Anyone who follows me here knows that most of my advice and criticism of new hires is directed at the company side and not the candidate side. This is not only because we are living in times of a shortage of talents and companies therefore generally have to make an effort to attract the right people. In most cases, candidates are simply faster in their communication, clearer and more transparent in their decisions and adhere better to agreed processes and next steps. I have to 'admonish' companies much more often with regard to these issues.
However, there are also some vices among candidates that fortunately occur very rarely, but are all the more serious:
One is 'ghosting', i.e. not getting in touch after you have already been in contact and this despite several attempts to make contact on various channels. This is particularly unpleasant if there have already been meetings between the person concerned and the company and the latter would like to continue the recruitment process.
A second bad habit is the 'hidden agenda' of some candidates:
During the interviews, I not only clarify whether someone is a good fit for the company and the position in question both professionally and personally, but also whether the ideas regarding the key framework conditions (in particular salary and remote arrangements) match.
Sometimes it happens that candidates give me different information than they later give to the company. In such cases, I initially assume that it is a communicative misunderstanding or that something has changed in the meantime. And that's usually the case. Sometimes, however, I have found that candidates have clearly made different statements to me and have obviously deliberately pursued a hidden agenda. Presumably with the aim of first 'getting into the process' and then later 'extracting' a better negotiation result.
This is a no-go and I can only strongly advise against such an approach. For one thing, it has never worked in my experience: Companies will not suddenly deviate completely from their main conditions, especially if they realize that someone wants to 'get more out of it'. Secondly, all trust is lost. In such cases, it has already been assumed that I (and not the candidate) had inadvertently or deliberately communicated false information. Since trust is my core value, I would never think of passing on false information. Trust requires not only that you don't explicitly lie, but also that you don't pursue a hidden agenda. Candidates who do this have therefore disqualified themselves for me.
