Last week, one of our clients had their final interview cancelled by an extremely suitable candidate.
Rather than brushing this off as a one-off and starting the same process the exact same way all over again, the Hiring Manager asked me this important question:
“What could I do differently next time in order to prevent this from happening again?”
Whilst you should put a lot of focus on candidate engagement prior to the interview, the management of the interview process itself is just as important, if not more.
Interviewing a candidate is never just about you finding out whether or not the candidate is of value. It is also about whether or not you are of value to the candidate. And they have a lot more at stake than just a paycheck!
If a candidate has a negative experience – much like your customers – they will simply go elsewhere. They will also likely discourage their peers from considering your company as a potential employer. And no candidate engagement campaign in the world can save you from bad employer reputation!
Since the establishment of Guided Solutions back in 2000, we’ve seen way too often outstanding medical device professionals drop out after having been interested initially. More often than not, this is the result of a Hiring Manager’s failure to maintain interest as the process progresses.
But here is the good news: the solution is easier than you might think!
Treat a potential employee as you would a client
It’s no secret that a customer who cannot get a straight answer out of you or is being asked to commit an unreasonable amount of time or money up-front is probably going to reject you flat out.
So will a customer who is struggling to schedule a further meeting or has their follow up questions ignored or, even worse, gets continuously cancelled on.
Why would this be any different for a candidate who is not simply committing money but the majority of their waking day to you?
Rolling out the red carpet for each and every one of your potential new team members will help you keep your candidates engaged from application to offer stage.
Working together to pick a suitable date, follow up on any further questions, and always ask yourself: what could I do differently next time in order to prevent good candidates from dropping out?
Guided Solutions is an international executive search consultancy focused solely on the Medical Devices sector. We work without any internal metrics and targets, providing forward-looking recruitment solutions that help Medical Device SMEs reach their full potential.
Contact us today to make sure your next hiring step is done the right way.