Adam Seabrook, Co-founder of Betterteam, a recruitment platform for small businesses, explains why candidates fail in interviews. These are the top seven reasons that I see most often in why our clients reject candidates.
- Talking about compensation too often
Generally I will raise this once at the beginning of the interview and if you are within the range for the role we can move on and talk about other things. Once salary has been discussed, try not to keep going back to this as a candidate who is primarily motivated by money rarely gets past the first interview.
- Bad introduction
Most people form their opinion of you in the first thirty seconds, so if your introduction is not great, it impacts the rest of the interview.
- LinkedIn or social profiles does not match their resume
As a LinkedIn profile is public, candidates are less likely to fill it with lies. It is very common for me to find roles on LinkedIn that are missing on the resume, massive differences in start/finish dates, and huge differences in title. I question candidates on this and it is very uncomfortable for them when they get caught. On the other hand, I always do a bit of searching on the Internet before I interview a candidate. In most cases it is fine but there are times where I find things that are going to impact the candidates’ chances of securing the role. Assume anything you post online is public and you won’t have this issue.
- Low energy/motivation
I don’t expect candidates to blast into the interview like a 100m sprinter, but if they come across as low energy I find it very hard to get past that. When digging into details of how they work, it is often clear they are happy to coast along and are not a great fit for a company that likes their staff to be very self-motivated and driven.
- Not 100% sure what role they want
Many candidates start hunting for a job before they have a clear view of what role they want. When interviewing, I probe on this point and if I feel the candidate is interviewing across too many incompatible roles then I usually decline. Normally the candidate will get to the offer stage then withdraw, or accept and then switch jobs very quickly when they realize they made a bad career move.
Adam suggests his final Thoughts as follows, Don’t try to drastically change who you are to slip through interviews. Often what one person considers a red flag others will see as a positive. In general, though, anything you do that consistently comes across as dishonest, abrupt, rude, lazy, and uncomfortable; you should work on as that rarely has a positive impact on your interview.
