How to Avoid Losing a Great Hire

It’s no secret that qualified job candidates are
getting harder to find in an increasing number of
occupations. With key positions getting tougher to
fill, every qualified applicant who drops out during
the recruiting process or who goes all the way through
the process only to turn down your offer represents a
cost to the company. In losing a good hire, the company
is losing time, money and productivity. Reckoning both
direct and indirect expenses, it can cost anywhere from
one-half an annual salary to twice an annual salary to
replace an employee. Since costs start to accumulate
before a candidate walks in the door, every applicant
consumes a portion of the employee replacement cost
whether hired or not. So every applicant lost or
rejected represents lost resources.

by Charles R. McConnell

There’s not much you can do about the applicant who
turns down your offer to accept what he or she sees as
a more suitable offer from another employer. Your
primary concern should be those apparently suitable
candidates who drop out during the recruiting process
or who reject your offer to "keep looking." Why be
concerned? Because these are usually the better
candidates, the ones whose skills are in demand and who
know they have other options.

A great hire is most likely to be lost in one of two
places: the interview process itself and the follow-up
that occurs — or doesn’t occur — after the interview.

The majority of working managers don’t do a great deal
of interviewing, so some never become truly good at the
process. However, there’s a significant problem in that
many managers assume an interviewing expertise they
don’t possess. They treat interviewing as something
anyone can do without a great deal of thought.

A job candidate’s first impression of the company is
formed by initial contact with company representatives.
The company representative having the closest and
lengthiest initial contact with the candidate is the
interviewing manager. If the interviewing manager does
as so many do and assumes that everyone who comes to
interview is desperately seeking this particular job,
the candidate is likely to be treated, if only
unconsciously, as a seller who has entered a buyer’s
market. However, it’s not always a buyer’s market that
prevails. As noted earlier, the better candidates know
they have other options.

Some of the more common practices that chase away
potentially good hires during the interview process:

* Keeping the candidate waiting well past the appointed
interview time for no apparent good reason and with no
plausible explanation.

* An unprepared interviewer who has obviously not read
the application or resume and attempts to absorb it
quickly in the candidate’s presence.

* An interviewer who allows non-urgent interruptions or
who conducts the interview in surroundings that permit
distractions and display disrespect for the privacy of
the process. Disorganized, chaotic surroundings often
discourage serious applicants.

* An interviewer who dominates, either by piling
question upon question leaving no time for
well-considered answers or by ego-tripping about
himself or herself and the organization.

* Ill-considered questions that can’t be reasonably
addressed in a few sentences. Prominent among these is
the classic opener of the ineffective interviewer,
"Tell me all about yourself."

* Affording the candidate little or no time to ask
questions. The potentially great hires ask the best
questions, often to the extent of interviewing the
interviewer (which of course any sharp candidate will
be doing).

* Asking about experience and capability only, without
attempting to address the candidate’s motivations or
trying to determine whether candidate and organization
may be reasonably suited to each other.

Many of the lost hires that don’t occur during the
interview process happen during what is supposedly the
follow-up to the interview. It’s common for a candidate
to be told, for example, "We’ll finish interviews and
make our decision soon; you’ll hear in about a week,"
but then find that two or three weeks pass without
word. Most interviewing managers consistently
underestimate the time when follow-up will happen, so
the candidate who places a follow-up phone call is
likely to hear only, "We’re still interviewing."
Delayed follow-up is deadly in the recruitment process
in that it’s usually interpreted in one of two ways:
it’s assumed to mean rejection, or it’s taken as a sign
of disorganization within the company. In either case
the better candidates are likely to pursue their other
options.

Good hires are lost through ineffective interviewing
and delayed follow-up, both strong indicators of the
need for interviewing training for managers and "tuning
up" of the recruitment process.

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