What Not to Do: Radio Silence

Over the nearly three years that I have been blogging with HealthcareITToday.com I’ve written many a post on what not to do in your job search. For example, how not to become rejected, how to handle it if you are rejected, red flags to be mindful of, paying attention to proper English, and to never involve your mother in your job search. After many of these posts . . .

Here’s another one!

Let’s say you are interviewing with a company and at some point during the interview process you become uninterested in moving forward for any reason, perhaps another opportunity arises or you realize that the role or the company just isn’t for you. What to do? Here is what not to do: go radio silent. Just disappearing and becoming non-communicative like not taking a recruiter’s calls or answering emails is unprofessional and, frankly, rude.

This has happened to me a few times in my recruiting career. Last year I had a candidate that was set to be interviewed in-person at my firm’s office in the Greater Chicago area and for the couple weeks prior to the interview, I was emailing him to confirm the interview, answer his questions, and in general make sure he was all set to go. All my email and phone communications went unanswered until finally after leaving a stern message I received an email the day before his interview that he’d taken another opportunity. I believe that if I hadn’t been hounding him, he would have just not shown up to the interview and not said a word!

And guess what happened when he got fired from that opportunity (yes, I know this from my deep industry network) and asked to be reconsidered by my firm? I would not and will not in the future consider him for Impact Advisors or any other company I may represent in the future. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again; if he would be so flippant to not answer my emails, why would I ever risk him doing this to one of our clients?

This same situation is happening to me again right now with two other candidates that would have probably gotten offers; however, I will be rejecting these candidates based on their unprofessional non-communication.

Therefore, if you are no longer interested in an opportunity for any reason, all you need to do is let your recruiter know via a quick phone call or email. Thank the recruiter for their time and let them know that you are no longer interested. This is a much better route than burning a bridge like the fellows described above. For the skeptics, what happens if the recruiter you burned by not showing up for your interview starts recruiting for your dream company/job? Healthcare IT is a small world . . .