With the UK experiencing its highest-ever number of job postings and staff shortages, these findings offer guidance to businesses by delving into the types of behaviour that are most off-putting for job seekers.
The study, which surveyed more than 1,500 UK professionals, showed that the following behaviours are the most likely to prevent candidates from accepting a new role:
- Arrogant or unfriendly interviewer (76.8%)
- The interviewer hasn’t looked thoroughly at your application/doesn’t know much about you (49.5%)
- The interviewer is distracted and doesn’t pay full attention during the interview (45.7%)
- Too many interview stages (30.9%)
- Lengthy assessment tasks (23.2%)
The survey also went on to reveal that 39.9% of applicants would be discouraged from applying for a job with a lengthy interview process. In fact, a whopping 53% of candidates feel the interview process should last no longer than one to two weeks.
Lee Biggins, CEO and Founder of CV-Library said, “With 1.2m positions currently on offer to UK jobseekers, the candidate experience is more important than ever before. It’s vital that hiring professionals heed the results of this survey and make any necessary changes to their recruitment strategy, now. If not, they simply won’t fill job vacancies and will drive top talent to key competitors.”
Rupert Gaster, Founder and Managing Director of procurement recruitment agency Procurement Heads, added, “This data isn’t hugely surprising, drawn-out interview stages have long been a bugbear for candidates, but if organisations want to attract the best talent it really is imperative that those conducting the interviews are fully engaged in the process.
“There is nothing more off-putting to an interviewee than a distracted or disinterested interviewer and at the end of the day it reflects poorly on the hiring company.”
