4 ways to scare away the best job applicants

Melissa Burns

The people who work for a company are its best asset, without exception, and finding truly, high-quality employees is a rare and precious thing. Yet it is all too easy to scare excellent applicants away without even realizing it – and the best applicants are the first to turn around and look for a place where they will be treated better. So let’s take a look at the main reasons why you may not be attracting the talent you need.

1. Difficult, prolonged, and complicated application process

Everybody hates red tape, wherever it presents itself. If in order to start working for a company applicants have to send you 10 different documents in triplicate, present a resume in a strictly pre-ordained format, show up for several interviews, and undergo psychological screening, there won’t be many candidates willing to go through this. Some recruiters claim that it is a good thing, for a difficult application process weeds out those who are not really willing to work for you. In reality, however, they lose the best applicants, not the least persistent ones, as candidates have better things to do and other opportunities.

2. Your company’s website is ugly or unstable

In today’s world, a proper website is a must for any self-respecting business – not only to present itself to the customers, but to serve as a calling card as well. If a website is created as an afterthought, has an ugly design, gives no relevant information, or is down all too often, it shows your entire business in an unfavorable light. Job applicants who have reasons to expect the best for themselves may be easily discouraged from looking for long-term employment in a place that isn’t even capable of maintaining proper web presence. That is why stable and preferably cheap web hosting should always be a priority, even for companies having nothing to do with the Internet.

3. You are not worth working for

Your business may be the best thing in the world, but consider how it looks from the outside. If you cannot offer a comfortable and well-oiled working environment, efficient management, career opportunities, and a friendly atmosphere, no amount of PR and monetary incentives are going to beat the sheer force of negative word of mouth about how awful your company is to work for.

4. Negative application experience

In most cases, this negative experience boils down to the company’s silence – a whopping 75 percent of job applicants claim they never hear back from the company after submitting their applications. They did not receive rejection or even acknowledgement that their applications were received and will be reviewed. Most applicants neglected in this fashion state are never going to apply for a job at the same company again, and a considerable share of them advise their friends and acquaintances against it. What may not look like a big deal is actually creating a long-lasting ripple of negative publicity for your company.

Finding the best talent is hard; but, as practice shows, letting the best talent find you is sometimes even harder.

Melissa Burns graduated from the faculty of Journalism of Iowa State University in 2008. Nowadays she is an entrepreneur and independent journalist. Her sphere of interests includes startups, information technologies and how these may be implemented in sphere of education. You may contact Melissa: burns.melissaa@gmail.com