A Day In Life of a Recruiter
As job applicants, we are only familiar with one side of the story in recruitment. Have you ever wonder what recruiters are thinking?
So, let imagine you were a professional in-house recruiter and your typical workday goes like this:
“You have 10 vacancies on hand, and hiring managers are giving you countless pressures (and threats) to fill them soonest as you can.
You look around…It’s now 5 in the afternoon; While a pile of paperwork is screaming at you from your desk, you are about to meet your 7th interview candidate of today.
After spending the whole day listening to unpassionate, memorised answers, you are bored and tired.
You log in to the Job Application Tracking System, browsing through the general, standard resumes which do not seem to fit the role well.
Sometimes you would talk to yourself, “There are no suitable candidates out there!” or “This budget is too low to hire quality talent!”
Yet, you are still hopeful that the next candidate would be better.
So you stand up, freshen up yourself, and walk towards the meeting room for another job interview.
Well, to your surprise, the candidate walks in with energy, confidence, and…something different!”
Hopefully, you are that special someone that recruiters are searching!
So What Exactly Do Interviewers Want to Find Out During Interviews?
1. Role Match: To assess the level of match on the hard and soft skills of candidates with the job descriptions;
2. Culture & Personality Fit: To evaluate the value alignments with the company culture, and the personality fit according to the team mix;
3. Gatekeeping: To identify potential red flags in the candidates like bad work ethics, disciplinary issues, cultural mismatch because firing someone is so much more difficult than hiring.
7 Real Thoughts Interviewers Would Never Tell You
Well, EVERYONE is subjective. Including your interviewers. Here are some of the thoughts that go through their mind frequently:
- “I am really subjective although I try not to show it.”
- “I have a checklist – if someone can help me tick all of them, you win!”
- “I have lots of work to do and if I can’t remember you after an hour, then sorry!”
- “I really don’t like Interviewing and I want to end this ASAP if I’m not interested in you”
- “It’s very boring to sit here to listen to your life, why should I care if you are not here to help me?”
- “I really want someone to release my burden; I don’t pay you to LEARN things here!”
- “I hate it when I hear a rehearsed answer. Do you think I’m dumb and can’t tell when you just read out an online sample interview answers?”
You have to recognise that most interviewers dislike the selection processes – interviews are extremely time-consuming, stressful, and distract the attention away from what they are supposed to be producing at work. If they do not need an extra workforce, they will not be wasting time and energy in hiring.
Help them help you by bringing out your best by helping them to “check their list”! Remember, recruiters are paid to hire, not to reject; so please, make their lives easier!
