What NOT to do when it comes to recruitment for both Employers and Candidates. 

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?