The Real Price of Poor Interviews: How Your Hiring Process Is Costing You Top Talent

[00:00:00] Debbie Goodman: Hello everyone and welcome to On Work and Revolution. I’m your host, Debbie Goodman. I’m CEO of Jackhammer Global, a global group of executive search and leadership coaching companies. And today’s episode is one I feel deeply passionate about because it hits right at the heart of human dignity, business integrity.

Employer reputation and actually so much more. It’s about the candidate experience during interviews. The big question is why do interviews suck so much? Not the interview itself. Those can be tough, but the interview process and how companies are just blowing it big time right now. In boardrooms and zoom rooms across the world, job seekers are being ghosted,

they’re being disrespected, they’re being treated like a commodity, like a piece of meat. And even top executives who’ve been personally headhunted by firms like Jack Hammer, they’re walking away from the interview process thinking, why did I even bother companies? They’re acting like they’ve forgotten one thing.

You’re not hiring meat, you’re hiring humans, and how you treat people in your hiring process says everything about who you are as a business. Okay, so let me set the scene right now. There are brilliant people in the job market, particularly in the US, not so much in our African markets, but I’m talking about C-level executives, leaders, managers, individual contributors.

Very highly qualified people who are actively looking for probably the first time in their entire careers, and shock and horror. Many of them can’t even get a first interview. And then if they do, what do they experience? Terrible things. Zero feedback, interviews getting rescheduled like multiple times with no apology.

 Interview showing up late or maybe not even at all, and then like silence after a final round. Not even a thanks. We’ve gone the other way. We made a different decision and that’s, we’re talking about people who applied for a job. Now imagine the experience of somebody that we’ve headhunted talking about a candidate who didn’t apply for a job,

took time out of their very busy executive role to explore an opportunity, and then when they get the same poor treatment, I mean, man, that’s really bad. And so here’s the kicker. This is not rare. It’s actually happening all the time across industries, across seniority levels, across markets, and this is not just like an anecdotal rant from me, somebody who, you know, runs a group of executive search and leadership coaching companies.

There’s a lot of data out there right now. So, a recent study said that 60% of candidates have had a bad hiring experience and then 72% of those actually shared it online or with somebody directly. So that’s a lot of bad reputation shaming. Apparently with a greenhouse hiring report recently said that 50% of job seekers say they’ve been ghosted after a job interview.

Come on, man. This is not online dating. And then 69% of headhunted candidates say they would not accept a job offer if the process felt poor, even if the salary was right. Now, this is people who’ve already got a job, so they can afford to be a bit picky and choosy. But for active job seekers, this number’s probably lower because we know that people will overlook a bad hiring process if they don’t need to get a job.

But still, it’s going to leave a bad taste in the mouth, which nobody wants when they’re starting a new job, right. One of the biggest red flags that candidates are aware of is if, if this is how they treat people before they join, then what’s it gonna be like on the inside? And I hate to say it, but man, they’re right.

Okay. Why is this happening? I think we need to just like take a 30,000 feet view on this, what’s happening in the world, in the markets. So firstly, there’s a big power imbalance right now because in certain markets, as I mentioned in the US in particular, there’s an oversupply of certain types of talent, especially in I, I guess we can call it post tech

layoffs, but it really feels like it’s not just layoff season, it’s just like the ongoing four seasons of layoffs. It’s just consistent and so many companies feel there’s an more than adequate supply of talent out there. They can afford to be both picky and kind of careless or slow or just slack with their whole hiring process.

Then there are process gaps. So interviewing often sits in the no man’s land, between HR, between the hiring manager, and then sometimes external recruiters like us. Nobody owns the full experience. So there’s a lot of chance that things can fall apart, shouldn’t, but it can and does. And then we’ve got untrained interviewers.

Just because somebody’s a great executive does not mean they know how to run an interview or an interview process really well. In fact, often they don’t realize the reputational damage that they’re causing by showing up late or distracted or under prepared or asking dumb questions. And they also don’t realize that candidates have got pretty long memories and your poor behavior today could really cost you a hire or maybe a deal, or even in some instances, think about this, a job in the future.

So, poor candidate experience doesn’t just affect the candidates. There’s quite a lot at stake that I think people really should realize. Firstly, there’s the brand, which I think is an obvious one. Candidates really do talk and then they posting online, they post on Glassdoor, they post on LinkedIn, on their network groups.

Then there’s your customers. In some sectors, your candidates could also be your customer or your competitor. But then here’s a thing that I don’t think people think about. They don’t think further enough than the right here and now, but it could potentially cost you your future job. You never know when the shoe is gonna be on the other foot

 and you’re the one looking for a job. You rock up at an interview with a former candidate who was ghosted by you or your team. That could be, I’d say a little awkward. Alright, let’s switch this up a little bit and talk about what does a great candidate experience look like, because this is actually not hard.

Let me make this super tangible. A great candidate experience, doesn’t need to be flashy, it just needs to be respectful, clear, thoughtful, consistent. And here’s what it looks like. Firstly, there’s a clear process upfront. So tell people what to expect. How long is it gonna take? How many interviews approximately, then have the interviewers prepared?

I mean, goodness, this is not hard these days. I mean, informed questions. Just, ask ChatGPT if you’re not sure yourself. Be on time. And then feedback, even if people are not the right fit. Over and over again, I hear candidates saying, I’d much rather hear that I wasn’t right than not hear at all.

I’ve got the saying, my entire team know this, which is give candidates no feedback, feedback. They’ll really appreciate it. And what I mean by that is just call them up and let them know that we don’t yet have anything conclusive to share with them, that is still gonna take some time.

Be authentic, be honest, be transparent. They will appreciate that so much and even if you haven’t got anything material to share with them, just let them know they haven’t been forgotten about. And then lastly, closure. Ghosting is not on. Just close the loop, do it consistently. It’s really not hard, and you do not need any budget for this.

So why does that miss matter? Why am I bringing this up now? This is not entirely something new, but I feel like I really want to emphasize this at this moment in time because we are living in the AI era where automation is replacing human interaction in many different parts of businesses,

including recruiting. In fact, recruiting and interviewing, and the interview process has been highlighted as one of the areas in businesses where you could really automate a lot to AI. And frankly, you could, but here’s your edge. If you add a little bit of human connection into this, this could be a real competitive advantage and definitely be part of your employer value proposition.

You don’t have to be perfect, but if you show up with care and respect, then you’re already doing better than probably 90% of your competitors or companies out here. So here’s a radical idea. What if every candidate walked away thinking, even though I didn’t get the job, I felt respected, I felt heard, I felt valued.

That’s the bar. That’s the brand builder. That’s not hard. So if you are a hiring manager, if you’re a recruiter, if you’re executive, just ask yourself, would you want to go through your own hiring process? And if not, then definitely now’s the time to fix it. So you can start with really simple things, communication, preparation, feedback.

And it’s not even about being nice. It’s just about being smart. So that’s it. This is so simple. I can’t emphasize it enough. Let candidates walk away feeling like they had a great experience with you, even if they didn’t get the job. Thank you for listening. If this episode resonated with you, share it with somebody who’s hiring right now who really needs to listen to it.

And if you’ve had a great candidate experience, I’d really love to hear about it. You can find me on LinkedIn or at j hammer global.com. Until next time. Just treat your candidates like gold because they really are and they have very long memories. Bye now.