Candidates Backing Out After Accepting Job Offers: How Can We Prevent This?

Many candidates do not join after accepting the offer letter. The company has to wait for 30-45 days, and on the date of joining, candidates decline. What can be done?

You cannot take any action against an outsider. However, you should study the reasons for declining the offer. It may be negative publicity about your company that worries candidates about joining you. If the terms and conditions are inferior, please rework them and then try.

Hi, the only thing an employer can do is blacklist those candidates and not entertain their job applications in the future. However, in today's competitive world, that won't be possible. Fixing the Right Salary Wherever possible, fixing the right salary for candidates and avoiding excessive bargaining will help reduce last-minute no-show cases.

The Importance of a Thorough Recruitment Process

Such a situation occurs when we do not work properly. Recruitment is not just about advertising, interviews, and appointing a candidate. All pros and cons must be taken into account, starting from inviting applications. The language and tone in the application speak volumes.

The Interview Process

During the interview, we have the liberty to ask questions to the candidate. When we allow the candidate to ask questions, the nature of these questions can give us a clue about their sincerity in joining.

Offer and Appointment Letters

After deciding to select the candidate, send them an offer letter of two lines. The third line should state, "You will receive your appointment letter and terms and conditions of employment upon your joining the company." Many times, a job seeker applies to more than one place and, if capable, gets selected at multiple places. If they have the appointment letter in hand, they might start bargaining with a new employer.

Handling Apprentices

As for apprentices, take the original certificates into our custody and inform them that they will get back the certificates when they join.

It is better to follow the above steps rather than regret it when a candidate does not join.

Regards, Vibhakar Ramtirthkar.

There are two different issues at play here.

Unscrupulous Employees

The first issue concerns unscrupulous employees. They may have various reasons for not joining a company as planned, but I suspect in many cases it is purely monetary. They are solely motivated by how much money they can earn, not by performing the job. Employing such individuals would not be beneficial as they would lack productivity within the organization and constantly seek advancement opportunities.

Unscrupulous Employers

The second, more serious issue pertains to unscrupulous employers. A search of this forum will reveal numerous instances of individuals who joined a company only to desire leaving shortly after due to misrepresentation during the interview, poor management treatment, lack of training opportunities, unmet pay promises, burdensome leave policies, and absence of a clear path for advancement. This recurring problem prompts numerous posts each week from individuals seeking assistance.

Therefore, I urge you to cease blaming the candidates and instead examine your own organization. Evaluate the information provided to candidates. Are you transparent with them? How does your organization compare to others in the same industry? Is the compensation adequate? What is the career progression structure? What sets your organization apart, and why would someone choose to work for you?

As I have repeatedly emphasized on CiteHR, this issue will persist without a comprehensive and effective recruitment and selection process, supported by staff training. I can assert with certainty that most challenges in securing competent staff stem from this factor. My experience as a CiteHR member has revealed numerous recruitment practices that dismay me. Despite this, complaints regarding inadequate staff persist weekly. It is a perplexing situation.

While this issue likely occurs worldwide, I observe a higher prevalence in India. During my career, I was involved in the recruitment processes of three organizations. We experienced minimal attrition, and the recruited staff remained with us for extended periods. Although not flawless, we meticulously selected new staff and ensured their well-being.

Lastly, withholding original certificates until joining amounts to coercion in my view and fosters resentment. Candidates should steer clear of such employers as this behavior may indicate how they will treat employees in the future.

You can file against him if a non-joining clause is mentioned in the offer letter.

So long as one has not signed the joining forms, they are considered an outsider, and it is the right of anyone to decide whether to join or not. Recruitment is based on trust, and while it may fail, the probability of failure is very low compared to its success rate. Therefore, if the individual is not reporting, find somebody else and close the issue permanently.

As an unbiased opinion, I can say that both parties are partially to blame.

Candidates believe that some companies conduct "fake interviews" to build their 'pipeline.' At the time of joining, their onboarding is postponed for various reasons until there is an actual requirement for the resource. Additionally, a few companies release more Letters of Intent (LOIs) than there are vacancies, knowing that a certain percentage of candidates will not turn up (based on their previous experience). If this calculation goes awry, they face a dilemma regarding what to do with the remaining candidates.

I don't need to elaborate on the reasons why candidates engage in "LOI shopping." These are well known to all of us.

The crux of the situation is that whether we are on this side of the table or the other, we need to stick to our commitments and ethics. As a culture and as professionals, we need to overhaul the overall impression we create on external agencies.

As a business owner, my experience is that some candidates use the offer letter to negotiate with their existing company. As an employer, I don't have time to repeatedly go through the hiring process; it is time-consuming. However, based on my experience, I am also considering keeping candidates in the pipeline so that if one refuses, I can ask the second one. My first preference is always to hire a candidate with a good track record of stability. Nevertheless, it is still a trial and error process.

In order to curb this type of unethical practice on the part of selected candidates, companies should now be cautious in sending detailed offer letters. In other words, it should only be a selection confirmation letter, just to enable the candidate to inform their current employer. Utmost care should be taken to not disclose the CTC details in the offer letter. This ensures that the candidate cannot leverage this information to increase their market value with their current employer.

You are talking about a kind of recruitment in which the labor supply is highly elastic. Just think of a situation where the labor is inelastic, and you require talent and skills that are very limited. You will show everything in the offer letter. Therefore, not showing details that are relevant to any offer is not a good practice. Hiring risk is to be borne by the employer. It is not for the employer alone, but the employee also has to bear risk because changing employment itself involves an element of risk. The employee does not know what the culture of the new organization is, and if it does not match his expectations, he is stuck.

Therefore, we should be very transparent while preparing the offer letter and should include everything possible to be disclosed. If the candidate does not turn up after our waiting for him for months, it should be dropped as such, thinking that he is not meant for us. Remember that there are companies that will extend the date of joining and withdraw the offers given after making the candidate wait for months. This has been happening in campus selections. Many companies participate in campus selection and appear in the placement brochure of the institution but will withdraw the offers later on. Will the candidate file suit against such companies? No. They leave it, saying that it is not my concern.