No-Show Interviews Are a Huge Waste of Time. Here Are Our Tips to Better Manage Your Interview Process To Increase Your Show Rate
After all the work you put into your hiring process—writing job descriptions, posting job ads, reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, and preparing for them—experiencing a no-show interview is a painful slap in the face.
Unfortunately, being stood up by candidates is so common in the restaurant industry—you’re more than likely numb to the pain. This is our reality and a shared experience, but it doesn’t have to be.
At Poached, we have a few tricks up our sleeves to help you spot those red flags and manage no-show interviews.
Decrease No-Show Interviews
There is no real way to know if a candidate will leave you hanging—unless you’re psychic. In that case, there’s nothing for you here. For those who aren’t, there are some tried and true tricks you can use to weed out applicants who aren’t interested in your job.
The first is to require a cover letter in your job description. To go the extra mile, you can add specific instructions, like “Please include one aspect of this job description that caught your interest.” Or get weird and ask them to include their favorite color or how long it takes to boil the perfect soft-boiled egg (…7 minutes).
Right away, you’ll know that those who don’t have a cover letter or didn’t include something you requested didn’t read your full job description carefully or don’t care enough to follow through.
Don’t be tempted by a flawless resume. They might look good on paper, but if they don’t follow your instructions, they’re already showing red flags. You risk wasting your sweet time by reaching out for an interview.
Next, note how quickly they respond if you reach out.
If someone is excited about your opportunity, they check their phones and email every minute to see if you will request an interview. If a response takes longer than 48 hours, I’d say the likelihood of them following through at the interview is low.
Lastly, if you’re posting job openings on Poached, use our Interview Scheduler! We send an automated interview reminder 24 hours before the interview and a confirmation request two hours before the interview.
You can keep track of their status in your Dashboard or wait to see if we send you an email of their confirmation. If they don’t confirm their attendance—chances are they aren’t coming, and you can reclaim your day.
Manage No-Show Interviews
After someone stands you up, you might be angry, you might be furious—but you want to be the bigger person and stay professional.
Having an interview process addressing company standards for reacting to a no-show is beneficial, especially if you have other hiring managers. This way, everyone knows what to do, and no one is acting impulsively (hopefully).
If you want to follow up with candidates who are no-shows, write a generic email template that anyone can easily copy and paste.
Decide if you’d like to offer a chance to reschedule—after all, not everyone has ill intent. It could be that an emergency came up.
If you give them the benefit of the doubt, highlight that you are continuing to interview others, but if the individual would like to reschedule, they can let you know within a set time frame.
Otherwise, inform the candidate they are no longer being considered for the position and move on.
When you use the Poached Interview Scheduler, we follow up with you to see if the candidate made it to the interview and then mark them with a Ghost icon if they didn’t (get it? Like, they ghosted you).
The Ghost Icon is only visible to your account. Still, it is a great way to help you organize your current applicant list—and give you valuable insights into the candidates if they apply for another job in the future.
There are many reasons someone might ditch you at the interview, but employers also have a lot of tools at their disposal to increase their interview turnout and save time.
If you’re tired of dealing with no-show interviews, check out the Poached Dashboard and the features we’ve built to help employers better manage their hiring process.