everybody! Steve here from Recruitment School and welcome to another session of Ask Steve.
Today we have a question from Michelle who’s in Sydney who asks “How do I get my candidates to turn up to candidate interview?”. Michelle this comes back to a recent Asked Steve where we’re talking about ghosting and why candidates are ghosting and I don’t really know whether we answer that question. But you know there’s definitely something to be thinking about because we got a situation now where people in general and this is a generalization and I apologize for generalization but we need to use one here. We’ve got a situation at the moment where people just don’t care. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about the client. They don’t care about anything. They don’t care about ramifications. They don’t think about what is… What it’s like to be a client? Or an employer? Who’s waiting for somebody to turn up to interview them to see if they’re the right person? They don’t care about your time. They don’t just don’t care. Right?
So how do we address that? Is the main question here and as I said in the the ghosting video. I don’t know if we can address that. We can’t change that. That’s just the way the world is now. So the question is now. How do we actually cope with it? And how do we work with it? Rather than trying to fix it because you’re not gonna fix it. You’re just not. So, how do you get your candidates to… to turn up to client interviews? Or interviews with client?
I probably need a little bit more information here, Michelle. I’d like to know how many people, like how many people you are booking on interview? And how many people are not showing up? But here’s what I would do. First things first, now I don’t know what market you’re in although I do know your company and I’m gonna assume that you’re in a fairly high
volume low margin type of business. Here’s what I would do.
The first thing I would do is, I would not book any interviews given that I think you’re in that high volume, low margin stuff. I will not book for anybody outside of a week from now and so we’re talking two days, three days max. Because so much can happen in a week. Like If I’m your candidate I said yes, I’m going to see Donald Trump at Trump Enterprises on Wednesday next week and it’s Wednesday today that’s too far away. Anything can happen because I’ve also interviewed or applied to other jobs. This is the problem with job boards, you know like yes I’ve applied to your job but I’ve also applied to 300 other jobs and I’m a good candidate so the fact that I’ve applied to all these roles. I am going to pick up one of them fairly soon because we’re in that. Again I’m assuming that it’s the low margin high volume stuff. So if that’s the case you need to work it so, I am not waiting as your candidate for too long before I actually go on the client interview. Does that make sense? So I wouldn’t be booking him any more than 3 days out and then I’d be on them to make sure they actually turn up. Have a look at the video on. How do I get my candidates to stop ghosting me? Have a look at that video because in that one we spoke about the analogy of fishing and having a fish on the line, if you’ve ever been fishing you’ll feel it when they’re on the line and it’s exactly the same as a candidate. You’ll feel that they’re really keen. They’re invested in it.
So if your candidates aren’t turning up for interview there’s a reason for that next cause they’re not invested in the role, okay? So what we need to do is we need to get them invested? And if they’re not invested you’re not feeling that investment. I just gotta come here you gotta feel it. If you don’t feel it don’t put them forward or book them in and say to the client. Hey, I’ve got a bit of a problem. I got a monkey on my shoulder with this guy. He says he’s really interested but his behaviour is not telling me that. And what’s that gonna do is going to separate you from the rest of the the pack because you picking up something and you’re over communicating with the employer. Which is great! That’s all I wanna know. I just wanna know whether if you think that there’s a problem there tell them so when Steve doesn’t turn up next Wednesday you can say I sort of thought I knew this. You know I told you that I had a problem with this. So it’s being proactive, right? We can do everything. We can talk to see if we can do all that sort of stuff but he still might not turn up because at the end of the day we’re dealing with human beings. The most unreliable product on the planet.
So, don’t book them out any more than 3 days in your market. Don’t just book it and go bang that’s done. I’m moving on to the next one because this person may or may not show up if there’s a lot of time. Well a lot of things can happen right? There’s a lot of recruiters out there. As I said before I’ve applied to you wrong that meant I’ve applied to six or seven other roles or more you know. And if I get a phone call and somebody offers me a role basically straight away I’m gone. And going back to what we said earlier, there’s this element now that we don’t have the common decency to call and cancel we just don’t show up. It’s easy.
So Michelle, I don’t know if I’ve answered your question here. I think I’ve given you a couple of little tips. Give that a go and see how it works. Let me know, come back and let me know how it works.
It’s an interesting market now. It’s a very interesting market. I never used to be like this. It’s like it now. We just have to work with it and do our best around it. Hey listen. Thank you for your question, Michelle if you have any question that you want answered go to recruitmentschool.com.au Click on Ask Steve and a page will come up where you can put your question that’ll get sent straight through to our team and then we will answer it in time and let you know when it’s been posted. Hey listen. Look after yourself. Be kind to others and remember discipline is a key here so stay focused. Stay disciplined in your business and I look forward to talking to you soon.
