Job seekers are turning down offers from UK companies because of the poor standards of many interviewers.
A survey released by T-Mobile found that 56 per cent of people who had suffered a bad interview laid the blame on the interviewer, accusing some of lateness, rudeness, sexism and even drunkenness.
Around 40 per cent of interviewees said they were asked questions completely unrelated to the job, while a third felt the interviewer was unprepared for the meeting and one in five said they didn’t like the company culture and values.
Over 40 per cent of the people who’d had a bad experience said they had subsequently turned down a job offer from the company.
What candidates are looking for is a pleasant working environment and to be asked intelligent questions during the interview, according to the study. Around half also said they wanted to see clear evidence of career progression opportunities.
But UK companies need to feel a bit of pressure to create a good first impression, T-Mobile HR director Mark Martin warned. “Candidates are beginning to place a company’s culture and values at the top of their agenda, so businesses need to think about how these are expressed in an interview situation or their reputation and brand could be on the line,” he said.
2 Responses
Absolutely !
Some of the worst interviews I’ve had have been with blue chip companies – all the stuff mentioned above, below, and more.
I used to spend at least a day preparing for an interview, plus these days it’s usually at the interviewee’s expense, so it’s the height of inconsiderateness to be treated as cannon fodder by both agencies and companies. I’ve declined interviews and jobs because of poor previous experience with that company/agency.
Good candidates turning down bad recruiters
Oh gosh yes how this article resonates! – but please don’t let’s think we do this worse in the UK than anywhere else?
If recruiters might only be absolutely clear on the Job Spec (preferably competency-based) and Candidate Profile, the full Ts and Cs on offer, and put themselves in their candidates’ position and treat them as they would like to be treated themselves, letting the candidate occupy at the very least 50% of the discussion if not 80%, with open-ended questions, full clarity of the recruitment process and what will happen next, isn’t the job already more than half-way done?
I have turned down at least as many overseas recruiters in my time as UK ones because of a rotten interview process, so I wouldn’t want to think managers in the UK are *especially* bad at this!
Kind regards
Jeremy