How to put a candidate off at 1st interview

It’s surprisingly common how often sometimes we approach a candidate about a new opportunity with a company and they are reluctant to consider the company due to an interview experience they had with the same company previously which has given them reservations about attending interview there again.

The company might sound great, the role might sound perfect – but the candidate still remembers the awful candidate experience they had previously and has taken this as a reflection on what this company would be like to work for.

A companies interviewers are your front line touch point for candidates and represent the employer to the candidate.

Strong interviews can attract candidates for roles which aren’t perfect and may be challenging – whereas poor interviewers can turn perfect jobs on the surface to undesirables.

Here are some of the most common feedback areas from candidates in terms of their “pet hates” from interviewers that can dent their enthusiasm for roles/opportunities.

The interviewer leaving you waiting in reception way past your interview time

The candidate has arrived at the interview 15 minutes early all prepared and raring to go only to find out there is a delay of 30 minutes at the interviewers end.

What makes it more annoying is that you aren’t informed it will be 30 minutes or kept informed in reception.

If a candidate was 30 minutes late with no advance notice or good reason it’s likely this would be unacceptable for the Interviewer so surely it works the same the other way around

The interviewer keeps taking calls or looking at their phone/lap top during interviews

During midway through the interview, the Interviewer suddenly brakes off to take a call or is constantly looking at their phone or laptop.

As with lateness, it would be unacceptable for a candidate to do this during an interview so the same values should apply to the interviewer.

It can come across as massively disrespectful to the candidate.

If there really is a business critical call which the interviewer HAS to take, at least inform the candidate at start of interview.

The interviewer obviously doesn't seem to have read your CV in detail prior to the interview

The candidate has meticulously prepared for the interview and yet it appears obvious that the interviewer hasn’t looked at the CV in depth and is pretty much reading through the CV learning about your background as the interview progresses.

Even worse is when something on the CV crops up (perhaps in terms of experience) that is an obvious potential deal breaker to the interviewer that they have just realised half way through the interview due to not reading in detail previously.

Candidates want to feel that at 1st interview stage their CV has been read and there is a genuine

The interviewer adopts a condescending interview approach

Most of us have been in an interview where the interviewer is adopting the “Convince me why should we offer you a job?” approach – and in a condescending manner come across to the candidate that they should feel themselves fortunate to even get a chance to interview.

Totally wrong – candidates like to feel that they are as important to the interviewer/company as the role is to them.

It’s a clear sign to candidates that this will be the style of management they would be walking into if they were to join the company, and most candidates buy into the person they are working for as much (if not more) than the role and company themselves.

The interviewer talks more about themselves and the company and not so much about you

I had a candidate a couple of years ago who when I asked about how the interview went responded that they couldn’t tell as out of the hour – the interviewer spoke about their individual background and experience for almost all of this.

It seemed like the interviewer was trying to impress the candidate so much about their success with a view that the candidate would just think “I need to work for this person”.

As you can expect it had the opposite effect!

As much as candidates want to find out about the company, the role and perhaps details of the line manager’s background and how they manage – What they also really want to do at the interview is have the opportunity to showcase their own skills and experiences to impress for the role.

The balance has to be right between information about the company/role and information about the candidate.

The interviewer only wants to talk about you and not so much the company

The opposite of the above but for the same reasons.

As much as the candidate wants to showcase themselves, they are also there to find out sufficient details to be able to relate their background to the company/role but also to decide if the role is for them or not.

Not being open and honest about the company or the role – or offering the candidate the opportunity or time to ask questions important to them doesn’t provide the opportunity for the candidate to overcome any concerns or to find out information which would fire up their enthusiasm for the role.

The interviewer seems more interested in your account base than about you

In Foodservice sales this is something which I have seen annoy candidates immensely, especially when being interviewed by a competitor.

Of course it’s fine for the interviewer to ask about examples of accounts you have won and managed – but when this steps too far into details about GP, turnover, names of decision makers, product lines you have in – then it just comes across to candidates that the interviewer is more interested in fishing for information than they are in the candidate themselves which is a major turn off.

The interviewer doesn’t provide feedback quickly after first interview

Massive pet hate for candidates – Simply if candidates take time to prepare and attend interview then the least that could be offered in return is feedback either positive or constructive.

A simple, “No” just isn’t strong enough or respectful enough to candidates.

Most candidates, especially those on the open market out of work looking for work, really value and respect feedback, whether they agree with or not and use this moving forward.

Not providing feedback just demonstrates to candidates that you have low value of them and that the interview process is perceived by the interviewer/employer as being all focused towards their requirements and not the candidate’s.

The interviewer disappears after 1st interview for weeks, leaving you hanging, then invites you back from 2nd interview.

Even worse is when a candidate has an interview and leaves the room excited and interested about the opportunity and then subsequently doesn’t hear from the company at all, and the candidate has mentally written off your chances, or possibly progressed other options, only to receive a call back inviting you back for 2nd.

The chances are this role has now fell a lot lower down the pecking order of preferences for the candidate – or the candidate will be far less positive about the opportunity.

The interviewer telling you they have a “really strong internal candidate”!

Quite a few times, candidates have fed back from interview saying that they have felt they performed as well as they could at interview only to be told by the interview we have a really strong candidate.

This is fine if the candidate subsequently has the opportunity to compete on a level playing field – but quite often it appears that there is a 99% chance that whatever happens the job will go to the internal.

Candidates generally prefer companies to exhaust their internal options first before being invited forward for interview.

Overall

As a rule, a lot of the things that frustrate candidates are behavioural traits of the Interviewer that are double standards and wouldn’t be acceptable if the candidate adopted them – So candidates like interviewers to adopt the same behavioural traits as they are expected to at interview.

The interview should be a balanced 2 way process where the interviewer/company is trying to convince the candidate that their opportunity is the right choice for them, just as much as the candidate is convincing the company that they are the right choice for the employer.

It pays for interviews to take the approach that they are competing for the candidate against other employers just as much as the candidate is competing against other candidates for the role – Your role may be one of several choices the candidate has at the end of the interview process and at that stage “interview” experience can be the fine line between a candidate accepting or not – even at times more than salary.

Also take into account that any candidate who is a “No” for a role – might be a “no” for no – but could be a potential asset for a different role in the future.

The best interviewers are conscious of not just meeting their own objectives in finding the right candidates, but also offering a positive candidate experience during the process so that the candidate would consider the company again at a later day.