Back to Basics: How to Be the Candidate When You're a Recruiter
The tech community is in the weeds right now.
While many of us are fortunate to be safe and healthy, some are finding themselves hurt by recent global events.
At startups - from big to small - it’s typically our fellow recruiters who are impacted first. If this is the case for you, your friends or colleagues, I wanted to share some interviewing advice from recruiting recruiters for the past few years.
As recruiters, we’re used to being in the driver’s seat. We find candidates, engage with them and guide them through the interview process. But what happens when we sit in the passenger seat and we as recruiters become the candidate?
“Do your best to put the good recruiting karma out into the universe...”
I still find myself surprised by some of the behaviors I notice when recruiting recruiters and am often reminded of the phrase doctors make the worst patients – sometimes recruiters can make the worst candidates!
It can be difficult to step back and provide our recruiter counterparts with the space to evaluate us. So if you’re looking for a new recruiting opportunity (or any opportunity for that matter) here are some tips and reminders that will help make your future colleagues appreciate you and hopefully help you land your next dream job.
Practice your elevator pitch
One of the most common traps recruiters fall into is answering the simple icebreaker “so tell me about yourself” with a 20-minute monologue.
We are chatty Cathy’s after all!
Practice a 1 to 2-minute elevator pitch that gives the high level of your background, and try to personalize it for the position you’re interviewing for (perhaps focus on startup experience or particular domain expertise).
Most companies place a large emphasis on communication skills, so practice providing answers with succinct, specific examples.
Provide open and honest feedback
Pay attention because through your interview experience you’re going to learn about what type of recruiting culture and environment you’ll be operating in.
If there are flaws (scheduling is taking longer than expected, the website isn’t up to date, etc.) don’t immediately discount the opportunity. Chances are if they are hiring a recruiter, it’s because they need your help to fix these things.
Instead, evaluate how well they take feedback and how willing they are to improve. Try giving your point of contact or the hiring manager the feedback and see how they respond. If they appreciate it, then they’re likely going to be a good recruiting partner. If not, perhaps it’s not the right place for you.
Be ready to talk numbers
Recruiters with proven success prevail, one way to evaluate this is through recruiting data.
When asked to discuss metrics avoid hand-wavy responses and focus on the facts.
If figures such as number of hires, time to hire, outbound messages or conversions were lower than desired I recommend being transparent and providing the context or learnings from the experience.
Hiring managers are often looking to understand how you’ve used recruiting data to influence your search. Think about all of the roles you’ve worked on and be prepared to speak to the wins and losses through a numerical story.
Be the candidate you would want to hire
Always follow the Golden Rule: treat others how you would want to be treated.
Be on time, communicate consistently and openly!
Be prepared for meetings, have questions ready, write thank you notes, and share your motivations, interests, and needs so that you can learn if they can accommodate what you’re looking for.
We’ve all sent the dreaded message to a hiring team letting them know an interview is canceled the night (or morning!) of. If you’re not interested in an opportunity let them know with as much notice as possible.
Moral of the story is: when you find yourself in the job hunter position, follow your own advice!
And more importantly, our work is challenging and we can all be more supportive of each other.
Do your best to put the good recruiting karma out into the universe no matter what position you find yourself in – the recruiter or the candidate.