What are the signs of someone who may renege on your job offer or not show up on the first day?

In a previous post, we explored this question from the Mental Pulse perspective in the Five Pulses Model. Quick reminder, this model describes the NEEDS an employee has when joining your organisation. Using this model, we can spot if someone will likely flake on us when we give them a job offer. 

This week we want to explore the question from the Physical and Agility pulse perspective. It turns out there are at least 10 signs you should be sensitive to during the interview process. 

This will help you avoid bad surprises on the candidate's Day 1.

#1: They are a job hopper. If the last three roles haven’t kept the candidate longer than 18 months on average, there’s an increased risk they will flake on you. 

#2: The role would not be a progression for them, but more of a lateral move. The chances are that you are their placeholder until something better comes along. 

#3: During the interview process, they got easily frazzled by various environmental stressors. Changed interview location, technical issues while connecting a video call, an unexpected interviewer, and any of these things made the candidate visibly uncomfortable? Maybe, for them, certainty is important and your style of working may not be the right fit for them. 

#4: They asked about remote working and you don’t offer it. Big sign. Working from home, on occasion, has become such a big topic that if you don’t offer it, you may lose your candidate in the last minute to someone who DOES offer flexible working. 

#5: There’s a certain lack of urgency on their part, like they cannot be bothered. If they take days and not hours to respond to your emails, you may have someone on your hands who’s not really excited about the role. And that doesn’t bode well for them showing up on Day 1

#6: Their salary expectations are quite a bit removed from what you offer. My estimate here is 20%. If you offer 80 and they want 100, the risk is higher they will flake on you. 

#7: The role is low-paid and non-prestigious. Yes, it’s a fact of life that the less paid a role is the more likely no-shows are. Those who recruit servers or couriers know this very well. It doesn’t stop at service jobs, though. Even in the professional space, low-paid roles have a higher chance of attracting people who may flake on you. 

#8: They have a lot of excuses for delays. It’s not that the dog has eaten their homework, but these candidates have a lot of great reasons why they have to reschedule or deliver something later. Beware the excuse-makers.

#9: There’s a lack of effort in the formalities - Poor CV formatting, email typos, appearance less than what it could be. 

#10: They are based elsewhere and would either have to relocate - which is always a big effort and can face obstacles - or, they would be working remotely full-time. In that case, the temptation to renege is bigger because they won’t run into you on the street where they live, and so the risk of social consequences is reduced. 

You can download ALL the signs that someone will renege on your offer or not show up on Day 1 in this handy 1-page PDF:

This is all very subtle. You won’t be giving a job offer to someone who ticks all those boxes, that would be crazy. It’s only going to be one or two boxes that increase the risk of someone flaking on you. 

But the point is that once you spot one or two of these risk factors, you should be alert and address these doubts. 

And the best way to address these doubts is in three ways:

1. Discuss them directly with the candidate - say: “Hey Sue, I’d be very happy to extend a job offer to you, but I had the feeling that in our communications there has been a certain lack of urgency on your end: For example it took you two days to respond to my last message. Are you really keen about this role?”
2. Get face time with them. You can get so many more cues from someone face to face than you can get over the phone. Invite them for lunch or coffee and see how you get along. 
3. Keep other candidates warm, as ethically and as long as you possibly can, ideally until the very moment your candidate is meant to start their work. 

Next week we will discuss reneges and no-shows from an emotional / spiritual pulse in the Five Pulses Model.

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How do you spot someone during the job interview process who has a high chance of later flaking on you?
Because there ARE some telltale signs that tell you if someone is likely to pull a no-show later on.
So that’s what we’re going to cover in this video.

When someone reneges on your job offer, it means that it was not attractive enough, plain and simple. 

It has not met their needs. What kind of needs do job candidates have? According to the Five Pulse model, there’s mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and agility needs. 

​Let’s look at mental needs first - the needs for intellectual stimulation, career advancement, and learning new skills.

What are the risk factors that increase the likelihood that your offer may not meet their MENTAL needs?

