The Most Popular Reasons for Refusal of IT Candidates and How to Handle Them

22.05.2023
We often write in our articles how crucial it is to make an attractive job description, speak honestly about your company, and actively motivate a specialist to accept your job offer. This is what will increase your chances of successful hiring.

Nevertheless, the so-called "primary" refusals play an important role in the tech field. By primary refusals, we mean reasons you, for the most part, can't influence, at least here and now. Knowing these reasons means knowing the needs of IT candidates, understanding market trends and, eventually, learning how to adapt to them. The result - the specialist of your dreams is a part of your team :)

In the article, we'll tell you about the most common reasons for refusing an employer (according to Lucky Hunter), and as a bonus for you, dear tech specialists, we'll share several popular (and not so) reasons for refusing candidates.

TOP 5 Most Popular Reasons for Refusing an Offer to Company

"I don't consider new offers"

This is perhaps the most popular reason candidates refuse to continue the dialogue. Specialists don't consider the offer for two reasons:
  • 1
    An IT talent has just got a job at a new place and understands that a sudden dismissal won't be a good solution;
  • 2
    The specialist is satisfied with everything at the current workplace.
Begging, blackmail and threats are unlikely to help here. Take it as it is. At the moment, the candidate is not interested in you, but this doesn't mean that you should live according to the principle "out of sight, out of mind." You can and should work with such a refusal.
How to Handle

Such candidates are strategically important. You should place a mark in your CRM and come back to the candidate in the future if a relevant opening appears. However, you shouldn't do it too quickly, so as not to create the impression of a company that "spams" with unnecessary emails. And, of course, it can't hurt to follow the professional changes of a candidate in LinkedIn.

"I want to relocate to USA/Europe/Bali/anywhere abroad"

Such a refusal is relevant for companies from Russia. In one of our articles on trends in recruiting, we wrote that the desire to relocate has grown many times over in comparison with previous years in the tech sphere. This is due to the pandemic, the economic crisis, and the traditional "search for a better life."

It's rather hard to handle such a refusal, unless, of course, in the foreseeable future you are not planning to open a new office somewhere in Germany :)

"I want to work remotely"

Despite the fact that remote work is becoming an increasingly popular form of work, and during the pandemic it has become even crucial, some IT companies are still not ready to offer remote work as permanent work status.

In turn, IT candidates have long felt deeply the pleasure of working from anywhere in the world (along with their power in the industry :) and are ready only for such a working format. Therefore, we at Lucky Hunter face this reason for the refusal in increasing frequency.
According to our forecasts, in the future, the demand for remote work will only increase, and sooner or later the market will not "strongly recommend" this condition, but demand it.

"I'm not interested in the project"

If the first three reasons can be called objective for refusal, then this point more likely refers to subjective. In order not to get such a reply, you should write a good job description. Sometimes the most ordinary tasks can be turned into non-trivial and inspiring. To get the specialist interested, it's important to hit the target when defining the candidate's profile.
How to Handle

Process objections. By an uninteresting project, specialists often mean a project that doesn't provide tactile benefits to people. Your task is to over-persuade the specialist, show that you have an original, promising technology that is valuable to the consumer.

"I want a higher salary"

The IT sphere is constantly changing, and along with it, the demand for certain specialists is changing. For example, if a year ago Go developers weren't so widespread in the market, today this speciality is in the TOP-3 of the most in-demand ones. The need for higher remuneration doesn't necessarily mean that the specialist wants too much. Probably, there were changes in the market, and you might not have time to track them.
How to Handle

If this reason for refusal is rather an isolated case, then most likely the specialist has inflated expectations or a rare set of competencies, due to which they have the right to ask for a higher salary. If this happens systematically, you've made a bad shot at the salary range. Consult with professionals or request HR analytics service.

Several Reasons for Refusing Candidates

The reasons for rejecting candidates are pretty obvious. These are:
  • 1
    Insufficiently strong tech skills (it's sad if such a conclusion is made based on the old specialist code);
  • 2
    Lack of knowledge of English;
  • 3
    A scaring-off CV. Although, you should remember that in the IT world, a CV is a very relative indicator, and we don't recommend you to pay much attention to it.
In addition to these reasons, we at Lucky Hunter continue to face our "favourite" argument about candidates' "non-fiery eyes" :) Sometimes in our practice, we come across more amusing refusals. For example, recently our client has refused a candidate because he had a feeling that the candidate was working only in order to work :)

We hope our article was helpful to you. If you want to find a rare IT specialist, get reliable data on salaries in the IT market, or are tired of a long and unsuccessful search for an IT candidate, we are waiting for your requests!

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Alexandra Godunova
Content Manager in Lucky Hunter
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