Spotting candidates red flags is a Recruiter’s invaluable human tool
Spotting candidates red flags takes a mix of robust screening and experience. Then that human hunch a Recruitment Consultant gets that something may be amiss. Spotting candidates red flags is a Recruiter’s invaluable human tool.
In any engagement between Recruitment Consultant and candidate, there’s a rapport of unspoken trust established. The candidate entrusts a Recruiter to find them a job that’s in sync with their vision for their career path. Sometimes it’s to grow their skillset. It might be to work in a team with a shared mission. Or perhaps to soar to seniority where you can lead and impart onto others your expertise.
But the trust in the Recruiter-Candidate relationship needs to be a 2-way street. Spotting candidates red flags is a Recruiter’s invaluable human tool.
While certain red flags are obvious others require closer examination. This usually follows our human instinct that kicks in when your internal suspicious alert goes off.
The first introduction to any candidate is their CV. This is the first point of scrutiny where a Recruiter will fact-check. Questionable aspects like discrepancies in dates will be noted. Or huge gaps in employment or moving quickly between jobs more commonly coined as “job hopping”.
A candidate’s response to these questions can set off an alarm bell with a Recruiter. An alert that they need to further investigate. One of these could be if their reason for leaving is as they say. In another instance you can find a candidate sometimes “bends the truth” about their current earnings – the truth usually revealed when presenting a copy of their pay slip.
Recruiters must often employ “Sherlock Holmes” tactics to get to the truth.
On the rare occasion a candidate will raise doubt as to whether they even worked at a specific company. Or if a reference is fake. Tone of voice and staggered unclear responses or body language are often giveaways where the human hunch – that “sixth sense” – raises an eyebrow that a Recruiter needs to probe the candidate’s version of events.
Aside from background and qualification checks, Recruitment Consultants tap into their own investigative techniques in pursuit of the truth.
Candidates with more than one CV sometimes lie about tertiary qualifications.
“I had a recent situation where the candidate had two CVs of which the one, we had sent to the client was the inaccurate one and when we called him out on it, he claimed that they were both correct and then further on in the conversation the candidate was getting aggressive and claiming to have two Master’s Degrees which he did not have at all,” one Datafin Consultant tells.
Spotting candidates red flags is a Recruiter’s invaluable human tool which can save clients time and money.
Clients are freed up spending time sifting through “blind” applications. Recruiters thereby ensure to present only qualified and quality options. Companies save money and are safeguarded from unfavorable circumstances unfolding if a likely so-called “problem employee” ends up on their books.
Ultimately, we follow up red flags not with ill intent. Instead, to better understand a candidate before marketing them to the client. We are in the business of successful job placement after all.
Recruitment Consultants can often relate to a candidate in a professional or personal capacity.
One Datafin Recruiter says finding common ground can help a candidate feel open to disclose reasons such as a large break between jobs on a CV.
“.. I sent her a voice note and appealed to her emotions and said the reason I’m asking personal questions is because I know the client will ask the same, so without her having to divulge too much personal information, would she mind giving me a brief overview, so I know best how to present her. She then said she had been married; it was her ex-husband’s company, etc. So, I said, okay well that makes sense, I am divorced as well, and I know how hard it is to rebuild, and that I thought she was doing a great job. She opened up after that.
“So basically, I think if you can find a similarity or offer that you are trying to help them rather than be nosy, they seem to be more open,” explains our Datafin Recruiter.
Here at Datafin Recruitment we believe “honestly and transparency is the best policy”. It is an ethos we practice as a team and with our candidates and clients alike.
Another Datafin Recruiter emphasizes that in most cases, they, as Consultants, have built a relationship with the potential client. Clients mostly appreciate honesty and are often open to giving candidates a fighting chance.
“More often than not, your Consultant who has a relationship with the prospective new employer, can explain things to the client.
“A candidate had lost her husband and the company dismissed them for poor performance. Of course, all these things will be fact checked by the Consultant, but it’s totally acceptable that people do go through difficult times in their life, and there are also so many lovely clients out there that will appreciate the honesty and also believe that everyone deserves a second chance in life.”
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