Why Do Candidates Pull Out Of The Recruitment Process?

One question we’re often asked by employers is why candidates pull out of the recruitment process. Unsurprisingly, the answer is rarely straightforward or applicable to all cases, but if you have a candidate that unexpectedly pulls out of a scheduled interview, this should be an opportunity to review your process and reflect on whether it could be improved.  Although frustrating, by taking the right approach to dealing with it, could be beneficial in the long run to avoid errors being committed again. Anyway, here’s Matt to give you a few pointers…

The Video

"Why do candidates pull out of the interview process" Video Transcript

"This is primarily viewed from a client perspective, but this can be viewed from a candidate perspective as well. One of the key problems that occur consistently is time, the process simply taking too long. We should be able to get the candidate from CV submission stage to accepting a job in the management consultancy industry within four to six weeks. If this is taking a lot longer then you need to examine your interview process and look at how thorough it really is. You should aim to always get back to an applied CV within one week of submission. And should always provide interview feedback within 48 hours of the interview taking place, maximum."

Make sure the candidate understands the interview process

"Another key problem is the interview process and the process itself is muddled and ambiguous. You must be clear with your candidates about how long the interview process will take, how many stages it has and what to expect at each stage of the interview process."

Don’t overcomplicate the interview process

"Another problem is the interview process being too complex. There should be a clear difference between the process [depending on the role]. Clearly, there should be a difference between a partner who may go through an interview process with several stages e.g. consisting of competency-based and psychometric test interviews. Whereas an analyst should not go through more than two to three stages of interviews, with one test (maximum). We recently saw an analyst for a strategy consultancy where there were eight stages of the interview over three days, at three different locations, which at that level is not needed."

Read our advice on the ideal Management Consultant job interview process.

Feedback is key to the interview process

Candidates that don’t receive any feedback find the interview process to be really poor. From a client perspective, if you are looking to attract excellent people to your business make sure you provide feedback within 48 hours [more than one line]. This gives the candidate a warm and positive feeling about your business, so good feedback is essential.

Sell yourselves during the interview process

Finally, you expect candidates to come in and sell themselves as to why they’re fit for the job. But are you doing the same back? You should be telling them what’s different about your business. What’s your unique selling point. Why should this candidate join you? You must think about how you can confidently and accurately sell your business to candidates to attract them to your business. That’s it. We hope this helps. For further information or to discuss further, we’d love to hear from you - contact us. You can also submit your CV. 

Looking for more recruitment advice? Read 5 common Management Consultancy recruitment mistakes.

Read the latest Career Advice from Ascent Professional Services.