Reduce interview no shows – 5 top tips

We know only too well how frustrating it can be when your candidate doesn’t arrive for their interview.

You’ve put in time and effort reviewing CV’s, shortlisting, possibly getting quite excited about interviewing certain people. You’ve booked meeting rooms, your time, colleagues time, prepped questions and possibly even rehearsed with your colleague who will be asking what… and then you get a no show.

It can be hugely frustrating and quite often completely out of your hands. However, there are some occasions when the recruitment process itself can contribute to candidates dropping out.

Read through our 5 tips below to make sure you’re doing everything you can to create a smooth recruitment journey:

  1. Speedy process

  2. Stick to your timescales

  3. Clear job location

  4. Your online presence

  5. Follow up

Speedy process

When you, or an agency like us, advertise a new job role with your company, you need to be in a position to get interviews booked in straightaway. If you get a great candidate apply immediately, you need to see them as quickly as possible.

With the current candidate shortage, you can’t run the risk of losing someone great to another job offer. Candidates are in great demand and yours might not be the only job they are interested in.

Stick to your timescales

As with having a speedy process, you also need to set timescales with everyone involved in your recruitment process. And then you need to stick to your plan very rigidly. Although you are interviewing for a new person to join your business, the candidates are also interviewing you, so you need to prove to them you are the kind of company who do what they say they will, and that they want to work for.

Clear job location

People often cast their net quite wide when looking for a job. Then when they get an interview, that’s when they look in more detail at the commute, location, parking etc. This can cause a lot of interview no shows, people realise the commute just isn’t for them. Your adverts, either direct or via an agency, need to be very clear on the location or main base for the job. It’s also great to mention car parking or any specifics that could help them make their minds up before applying.

Your online presence

When you have a CV for someone you like, it’s standard practice to have a look for them online. What type of person are they, do they have LinkedIn recommendations etc? Your applicants will be doing the same for your business. They’ll Google you, look through your social media accounts and your website, possibly Companies House information too.

Before you go to market with a new job, do the same. Have a look with fresh eyes about what your online presence says about your business. Do you look like somewhere people would want to work?

Follow up

We assume that because someone hasn’t shown up for an interview that they either changed their mind on the role, or they are not right for your business anyway if they can’t make it to an interview.

However, there could be a legitimate reason for their no show and you or your agency need to look into this before any assumptions are made.

By doing all of the above you will know that you have done all you can to reduce or eliminate the number of interview no shows you will get.

Using a recruitment agency like ourselves, reduces the risk of no shows because we stay in close contact with candidates throughout the recruitment journey. We also conduct a full interview pre-brief with candidates including as much as possible about your business, internal culture, locations, expectations etc.