Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Picture the scene: you’ve put in the hours hitting the phones and developing new business, you’ve negotiated great terms for your upcoming deal and you’ve got the perfect candidate. Just one problem: the candidate doesn’t turn up.

Now there are always going to be valid reasons for someone not attending an interview – they may even not have the courtesy to let you know, but when they do it’s possible to get the occasional gem. Like the candidate who said (word for word):

“I woke and found that my eye had swollen so much that I looked like something out of a horror film and I'm waiting outside the doctor’s surgery for them to open so I can get it fixed - must be due to a protein build-up on my contact lenses.” On telephoning the work number five minutes later, the candidate answered the phone.

Or the chap who called in to say he was feeling too sick to go to the interview, and then proceeded to prove how sick he was by vomiting down the phone line. Still, that’s better than the candidate who claimed their father had died – subsequently proven to be a lie. How low can you stoop?