Half of workers experience a negative interview process

A new survey has revealed that just over half of workers say they’ve had a negative interview experience.

According to the findings, of the 11,900 responses, 51% admitted to a bad experience when going through the interview process with reasons including:

• A lack of clarity when it came to the steps involved (cited by 40%).
• Unprepared interviewers (37%).
• A lack of structure to the process (36%).
• The process is too long and cumbersome (33%).

Data shows that age seems to be a factor when it comes to these negative interview experiences; for example, of those aged between 18 and 24, 28% say they’ve had a poor experience during an interview process with this figure slowly creeping up with each age group, increasing to 56% for those aged 50+.

The Hays research also found that interviewees were having to wait a long time to hear back about a job, with over a quarter (27%) of employers admitting it takes them up to four weeks to contact successful applicants. Just 17% of jobseekers believe this is an acceptable timeframe to have to wait.

Barney Ely, Managing Director of the South East region at Hays, commented on the findings, “Employers need to ensure their application process is a positive one for jobseekers in order to compete for talent. It’s where the experience starts with prospective staff, by being considerate of their time, clearly communicating what the interview process will entail and providing feedback.

“Otherwise, as our research found, organisations risk failing at the first interaction and letting go of talent before they have even secured it. Ultimately, interviews are as much about a jobseeker assessing the appeal of a potential employer as they are about an organisation judging the suitability of an applicant.

“Age is evidently a barrier during the application process, so organisations need to reflect on how to rectify this, to enable every professional to have an equally positive experience during their interview and beyond.”

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