It happens, the no show interview. When the best resume you have seen for candidates you need to hire is a no show for the scheduled interview. What should you do?
Right up front, let me say that Barton Professional Placement coaches all candidates to be prepared, show up early, and be ready. If they don’t show, something happened.
Don’t panic, and don’t draw conclusions.
You have already invested time in reviewing the resume. Your recruiter has spent hours on the phone, going through basic performance-based ability assessment and behavioral-based fit assessment to answer every question you have. You may already have engaged in a background check.
The investment in a good candidate is high even before you have the first face-to-face meeting.
As the human resources manager, you have even invested considerable time coordinating the schedules of the internal managers and peers that will interview this exceptional candidate.
It would be easy to react, and dismiss the candidate from consideration. Clearly, of all days, this should be a prospective job candidate’s best day at work. I agree.
However, things happen, and you don’t want to dismiss a candidate you have invested in lightly. Take the time to do two things. First, calm the people on the interview schedule, let them know that something terrible must have gone wrong to derail this candidate of great interest from showing. Second, call your recruiter and work to find out what happened.
People are involved in accidents, have a medical emergency, or an unavoidable family situation – and there’s no law that prevents this from happening, from time to time. Losing a good candidate that can help your company because they had a family emergency seems counter-intuitive, and may reflect poorly on your company culture.
True story: Barton Professional Placement had a candidate disappear for nearly 3 days starting on a Monday. Turned out the candidate was hit by a car while riding his bicycle the Sunday prior. Sure, we checked out the story. And, it turns out that the employer is still interested.
To be sure, candidates should always call if they are going to be late. But from time to time, should the unthinkable happen, work with your recruiter to find out what is going on. Give the candidate a second chance. It may turn out to be the best employee you can hire.
Barton Professional Placement will work to meet expectations for clients and candidates. We’ll do our best to follow-up and ensure the smoothest hiring experience. But when the odd situation happens, find out more before reacting. It could be the best thing you do.
