What Would You Do If Your Candidate Refused To…

The war for talent is hot.  Last week I wrote about a company who recently lost many of its top sales producers to a competitor.  This week a client called me in a panic after 3 key skilled workers left – at the start of his busiest season. Employee turnover is climbing and several surveys recently reported that the time to fill vacancies has increased since the beginning of the year.  (It has been steadily rising before then!)

Confused worker With skilled workers hard to find, it is tempting to compromise hiring requirements and standard practices and to make exceptions for some candidates.

So how far would you (and your company) go to make an exception for that hard-to-find skilled applicant who tries to circumvent your process or refuses to comply with your selection process?

I hope you will take just a minute to respond to the 5-question survey at the end of the article.  I plan to report back the results (if we have enough participation) at the end of the month.

Let’s begin by asking you to imagine this scenario. For many of you, you don’t have to think too hard – the situation is very real.

You have a job opening for a very key position in your company.  After exhaustive sourcing and recruiting for several months, a colleague calls you with the name and contact information of a candidate who appears to meet all your qualifications and more. You immediately contact her but are met with one or more of the following objections. What would you do? Would you stick to your process or make exceptions?

She submitted a resume directly to you via your email or LinkedIn account but refused to complete one through your online system.She refused to complete parts of the application until after she was granted an interview.

She refused to answer certain interview questions because she considered them too personal (even if they were legal, job relevant, and important to your hiring process.)

She refused to complete a personality test (or other types of testing) because she believes her personality should have nothing to do with her job qualifications.

She refuses to join you and a few co-workers for lunch because she “keeps her personal and business lives separate.

We’d love to hear your opinions. Please click here and take a minute to complete the anonymous 5-question survey. We will post results at the end of the month.


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Ira S Wolfe