Red flag caution concept

Especially in the realm of commercial cleaning, it can be understandable for hiring managers to feel the pressure and hire someone that doesn’t pass the gut-check for the sake of more manpower. Ongoing challenges with finding employees may mean departments have to take more calculated risks on candidates — but if the hire goes completely south, then teams are back to square one with wasted time and resources allotted to the failed employee.

Inevitably, mistakes will be made in the hiring process, but to avoid the frequency of this misfortune, RecruiteeBlog highlighted a series of red flags hiring parties should look out for in interviews. While they may not tell the whole story, they can serve as a reliable template for weeding out candidates that are likely to be a bad fit for the team. 

Not Asking Questions: While it shouldn’t be expected for every candidate to come with a long list of questions, not asking a single one throughout the interview process shows either a lack of attention to detail, or a lack of actual interest in the position. A candidate with genuine interest is trying to gauge the company’s culture, what their potential role is, opportunities for growth, and more. 

Dodging Accountability: It’s understandable for candidates to want to present the best possible versions of themselves, but failing to acknowledge any fault for past mistakes in previous positions can be concerning. If they are unable to pinpoint a situation or two where they made a mistake and explained how they learned and improved from it, then a pattern never taking blame could be on the horizon in a new position.

Body Language: Some candidates know how to say all the right things, but if they show contradictory body language towards what is being talked about, it can be concerning. Examples include fidgeting, a failure to make eye contact, looking at their watch, and so on. Overly relaxed postures or slacking in a chair can indicate the candidate either doesn’t really care whether they get the job or not, or already assumes that they are nailing the interview and an offer is inevitable. 

Trouble with Listening: To be fair, sometimes a candidate can be nervous so they get frazzled at times — but an inability to listen to questions consistently can be a cause for concern. If a candidate repeatedly has to ask what a question was again, or repeats the same points to different questions, it can indicate that a real effort to listen to what they are being asked is lacking. Fast forward to potential training or on-the-job tasks, and this lack of attention to detail can be deeply detrimental to a team. 

Complaining About Previous Work: It’s not uncommon for a candidate to be interviewing elsewhere due to the gripes they had with a previous job, but if it dominates the conversation, it can serve as a crystal ball into how they would treat or talk about their prospective co-workers in a new position. This doesn’t include constructive examples of processes that their previous company could improve on, but mores personal vendettas that keep coming to the forefront in conversations when the topic wasn’t brought up by the interviewer. 

For additional interview tips to ensure the strongest candidates are hired, check out this Fast Facts article on video interviews.