Occasionally, an opportunity presents itself to take a good hard look at your corporate self through the eyes of the job-hunter. A online Harris Poll in 2019, for the American Staffing Association, surveyed 2,022 U.S. adults to discover reasons why they may decline a job offer. As the list will reveal, most of the responses relate to communication issues, as well as, unrealistic preconditions.
More than half of the respondents considered “Inappropriate interview questions” as the biggest reason to walk away from an interview. Some people (recruiters) just have no couth and let the first thing that pops into their head flow right out of their mouths, not considering if they should even say it at all. The age of social media is destroying human interaction and it shows. Mind your manners!
The next two reasons for moving on to the next interview relate to overblown job descriptions. HR Associates has had a unique insight into awful job descriptions through the years. Many employers’ hiring managers are just not good at writing a concise job summary. Too often their “wants” outweigh the actual “needs”, when it comes to skill requirements. Managers too often ask for the skill/experience of a Bachelor degree candidate but offering the pay of an Associate Degree with little to no experience. Additionally, piling on job duties in a job description will surely lead to a terrible click-through rate and hit the company with additional advertising costs. Job descriptions should be displayed in a one page, outline format, direct and to the point. As we have said before, advertisers have 10 seconds to wow the job-hunter before he moves/clicks on.
The remainder of the deal-breakers in the survey addressed communication issues. On the front end of the hiring process, being courteous & responsive should be a given, right through to the onboarding process is complete.
The Self Diagnostic : “Do Not Do” List:
- Inappropriate interview questions
- Unrealistic job or skill requirements
- Misrepresenting job duties
- Aggressive behavior of recruiter or hiring manager
- Not responding to questions about open positions
- Poor follow-up by recruiting or hiring manager
- No face-to face contact during hiring process (outside of a pandemic)
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