10 practical tips to help reduce candidate cancellations and no shows:
- Reduce interview lag time – Work with hiring managers to schedule interviews as soon as possible. Try not to go beyond two weeks. Don’t let someone else be faster than you.
- Coach hiring managers on the importance of not rescheduling interviews – Rescheduling gives candidates the impression that their time is not valued. They will interview where they are clearly wanted.
- Set expectations up front with candidates – Find out if they are interviewing elsewhere. Open a dialogue to gauge their true interest level in your company and what factors they weigh as priorities when considering and accepting offers. Ask them to notify you if they need to cancel or withdraw from consideration and provide contact information to do so.
- Provide flexible, upcoming interviewing schedules – The best candidates receive many interview offers and often have tight schedules to work around. How can you make the process easier? Can you interview over Skype? Phone? Offer after-hours or weekends? Offer flexible, pre-determined interview options to get on their calendar right away.
- Keep communicating with candidates – Schedule an email or text message campaign so that candidates hear from your company with interesting information every few days before the interview. Also, provide candidates with answers to questions, interview prep, what to expect at the interview, etc. And reinforce why your culture is a great place to spend their careers.
- Confirm interviews more than once – Email and phone candidates to confirm their intention to attend the interview. But don’t just confirm. Welcome them as you would a guest. Let them know how much you appreciate their time and interest.
- Text candidates – Millennials especially communicate by text message. This is an effective way to confirm and also to solicit feedback if they do not show.
- Build a stronger bench – If you normally present three candidates and find that you are experiencing a high rate of cancellations or no-shows, consider presenting five candidates to make up for it.
- Find out why candidates are dropping out – It may be hard to do, but if you can survey those who cancelled or failed to show, you’ll gain valuable insight into what factors are playing into this phenomenon. Was a recruiter rude? Did the timing just not work? Were they treated better somewhere else? Did they feel unprepared? Ask questions and report on it on a regular basis.
- See the silver lining – Ultimately, candidates who fail to show or call may not be the most considerate or dependable employees. Be thankful that their behavior showed up early and prevented you from a potential bad hire.