You would have read in one of our previous posts about the wisdom of volunteering information to your recruiter about any pre-booked holidays when you are commencing your job search. You would also think that this would be confined to being a rookie error, someone who is not experienced in the rough and tumble of job seeking. Well. You. Would. Be. Wrong. Dead. Wrong. Assisting a senior finance professional recently with their job search, one of our senior recruitment consultants was able to source a senior position for them for which they were very well suited. His skill set matched the job brief, and his interpersonal skills also went over a treat. Given the paucity of senior level roles in this person's areas of expertise, everyone was happy.

The Candidate. The Hiring Manager. The Recruiter (of course!). Until...our consultant received an email from the successful applicant, where a seemingly innocuous question was asked whether there would be any problems taking a booked Christmas holiday from late December to the middle of January. Problem? There sure is if the company you are joining has a December year end and also has reporting commitments to the Stock Exchange. All of which had, of course, been covered in the recruitment and interview process.

The offer of employment was withdrawn. The hiring manager explained that they just could not proceed in the knowledge that this person would think it was okay to even consider taking leave in probably their busiest reporting period of the year, especially after being in the job for about six weeks. So as you can imagine, this has all ended in tears. The Candidate. The Hiring Manager. The Recruiter (of course).

Please, we beg you, advise your recruiter, hiring manager, anyone really, if you have booked holidays when you are commencing your job search. If you aren't asked the question, please volunteer the answer anyway.