Egregiously Bad Candidates: You can't make this stuff up

posted on ERE Exchange by Sarah Welstead on Oct. 12, 2008

Recruiters get a bad rap - sometimes, candidate behaviour is just plain inexplicable.

As the Director of User Experience for a recruitment services
company, I am often the recipient of out-of-the-blue phone calls from
candidates ("To speak with someone in our marketing and communications
department, please press 2043...").

Most of the time, I just roll my eyes a little: A-list candidates
know that unless you have a specific contact name, it's best to make
first contact with a recruiting company by email or applying online -
so when I get a random phone call, it's generally safe to assume that
the candidate on the other end is either a bit clueless or a little
desperate. But it's easy enough to gently redirect these candidates to
the website.

But once in a while, I end up having a conversation which reveals just how useful the term 'WTF????!!' really is.

Unbelievable but true

Friday afternoon, I picked up the phone and engaged in the following - slightly abridged, but otherwise verbatim - conversation:

ME: "Sarah Welstead."

MALE CANDIDATE, AGED 22-35: "Your office is open?"

ME: "Yes, we're open today..."

MC: "But you're closing at 2 o'clock?"

ME: "Ummm...no. We're here til 5 today."

MC: "So you're not closing? I can come there?"

ME: "The office is open, but - I'm sorry, did you have an appointment with someone here?"

MC: "I want a job. I'm going to bring my resume there now and talk to someone about getting a job."

ME: (light dawning) "Oh, I see. Actually, we don't really take
resumes in person like that. Have you visited our website? If you're
interested in a specific position, or want to send us your resume, you
can do that through the website."

MC: "I need to talk to someone. I want to give you my resume."

ME: (eyes now rolling quite a bit) "Yes, the best way to do that is
online. Once we receive your resume or application, a recruiter will be
in touch and you can make an appointment."

[this back-and-forth continued for several minutes - he was
determined to drop off his resume in person and was disinclined to
believe me when I said it wasn't the best way to get our attention]

MC: "But I need some advice."

ME: "About looking for work? What kind of job are you interested in?"

MC: "IT - information technology."

ME: (trying to stay positive) "Great! We've got an IT recruiting
division, so you should just check out the IT jobs we've got posted,
and apply to whichever ones you're interested in. If you don't see
anything that fits with your skills, you can email us your resume and
we'll let you know when something comes up."

MC: "But I don't have email."

ME: "You don't have an email address?"

MC: "I don't have a computer or internet."

ME: [a few seconds of silence] "Um, you'd like to work in IT but you don't have a computer or access to the internet?"

MC: "Yeah."

ME: [speechless]

I did finally succeed in giving him the email address of one of our
IT recruiters (who, 30 minutes later, received a brief email from
someone requesting a meeting and 'advice' - but no resume or an
indication of the type of job or advice he was looking for). But two
days later, I can't get the conversation out of my head. I can't stop
thinking: "What the HECK was that guy thinking?"

Why did he forego any semblance of a greeting or explanation ("Hi,
my name is Bob and I'm looking for work in IT and would like to drop
off my resume...")?

Why did he persist in his resume drop-off plan after I'd told him
that the best way to bring himself to our attention was to go online?

And why did he tell the recruiting company that he wants a job in IT but doesn't have a computer or internet access?

So what's my point?

For years, recruiting professionals have ranked somewhere between
'real estate agent' and 'travelling salesman' on the Unscrupulous
Professions list. And there's no question that recruiters aren't always
as assiduous in acknowledging or responding to candidate applications
as they should be.

But it's no wonder that recruiters often come off looking jaded or
dismissive when it comes to candidates, because while the conversation
above is unique in its specific punchline ("The IT guy who doesn't have
a computer"), it's just one of the many, many examples of inexplicable
candidate behaviour that most recruiters see every day.

(Don't you wish that, when you encounter one of these Egregiously
Bad Candidates, you could just ask them, straight out, how they thought
that doing [insert inexplicable behaviour here] was going to bring them
any closer to their dream job?)

6 comments

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Tiffany Routon
  
  1
  point
  
  16 hours ago
  

  They
  have to know. I personally google every applicant, check their social
  networking sites, and I read any blogs they may have written. I have
  found out a lot of "truth" this way.

  
  
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Sarah Welstead
  
  1
  point
  
  7 months ago
  

  Tiffany - Do they think recruiters don't know about Google? Kim - The list could go on forever, couldn't it?

  
  

  Marisa - Sometimes the advice "if at first you don't succeed..." is terribly misguided.

  
  
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Kim Lusk
  
  1
  point
  
  7 months ago
  

  I
  find it interesting when you establish rapport with a prospect via
  phone and established that they are "very" interested in the position
  you have available...they just drop off the face of the earth. You call
  them back thinking, maybe they were in an accident or a relative passed
  away or some other type of emergency. But no, they never return your
  call or email. I guess professional courtesy went by the wayside. One
  candidate who did this to me called me back about 3 weeks later to
  indicate they found another job but the job wasn't working out and
  asked to be reconsidered. WHATEVER!

  
  
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Tiffany Routon
  
  1
  point
  
  7 months ago
  

  I hate when they fabricate referees too lol...

  
  
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Sarah Welstead
  
  1
  point
  
  7 months ago
  

  Someone
  not showing up for an interview - and sort of just disappearing from
  the face of the earth - has happened to me more than once in the past
  few months, and it drives me nuts...mostly because I find myself DYING
  to know why they thought that not showing and not calling was a good
  idea for their long-term career goals.

  
  

  (I tried several times to get in touch with a no-show candidate,
  just because I was dying of curiosity, but of course I never got a
  response to that, either...)

  
  
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Lisa Johnson
  
  1
  point
  
  7 months ago
  

  Sarah,
  your blog made me laugh and laugh! There are days in recruitment when
  you feel like you are living in the twilight zone. A similar experience
  led me to create a list of 10 things that recruiters hate about job
  applications:

  
  

  1. Cover letters that add no value to the application; they are just a cut and paste from the resume

  
  

  2. People who apply for the SAME job again and again

  
  

  3. People who SHOUT in their emails or who use text-speak

  
  

  4. People who want temp work but who dont have a cell phone / voicemail / or enough credits on their pre-paid phone

  
  

  4a. People who have inappropriate voicemail or email addresses

  
  

  5. People who attach the wrong cover letter to their application

  
  

  6. People who outline their career objectives as one thing but then apply for something completely different

  
  

  7. People who dont provide appropriate referees or worse, who fabricate referees

  
  

  8. When people dont show for an interview, but dont bother calling to say they aren't coming

  
  

  9. People who only apply for a job so they can manipulate their current employer for a payrise / promotion

  
  

  10. People who tell you that they have a good eye for 'detial'

  
  

  Not that any of this is going to change their opinion of recruiters. Nope - they didnt get that wonderful new job because we:

  
  

  1. Never returned their calls (you know the one where they left a
  voicemail message that said "Hi this is Jane, please call me" - never
  thinking that there are 600 Janes on the database)

  
  

  2. Didn't listen to what they wanted (you know, where we tried to
  gently tell them that wanting to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company by the
  time they are 30 is a wonderful ambition, but that they may need to
  start further down the corporate ladder)

  
  

  Gotta love them though - they make our world go around.