Excuses for Not Attending an Interview
What are your options when it comes to Excuses to Give a Recruiter for Not Attending an Interview?
Let’s set the scene. You’ve found yourself with an interview lined up for a job you don’t really want. The recruiter seems like a nice person and you don’t feel comfortable just not showing up for the interview. You’ve got to make your excuses.
But Recruiters are basically sales people, right? They’ve got targets to hit. It makes sense to give an excuse that they can’t really argue with. It’s got to be something that you can’t help so they’ll let you off the hook.
The Usual Ideas
If you’ve left it late to make your excuses.
Car Trouble
My car’s broken down and I can’t make the interview. You need transport to get to an interview. Taking a bus could take ages and probably won’t get you there on time anyway. A train is probably going to be even less useful than getting a bus. Your wife/husband/partner is at work. A Taxi is a possible argument, but it would cost a lot, right? Car Trouble seems a good excuse if you’ve left it late.
If a Recruiter is calling you to prep you the night before your interview / You didn’t show for the interview and you want to save face
Son / Daughter in Hospital. Yes, I’m serious. In a moment I’ll explain why. But think about it. If you’re in hospital, you can’t take phone calls. Plus, your priorities at a time like that are on your child not an interview. If you happen to be back in work or driving the following day it’d be a bit tricky if you said you yourself were the one in hospital. It’s much easier and adds sympathy to go with the son / daughter angle. You can play the concerned parent card. The Recruiter is very unlikely to question it at such a sensitive time, right?
Do they work?
Yes and No.
Yes, they work because you’ve got yourself out of an interview and/or saved face by giving excuses credible sounding enough for the recruiter not to argue with you.
No, because both of these excuses or very similar reworkings of them account for probably 80% or more of the reasons for non-attendance at interview. We’ve heard these 2x excuses countless times before. I could put money on it confidently that the excuse for non-attendance would be 1 of these 2 and win a lot of money. Either there is a dramatic case of sick kids out there or parents are that shallow that they are lying about their kids being in hospital. As a parent myself I find this sickening. Some of these people are respectable, upstanding members of the public that are making excuses that if their family found out about would be kind of sick really. Therefore, your typical recruiter will probably think you’re a bull**itter and never touch you again.
Is a recruiter really going to try talking you around if you are honest with them?
What happens then if you just say to a recruiter that you’ve changed your mind and you don’t want to go anymore?
To this day, and I’ve been in the recruitment game a long time, I can only remember two occasions that someone has been honest when trying to get out of an interview. I think on both occasions I ended up thanking them for being honest and let them be on their way.
If you don’t want the job what is the point of me trying to force you into attending an interview? Most Recruiters work on what is called a contingency basis. This means that for them to get paid their commission you’d need to start the job and stay in it for at least a couple of months. Therefore, what logical reason would there be for us trying to force you into attending an interview for a job you don’t want. If you don’t want the job why would we want to spend time and effort on you if you’re not going to start and stay in the role for at least a couple of months? Plus, if you left after a couple of months do you think the client would want to use our services again anyway? That’s unlikely.
A recruiter is not like a high street mobile phone salesperson trying to force you into a deal. If you don’t want the job, we’d rather just know so we can concentrate on someone who does. The whole process takes months and if you’d be a waste of effort if you have no interest, we don’t want to waste your time as it’d be a waste of our time.
So, what excuse do you give a recruiter then?
Email, Call, Text or DM them it doesn’t matter. Just say you don’t want to attend the interview anymore and want to look at other options. That way you can move on and so can we. Quit with the “my daughters in hospital” nonsense. It’s both cringeworthy as we hear it so frequently, as well as a bit sick. Stop being a wimp and just be honest.
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External Links: https://www.collegerecruiter.com/blog/2016/06/13/top-9-excuses-for-not-attending-a-job-interview/
https://www.sourcecon.com/recruiters-you-dont-have-time-for-excuses/
https://energyresourcing.com/blog/what-a-recruiter-does/
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