Hiring Tips: 4 Interviewees Who Don’t Deserve Your Time

‘Time is Precious’  

Being a recruiter is a full-time job in itself. After finishing one task, you have to get ready to roll up your sleeves and get down to the other. From sorting out hundreds of resumes piling up in your desk, conducting background checks, sending out emails and calling applicants, to doing in-person interviews with prospective candidates, it seems that you do not have much free time on your hand. As busy as it sounds, you have to make sure that you have conducted thorough resume review so you do not invite unqualified candidates and end up investing your time in the wrong person.

As a professional recruiter who has been dealing with countless number of individuals, you might have learnt the ability to recognise candidates’ personality even from the second they step in the interview room. As your job requires you to meet and interview many people, there are good chances that you have met various kinds of interviewees: confident, shy, talkative, or secretive people.

However, there are 4 kinds of interviewees that you should avoid as they will not contribute much to your company if hired. Look out to people with these characters:

1. The blamer

This type of people are typically irresponsible either with the job or other things they have been assigned for. They tend to blame others for their own mistake, which is not a good attitude for company’s growth and stability. You can find out this character by asking the candidate why he was fired from their previous job. Then instead of providing a positive and neutral answer, he claims that the dismissal was due to the bad teamwork, bad manager’s attitude, or other negative answers. The blamers rarely talk good about other people as they tend to see highly of themselves. At this point, it is better to end the interview rather than wasting your time for a candidate who emits strong aura of negativity.  

2. The braggart

Braggarts usually don’t value other people’s existence and contribution. They tend to take all the credits for every success, even in a teamwork task. They often forget about other team members who help them achieve the achievement.

This type of people always look down on people and act so just to make you feel terrible. Does this type of person good for your company?  

The answer is a big NO. As a recruiter specialist, you will help the company to grow by fetching only the best talents and building a supportive environment. Meanwhile, hiring this kind of people will only lower other employee’s performance and morale as he might let other employees down and make them feel worse.

3. The arrogant

Almost similar to the braggart, the arrogant also loves to talk a lot about their own achievement. Arrogant people often frustrate others because they always want to be the centre of attention and display a haughty attitude. If you hire an arrogant person, it might cost you the team’s hampering productivity as this person will only go around spreading negative catalyst in the workplace. Even during an interview, you can tell that someone is arrogant when they showcase defensive attitude or remarks when asked certain question.

4. The unprepared

It is great to interview a candidate who already gain some knowledge regarding your company’s background. Yet, on some other cases, there will always be candidates who might not spend their necessary time to take a look or even read your company web page. When you throw them some questions about your company’s background, they struggle to answer the questions.

When this happens, first thing to do is take a look at his resume. If his qualification matches with the job role, then maybe you can give him more time to interview and reveal his hidden potential that could be used to contribute to your company. On the other hand, if his resume is not really appealing, then it is wise to end the conversation as soon as possible so you will not waste both candidate’s and your time and move on to the next interviewee.

Read also: How to Improve Internal Recruitment Process