In the wake of several presidential hopefuls ending their campaigns over the past few weeks, it seemed timely to discuss how to handle a job applicant that turns down an offer or takes their availability off the table during the interview process. When you’re the hiring manager that is bringing in candidates for your open position, you’re hoping that they are as excited about joining your team as you are in hiring them. -Just like the presidential candidates talking about their ideas for America in the hope that you’ll vote for them. However, there are times that a job candidate has a change of heart during the interview process, and it can feel like losing them is as painful as being a presidential candidate having to end your bid for the White House. So how should you handle a potential candidate turning down your offer or ending their candidacy?
1.Don’t wear your emotions on your sleeve
We know that when a candidate decides not to join your team that it’s a form of rejection. Your knee jerk reaction might be to get angry and vow to never talk to this candidate or anyone in his or her family ever again. However, resist the urge to let this one undesirable outcome affect your future hiring decisions. Silver lining? At least they didn’t accept the job only to quit a month later. Much like putting an emotional e-mail in the “drafts” folder before sending, now is the time to check your emotions and make sure your response is professional.
2.It’s not you, it’s me, except when it’s not
We know it stings when you lose a candidate you are trying to hire, especially when it’s your candidate that’s your front-runner. However, it’s happened to nearly every hiring manager that’s interviewing for an open position at some point in their career. Of course that doesn’t make it any less painful or easy to handle, but it should make you feel like you’re in good company. Candidates take themselves out of the running for many reasons, and sometimes it has nothing to do with you and your company. Life can get in the way of switching jobs without warning. These circumstances are the ones in which your candidate will most likely be honest with you about why they needed to walk away. The more difficult scenario is when a candidate decides they don’t click with you or your company, and can’t figure out a way to break it to you that won’t come back to haunt them later. This situation provides you with little or no insight into what you could do to make the interview process easier on the candidate, what would make the offer more attractive, or the real reason behind why they aren’t accepting the offer, or won’t continue in the interview process.
3.Assess your candidate experience
If you have more than one candidate walking away from your interview process at any given time, it might be time to assess your candidate experience. How long does it take for each candidate to apply to your job on your Web site? Once they start the interview process, how many rounds of interviews does each candidate have to go through? How is the communication throughout the process? How many stakeholders does each interviewee have to communicate with? Are there assessments or other tests and homework that are part of your process? Take a look at each step in the process to see it from a candidate’s point of view. If you are overwhelmed or irritated at any point in the process, you can almost guarantee that your interviewees are too. We’re not saying that they shouldn’t have to prove that they’re interested in the role and your company, but if the threshold is too high you might be turning off fantastic talent, or giving the wrong impression about working at your organization.
4.Money, money, money
It’s not always about the money, but the best way to know if compensation is a factor is to know what your competition is paying. If you’re working with a trusted recruiter, they will be able to give you a fair market analysis of what people in the role are getting with your competitors. They will also know what it might take to get the candidate with all your “must haves” and do an apples to apples comparison. If you come in ahead of the other companies who would be vying for the same candidate in vacation time, benefits, perks, bonuses, and other less tangible factors, straight up compensation ends up only being one variable. Remember to talk about the whole picture when you’re talking about compensation, salary truly is only one factor.
After reviewing your process, the compensation package you offered or would have offered, you’ll be armed with enough information to go confidently into your next interview process knowing that you have fixed areas for potential disaster. If you aren’t able to improve all the factors identified as problematic, talking to your next round of candidates about areas that you know need work will earn you some credibility and paint you as a boss that will have empathy for your employees. You’ll be surprised at how far a little candid conversation goes when you’re going through the interview process with potential employees!