1. The role requires skills that are in high demand. Anyone who has a lot of options because of their rare skills is more likely to drop you than someone unskilled. 
2. It’s a graduate role. We have shifted into a graduates’ market, with more and more entry level positions available. This makes people collect a string of offers yet continue their job search to find something better. 
3. They were not well prepared for the interview. Lack of research on the company, no curiosity during the interview, all those are signs that should give you pause.
4. They don’t have interesting insights. A lack of substance can often be papered over by charisma. So if you liked a candidate, ask yourself if their insights about the industry, their area of specialisation or other intellectually stimulating topics were actually interesting, even if you didn’t agree with them. 
5. There was an assignment element to the interview process, and the candidate was unwilling or slow to complete it. If you found that in the process, the candidate was slow to work on the task or you felt that they were upset that this would be part of the application, that’s another risk factor. Even if they then completed the task. 

Of course, these are only subtle signs. You will not be giving a job offer to someone who didn’t prepare at ALL for the job interview and didn’t have ANYTHING interesting to say. So this checklist is for those subtle edge cases, a word here and there, something small that didn’t feel completely right. 

By the way, if you want the FULL checklist which includes ALL the risk factors that make someone a likely no-show, just click below to download the PDF (no email needed).

So, what are you supposed to do when one of these risk factors applies in your case? We will cover this in a later video in detail, but here I’ll mention it briefly: 

Basically, there’s three things you can do to hedge your risk against a no-show or reneg. 

1. One measure that’s totally underused is the direct addressing of the problem: Saying “Listen, John, I liked our conversations but I felt that you were a bit unprepared for the first interview. What do you think? Is this something that, in retrospect, you would agree with?” That can reveal how the candidate handles criticism, and it helps to bust through the formality in the job interview process. 
2. Get more face-time with them. For example, invite them for lunch with someone more senior than their role would be, so that they feel well taken care of. During the time together, pay attention to the conversation and their body language.
3. Keep other candidates warm. There are ways to do this ethically. 

We will discuss all of this in much more depth in a later video. 

In next week’s video, we will cover what are the signs from the physical and agility pulse standpoint that someone may become a no-show. 

I hope this was helpful, please make sure to add or follow me on LinkedIn, and click the button below to get notified when a new video comes out.
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So you hire someone, send them a contract to sign, everything is hunky dory, and then they go MIA or, even worse, they sign but then don’t show up?!?!?

When I told my mum that this happens, her reaction was: “What kind of person does that?” 

I know, it’s really annoying, but let’s be grown-ups about it. No-shows and renegs are a fact of life, so we better deal with them. 

In this blog post and video series, I’ll give you a recipe how to handle no-shows and reneges. In this first part I will cover what to do to have your own house in order, so that you don’t do things that inadvertently put people off. In Part 2, I’ll tell you all about how to spot the signs that give away when someone is likely to become a no-show. And in Part 3, we’ll discuss what to do if it does happen to you. 

So watch out for Parts 2 and 3!

Let’s get started:

People thrive in a new job when they have a few fundamentals ticked which I like to describe as the Five Pulses Model. 

he five pulse model says that when deciding on taking a new job, candidates need to know that their physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and agility needs can be met. So if the candidate during the process feels that one of their needs won’t be met, they are MUCH more likely to reneg or pull a no-show.

​So, let’s run through them. Either watch the video or read the brief summary below

​Physical Pulse: This talks to the kind of office environment they see, the benefits on offer, the salary offered, how the company processes work; commuting time etc. Suss this stuff out as a first step and make sure your recruitment process is watertight throughout. 

Mental Pulse: Here the person assesses what learning and skills application opportunities are available in the job and what kind of thinking is pervasive in the company such as analytical, concrete, logical, creative or imaginative thinking environments. Define your environment and ensure you’re attracting people who are aligned to that way of thinking. 

Emotional Pulse: This talks to the emotional connection that the candidate feels to the people interviewing them and whether they can immediately establish trust which is the foundation for candidates being more reliable. Getting on with the person is paramount! Knowing that you will have a good relationship only increases the chances of a successful hire.

Spiritual Pulse: Here is the critical stuff that can’t be seen but rather felt. If you don’t align on common purpose, shared values and a similar way of approaching things, you may as well not hire anyone as you’ll be wasting your time.

Agility Pulse: How progressive the company is; how it’s working to maintain itself and how it has dealt with and come back from adversity is actually a major stickiness factor for most candidates today. Be sure to talk to these real things in your interview process. 
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Once you’re able to answer to all of these candidate needs, you will have massively reduced the risk of them harbouring doubts in their minds and reneging on your job offer. 

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