I have completed dozens of interviews this year with prospective trainee recruitment consultants. I have learned a lot and am definitely not a perfect interviewer. It has been enjoyable and at times enlightening to meet so many people from varying walks of life.
A bunch of common failures are recurring so I thought I’d pen them down, then put it on our website blog as a heads up to any candidates who could be bothered to research more deeply than the first page of our site.
Way #1
Turn up having done extremely superficial research. If you haven’t found this article, you have probably succeeded in this, and are now reading too late.
Way #2
Have no real idea about why you’re interviewing for a recruitment job.
Way #3
Have an over-simplified, altruistic response when asked why you want to be a recruiter. It’s awesome that you like to help people. If you don’t like to put in many hours per week and deal with constant setbacks and rejection in order to become capable of helping people, you won’t help anyone. Including yourself.
Way #4
Turn up late without calling ahead about why you’re late.
Way #5
Demonstrate a lack of enthusiasm and curiosity for life in general. Let alone recruitment, our industry and our company. Great recruiters ask a lot of questions and have genuine interest in people and what they do.
Way #6
Dance around questions and ramble. Listen, respond, get to the point. Quickly and concisely.
Way #7
My all time favourite… Come in not knowing precisely what your sales targets and actuals have been.
Avoid these 7 and you’re on your way to a shot at interview success!
In my next post I’ll be talking about how to screen the recruitment company you are interviewing with, to help you figure out 1) What it is that you want from a company and 2) Which agency can deliver that