Scruffy, Ill-prepared and Negative: the Nationís Jobseekers?

The UK is a nation of flustered interviewees. Job hunters are arriving for interviews across the country late, unprepared and scruffy. Research released today from fish4jobs, the UKís most popular recruitment website, has highlighted the seven deadly sins candidates are most likely to commit in interviews. It also gives an insight into the most common bugbears that recruiters experience when tackling the momentous and often stressful challenge of hiring new employees.

The fish4jobs Seven deadly interview sins:

Not doing your homework - Not preparing for the interview or doing any background research on the company

Negativity - Criticising and being unprofessional about their current employer

Boredom - Chewing gum and showing a lack of enthusiasm

Arrogance - Being arrogant, over-confident and pushy

Sexism - Not shaking the interviewers hand, especially if they are female

Inappropriate dress - Body decorations including piercings, tattoos etc

Bad first impressions - Poorly written and designed CVs are a huge turn-off

This research, conducted amongst 1,013 recruiters in the UK, reveals the extent to which candidates are not doing themselves justice in interviews. Over three quarters (80%) of those surveyed said candidates with bad breath or unkempt hair blow their chances of selection before even entering the interviewing room and those who arrive late or are unenthusiastic about the role cut their chances even further. Two thirds (60%) cited little things such as having a weak handshake and not enough knowledge about the company as factors that can send CVs crashing to the bottom of the pile.

Joe Slavin, CEO of fish4jobs, comments: ìCandidates need to make sure they are doing themselves justice when they go to interviews. To do this they need to dress in their best clothes, research the company and show enthusiasm. My top tip for a successful interview would be to research the company and go online and read up on interview techniques.î

As well as causing recruiters major headaches, recruitment is also costing companies thousands of pounds in lost working hours. Inefficient recruitment is turning the simple task of finding a new employee into a momentous challenge. At an average of 13 hours and 20 minutes, it is taking almost two full days of dedicated working hours to hire each new recruit; precious time that the majority (57%) of recruiters say they donít have to spare.

The research also reveals almost half (48%) of recruiters are still receiving CVs by post compared to more efficient and savvy methods such as email. Dated recruitment methods such as sending CVs by post prolongs the recruitment process for both parties ñ meaning the client could miss out on the right candidate.