11 Jul 2023
The first things you think when a candidate doesn’t show up for an interview are either “they forgot” or ‘they’ve changed their mind and didn’t bother to tell us.” Both of these assumptions are valid and much of the time they are the correct ones. There can be some situations though where this isn’t the case and there is a genuine reason for their no-show.
Most employers won’t even follow this up and most take the attitude that if the candidate can’t or doesn't turn up, then they are not really who you are looking for. However, there could be another reason that they didn’t make it or couldn’t get in touch to let you know they couldn’t make it.
It isn’t completely unheard of for people to have accidents on the way to job interviews that require hospital intervention. People have been known to slip in icy conditions and break a limb. In these circumstances, their injury would be the thing at the forefront of their mind and receiving medical attention would swiftly become their priority.
Sending a quick email to see what kind of response you get is the best approach as far as we are concerned. There could have been something serious they had no control over, as mentioned above but if they are serious enough about the job then they will be apologetic and be able to give you an explanation. On the other hand, if they don’t respond, you can generally assume they aren’t interested.
An email after the event is definitely the best way to find out the lie of the land as this is easy to do and doesn’t look like you are begging them to attend. We have heard of people losing a parent or sibling on the day of a job interview so family tragedies can happen.
There are sometimes other things that are happening behind the scenes that have nothing to do with the interview but have derailed it nonetheless. Sometimes there are problems with childcare or care for an elderly relative and they can’t make the interview on the given day.
Under no circumstances should you send an email reminder to candidates on the morning of the interview in an attempt to avoid the no-show scenario. If they need a reminder for something this important, they probably aren’t someone you really want to be employing.
Requiring a reminder on the day of the job interview itself would show the candidate to be extremely unreliable and that would surely be a hallmark of their employment with your organisation if you chose to hire them after this.
Missing a job interview because they needed to be reminded would suggest that they didn’t consider it to be a very important event in their lives and that they didn’t mind if they were either late or a no-show. There is a level of complacency there that borders into contempt and that is never something that you want to have to deal with from employees in the workplace.
