Whether it’s cold feet or just a busy time of the year, it seems that an employer’s recruiting efforts can become bogged down right after they’ve interviewed that talented job candidate.  But what can a recruiter to do to retain quality job candidates when the recruiting process slows down to a halt?   Below are a few tips:

1. Recruiters need to remain in contact with the job candidate letting them know they are still being considered by the employer.
2. If the recruiter knows the employer has a slow recruiting process they should let the job candidate know this before the interview.  Be specific, it’s better to say that “the recruiting process usually takes 3 weeks” than to say, “It could take awhile.”  Job candidates can better schedule their lives around a solid timeframe.
3. Recruiters should let the job candidate know about any delays as soon as they learn of them.  If you told the job candidate that the process would take 3 weeks and 6 weeks have passed without a word, failing to communicate with the job candidate could cause them to move on.
4. If the recruiter learns that the job candidate has received another job offer, they should talk with the candidate about the pros and cons of taking it.  If the new job is clearly an inferior choice you may want to tell the candidate to give you a few more days to get an answer from the other employer.