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What Hiring Managers Like (and Don’t Like) About Candidates

At the beginning of the year, The VET Recruiter® conducted a survey of hiring managers in the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession. As part of that survey, we asked a series of questions, many of which dealt directly with candidates and the hiring process.

In last month’s newsletter article, we addressed the top four interview mistakes that candidates make. This month, we’re going to present additional information that resulted from our survey.

In other words, we’re going to examine what hiring managers like (and don’t like) about candidates.

Let’s start with what annoys hiring managers the most about candidates during the hiring process. The top three answers are as follows:

  1. The fact they’re unqualified
  2. Dishonesty
  3. Not asking good questions

Next, we asked how often candidates do a good job of “selling” themselves during the hiring process. More than 80% of respondents indicated that candidates do a good job “half of the time.” While that might sound bad initially, the answer “almost never” was not chosen.

Then we asked hiring managers which is more of a turn-off: gaps on a resume or changing jobs every two years. Interestingly enough, the responses were spread evenly over the three answers offered:

Gaps on a resume — 33%

Changing jobs every two years — 33%

Neither of them is a turn-off. — 33%

Then, of course, there are the top four interview mistakes that candidates make, which we covered last month:

  1. Not asking enough questions
  2. Being cocky/arrogant
  3. Talking about money/benefits too soon
  4. Not knowing enough about the company

When you put all of this information together, an overall picture emerges of what hiring managers like about candidates and what they don’t like. What they DO like includes the following:

  • Candidates who are clearly qualified
  • Candidates who do a good job of “selling themselves”
  • Candidates who tell the truth

What hiring managers do NOT like includes the following:

  • Candidates who don’t know about the company
  • Candidates who don’t ask good questions
  • Candidates who are cocky
  • Candidate who focus too much (or too soon) on money

Which of the behaviors above have you exhibited during the hiring process or face-to-face interviews? The hiring managers who participated in our survey work for organizations that operate within the same industries that you do. They hire people just like YOU.

So make sure that you’re doing everything you can to stand out—in a good way.

We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of organizations.  If this is something you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.

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