Stay Positive!
It is time to get over the lost candidate and get right back to focusing on what is important, and that is finding the perfect person for the position. It is time to put your personal opinions aside and think bigger; as head of HR it is important to keep a cool head and to keep in mind that specific qualities are present in more than one person!
Time is of the essence when restarting your search for a new candidate. Everyone involved will feel the pressure of time being against you, which means you must quickly come to terms with the fact that the lost candidate can’t be cloned and to instead take up right where you left off.
Trying to stay positive is essential, as things could always be worse. Imagine if the candidate had instead decided to leave the position after having worked for a few weeks, how much more that would have complicated things. In other words, what has happened might very well be for the best.
Focus on finding a new candidate that is even better for the position. That person is still out there! Your job is simply to find and recruit him or her.
What can we Learn from This?
There are many things to be learnt from the “failed” recruitment that can help you next time round. Maybe you should tweak the requirements, as the previous ones could have been part of the reason the candidate decided to leave. Are there any desired qualities that could be added or taken away, for example education requirements or the required amount of experience?
It may also help to criticize yourselves, to ask yourselves some important questions. Why did the dream candidate decide to leave? What made that person so perfect for the position and what actually caused the recruitment to fall short? Did we, as a company, think too highly of ourselves and set the bar to high?