Why are candidates not interested in your organisation?

One of the main challenges faced by organisations in the current employment environment is candidate attraction. To be able to improve this an understanding of the reasons why prospective candidates may not be interested is required. Once there is an understanding of the exact barriers that could prevent candidates being interested in an organisation then each one can be looked at individually. 

In the first half of this we aim to look at the most common barriers to interest faced by organisations globally. In the second part we will look at the possible opportunities to challenge and remove these barriers.

Core Barriers to Interest

From a sample of the projects we have completed during 2013 there were 10 main barriers to a prospective candidate being interested in any specific role or company. The Barrier to Interest data is made up of 2900 candidates from across a wide spectrum of levels, industries and locations. These candidates made up just over 21% of the total candidate population from the sample. Below is a list of these reasons in descending order:

1. 35% of all not interested potential candidates advised that happiness with their current employer/role was their main barrier to interest. Due to the international nature of the sample projects we are able to see that this value fluctuates dependant on country. The country which saw the highest proportion of candidates who stated that satisfaction with their current situation was Germany. This totalled nearly 60% of all the not interested candidates.

2. Location was the second most mentioned reason for not being interested with 18% of all people mentioning that this was the biggest barrier to interest in the role. This barrier is very much determined by the exact location of the role. When the role required international relocation this percentage was higher, though only by a small margin.

3. The third most common objection came when the candidates have recently started a new role. This compromised 10% of not interested candidates within our data set. As a total number of candidates this then becomes 2.1% of the total candidate population. This compares with the UK average where c.14% of the labour market* are within their first 6 months of employment.

4. With 7% the next most common reason given was the desire to work in a different industry to our client. This often came where we were asked to look for people with cross transferable skills, or where the client occupied a niche area of a wider industry.

5. No reason given took up 7% of the not interested candidates. These were the candidates that did not wish to speak and wouldn’t advise a reason as to why.  

6. 6% of the candidates in the data set weren't interested due to not being interested in the company we were working for. The vast majority of these were where the company we were working on were competitors of our candidates companies and the candidates wouldn't feel comfortable moving between them. There were a small number of isolated candidates that mentioned that they did not like the client company.

7. Role Specifics with 6% was the next most regular reason for candidates not being interested. This category covered a number of different reasons based around the exact details of the role in comparison with what the candidates were looking to do moving forward.

8. 5% of the candidates had stated that the Timing of the role would not be right. Most commonly this was down to events in the potential candidate’s personal life meaning that a change in role was not an option.

9. Level of Role was stated by 4% of the candidates as the key reason for not being interested. Upon having a deeper look into the information these candidates primarily were looking for a step up in role and could not see this opportunity being within our client companies.

10. Maternity was the 10^th most common reason for candidates not being interested in discussing potential roles. This took up 2% of all our not interested candidates and comprised of 0.42% of the overall candidate population that we have spoken with over the last year. This is half of the UK average for women on maternity leave during a year (1.06% of the working population**).

Do you know the reasons why candidates turn down the opportunity to work for you? If not then perhaps it's time to start asking some questions to find out more. If you'd like some help with that then please feel free to ask.

Source: *Office for National Statistics Report: Job mobility and job tenure in the UK **The Telegraph http://bit.ly/1aVA9kl