Adventures In Recruiting: Standing Up A Candidate

I had an incident a couple of weeks ago.  A candidate who had been introduced to an agency in early January was on a last interview.  The client stood her up. Despite the client’s protestations, the candidate dropped out.  And I don’t blame her.

It was actually the third time this same agency had her show up in their offices and no interview happened.  The first two times, the hiring manager forgot to write the interviews in her calendar. (I was then instructed to send one of those Outlook Invitations, as if it were my fault.)  The final time was the candidate’s last interview and she was meeting the boss.  Somehow, despite the email chain confirming the interview, it was not on his calendar.  The candidate questioned the nature of the job and the company.  Ironically, I have placed several people at this agency and they all love it.  But can you blame the candidate?  No reason why she should take my word for it when the company’s actions speak much louder.

I have said it before, a candidate’s time is just as valuable to him or her as the time is for the people doing the hiring.  Standing up a candidate once in inexcusable.  Doing it three times is beyond explanation.

While national unemployment is steady at a little over 8%, I believe advertising unemployment is at about 12-14% based on 2007/08 levels.  There are lots of good people on the street.  And there are a lot of good people who are unhappily employed.  The hiring issue is always the same.  The problem for every company is always talent.  We get jobs from companies who have been trying to fill the job themselves for months and they cannot find the right combination of experience and personality.

All I can say is that when a company finds that perfect combination, they have to find a way to move quickly and nicely.  While speed is of the essence, being nice cannot be overstated.  Candidates need to feel good about potential employers.  After all, they understand that their potential employer is or should be on best behavior when they are interviewing.  If they can’t be nice during the interviewing process, what will they be when the employee gets there? 

As all recruiters - both on my side of the business and corporate HR/recruiters - know, there is a rhythm to a successful interviewing process.  The process may start slowly but it builds momentum.  If that rhythm is interrupted for too long a period of time, the potential placement may fall off.

When the aforementioned candidate was stood up the first and second time, I tried to get the hiring manager to apologize.  It didn’t happen.  But the hiring manager is very nice and her personality won the candidate over and back.  But when the boss missed the final interview, whatever rhythm and momentum was there was completely lost.  In the end, both the boss and the hiring manager blamed each other.  I begged them to reach out to the candidate; I thought it could have been repaired.  A simple, “I’m sorry” might have sufficed.  It never happened.

Then, of course, they blamed me.  And, finally, they blamed the candidate, "If she was so thin skinned as to be bothered by missed appointments, she didn't belong here."  What more can I say?