As a recruiter, your job is to attract talent and make those people interested in the offer you make. To some extent, you’re successful at doing that. You present your organization as an attractive place to work at. Somewhere along the hiring process, however, you lose the best candidates.

Why does that happen? Is there any way to prevent this scenario? If you look at the signs, you’ll realize that didn’t occur by chance. If you’re being careful about those signs, you’ll recognize the moment when you’re about to lose the interest of top talent. When you have the power of insights, you’ll know what action to take.

Let’s explore 5 signs that tell you you’re about to lose the best candidates for the position.

1. You extend the hiring process beyond 20 days

In the USA, the average job interview process takes around 23 days. In European countries, such as Germany and France, it takes 27 – 32 days. If you push the hiring process beyond that reasonable timeframe, you will lose the top talent.

The most qualified candidates usually have options. For what it’s worth, they have ambitions. They won’t waste their time waiting for a recruiter’s call. They will explore other opportunities, and some of them will be better than the one you provide.

2. You’re not getting answer to the emails

When you make a job offer to someone and they seem interested, it’s only natural for you to get a phone call or email message. Some candidates, however, don’t give you that luxury. They will remain silent and wait for your action. When you send an email, you might not get an answer the same day. That’s a sign you’re losing the candidate. Try calling. If you’re still not getting answers, it’s time to give up. Once I was hiring acontent marketer for my essay writing websites blog. He was very qualified, but it was very hard to get in touch with him. It meant that he was not interested enough. He had been working for several month with me and then quitted.

When you waste your time on someone who’s clearly not interested in your offer, you’re making a huge risk to lose the other candidates, too. Focus on the next big talent, but first, think about the mistakes you made with the one you lost.

3. You’re making too many interviews with a single candidate

When you invite someone for an interview, that’s exactly what they expect - an interview. When you invite them to your office again, they will expect to get hired. You can ask few additional questions and tell them you’ll call to inform them about the decision. However, you shouldn’t call them to ask for yet another interview.

You don’t want to make the best candidate nervous by subjecting them to commuting expenses and a waste of time. Try to compress all your questions in one or two interviews.

4. They aren’t asking good questions

• Do you have any questions?

• No, thank you, everything is clear.

If an interview with a great candidate ends like this, you should realize they are not too interested in your offer. Try to mention something about the company’s culture and elaborate more on the opportunities for growth. That might help.

5. They are thinking too much

Maybe your candidate will return phone calls and email messages, but will avoid giving you a definite answer. You can tell they are still interested to some extent, but you can’t close the deal. Yes, a big offer takes some time for consideration. However, if you’re not getting a definite answer in a whole week, that candidate is slipping away from you.

In this case, you should come clean. Tell them that you need their decision since the position can’t wait for too long. Be gentle; you don’t want to scare them away.

Recruiting is an art. Here, you’re not interviewing candidates to see how well they sell themselves. The situation is reverse – you’re selling yourself. You need to recognize the moment when things are not working out, so you’ll take proper action.