To be fair to both sides, we are covering this for both parties. 

If you have held a number of interviews or been a candidate going for interviews, I am sure at some point, you have walked out of an interview and gone “What the h@#& was that?”

So we wanted to share some common complaints we hear from both parties so we can all be mindful of them. 

From Employers or Recruiters

• Candidates don’t get back to you once they have applied and you are trying to set up an interview. 
• Candidates misspell or put the wrong company name altogether in their application. 
• Spelling errors all the way through the document/s. 
• A clear mismatch for the position with NONE of the experience or background requested and they are obviously just applying to tick the Centrelink box. 
• They rock up late for the interview. 
• They dress inappropriately. 
• They are rude or have inappropriate phone conversations in reception while waiting. 
• They don’t listen or answer questions properly or at all and go off on an irrelevant tangent. 
• They bad mouth their prior employers or share confidential, intellectual property. 
• They clearly present in a way that they don’t want the job – body language, engagement or level of excitement. 
• Advise their salary expectation and then lift it considerably at the final stages before the offer is made. 
• Their first and only questions are what is the salary, what are the hours and does the company have a time in lieu/flexible work policy with no interest made about learning about the role or company. 
• They hold off making a final decision and accepting position and play offers off against either the current employer or another potential employer. 
• The candidate flat out lies and/or has inconsistency in their resume and digital profiles. 

From Candidates 

• Don’t get back to us or say ‘don’t call us, we will call you’. 
• Don’t have any correspondence throughout the process. 
• Don’t advise who will be in the interview or how many interviews may take place. 
• Don’t provide any heads up of how long the interview may take (ie so they can play around it be that car parking or advising their employer). 
• The interviewer’s are on the phone or distracted the entire time through the interview. 
• Only talk about what the company wants and don’t ask about the candidate at all or what is important to them. 
• The process takes too long and don’t provide any communication around timelines of the process. 
• Start the interview with ‘all team members are replaceable’. 
• Advise the salary is a certain level at the beginning and then lower it at the end of the process. 
• Don’t respect the candidate’s confidentiality. 
• Negative, uninviting body language. 

Both of these lists are provided so you can do a quick cross check against to ensure that you do not do any of them. 

Do any of the above frustrations resonate with you or do you have any others?