Interview / Assessment ‘No Show’ – WHY?

27/06/2023

Interview / Assessment ‘No Show’ – WHY?

It baffles us, a candidate applies to a position, we provide a lengthy screening call, we are honest about the expectations of the role, but also excited about the prospect of joining an organisation.  We are clear that at any time they decide to pull out that’s fine, just please let us know.  They confirm they want to attend the interview, we send them full details, explaining where, when, what and who.  We prepare them for any tests or assessment activities and we ask again that if they are not attending then that’s fine, just please let us know, text, call, email, it only takes a couple of seconds!  We then send them a text, again confirming their attendance and giving them an opportunity to pull out if they no longer want to attend and finally the day before the interview or even the morning of the interview we just call them to check they are attending... But for some call centre agent positions up to 40% don’t attend the interview and up to 65% of those don’t bother to let us know!  WHY?

Even when they have been offered the role, accepted the position, confirmed a start date around 15% of candidates don’t bother to turn up for the job! And often they don’t even bother to inform us!  WHY?

Is it us? Is it something we are doing or not doing? So we ask the client who recruits the positions direct and they have the same experience, we ask other agencies who also work on the positions and they have the same experience – so it’s not us, but what is it?

We think it’s a number of things:

• There are so many opportunities in certain locations and applying to those positions has now been made so easy that candidates can apply to multiple vacancies, they say ‘yes’ to attending an interview, but if something better comes up they decide to ‘ditch’ the first opportunity in favour of the other – OK, we get that, we are all human, but why not let us know? They don’t even have to speak to us, just drop us a text or an email
  
  
• Perhaps they are concerned about how we will react and that’s fair, we know some of our candidates have had bad experiences with agencies who have bullied them into attending interviews, but we make it clear from the start that its fine not to attend, just let us know!!
  
  
• The ease of applying for jobs has actually made it harder for candidates to focus on what jobs are actually right for them, for many career doesn’t come in to it, it’s all about who pays the most and often in our experience job satisfaction and career longevity goes way beyond who pays the most!  But how do we provide meaningful advice to candidates when they are constantly bombarded with job opportunities, everyone trying to ‘sell’ the benefits of the company and the role and so the cycle continues to flow...
  
  
• Job boards, agencies, direct resourcing are all bombarding theses candidates, it can be hard to keep track, but the upshot is that we are all just commodities, there is no respect or appreciation for what we do, how hard we work and how utterly demoralising and frustrating it is when candidates just fail to show. But technology has created a huge gap between us and the candidate, allowing them to distance themselves from their route of attaining a job and stopping us from building relationships with our candidates.
  
  
• Perhaps when it comes down to it, it’s due to good old fashioned ‘manners’ or in many cases the ‘lack of manners’.  It’s too easy to just ignore, to delete a text or email and to put a call on silent...

It’s too easy, there is too much job choice, it’s too accessible and the market is flooded with agencies, all trying to represent that one candidate who will attend, who will show up on the first day and who will remain with the organisation for longer than 3 months and all for a very low margin....

Do I sound cynical? Yes perhaps I do!  All we are asking is that we are informed if they are not going to attend... is that really too much to ask??