Scary, challenging and fun ride of recruitment comes to a halt, when the candidate, who you have selected after so many efforts, backs out at the last moment. Seriously these last-minute back outs literally can sweep away your sleep, and especially when you were clueless that this can happen because your candidate never said anything during the whole process. These back-outs are inevitable, they will happen some time or other. But having a clue beforehand can save you from last-minute surprises and you can arrange a backup to deal with such a situation. Here are some ways through which you can get a sense of the candidate is about to back out from your offer. Reason for leaving: The relevance of this question can never be underestimated, ask this question with all sincerity and don’t settle for some diplomatic and cliché answers, like better opportunities and financial growth. If you get such kind of answer, then again ask the candidate “what kind of better opportunities you are looking for” and “how you think our company can give you such opportunities”. The objective is to get a transparent answer to get a clear picture of the candidate’s intention and what “must have” he is looking for in his next job. Reason for joining our organization : This question can give you real inside into the candidate’s intention. If he is really looking forward to joining your organization, he will give you genuine, satisfactorily and valid answers. Else again he will give you some random answer. Ask this question, at least 2-3 times during the whole process of recruitment, in different ways: at the time of preliminary screening, before final selection and before offer letter release. Basically, compel the candidate to give the right answer. Talk, Talk and Talk: Try to gather every possible information about the candidate. Family background, job history, job priorities everything. Milk every single detail, cause everything counts, by doing this you can find out possible reasons, which can serve as the reason of candidate back out at the last moment. It can be location, Family priorities, project type anything. After getting every detail from him, ask situational questions to him: how you going to manage if so and so situation arises. And then judge, if his answer makes any logic or he simply has not thought about it. Candidates, who are genuinely interested in accepting your offer, are well planned in advance about any circumstances that may arise with their joining the new organization. Offers in hand : There is no denying of fact that majority of candidate seek job change to gain monetary benefits, and this reason also leads them to chase for multiple offers. So always inquire about offers in hand, and how they are going to make decisions between offers and what your offer rank in relation to other offers. Take a cue from candidate’s behavior : Yes, the behavior tells a lot and that is why constant interaction with the candidate holds an important place in recruitment. Was your candidate very enthusiastic at the beginning, always on time, responding properly, returning your calls and now he is taking too long to respond to email, doesn’t pick up call often and doesn’t sound exciting as he used to be? This is for sure a negative sign. Try to understand his concern, ask him clearly about his intentions and offer solutions to him and parallelly start looking for his replacement. So do not let your hiring efforts go in vain. Prepare in advance for any such situation to arise and also have backup candidates ready for each position.