Chapter 1 Oct 13 Put yourself in the recruiter's shoes

Well, the first thing to understand about an interview is what in the world the recruiter is looking for! Put yourself into the recruiter's shoes and think like a person who is going out to recruit. Lets just imagine one day, you were responsible for a big multinational company, where you are the HR person who needs to hire a person for ONE spot.

Here is your dilemma, if you are in an oil and gas company like BP, you will have 8000 applicants for one spot, if you are in an investment banking company, you will have double that figure! So, it is not easy work for one recruiter to literally find a needle in a haystack.



So what do you do? Your boss is knocking on your door saying that you can't be spending money interviewing everyone and you had better get someone by next quarter etc. First you ask your applicants to send in their CVs (how to write a terror CV will be shared only by demand), probably online, and you will filter them based on university names and results. Then after turning that 8000 into 800, you would do some tests to check whether that person has any skills at all. This would bring your 800 to 80 and from there, you would perhaps need to do some telephone calls  to finally get that 8 people who might be potential candidates! Tough right? Come to think of it, I don't mind being a professional recruiter, i mean, books are written on the subject!



At this point in time, I would like to share with you what professional recruiters have to think about before interviews. Okay, so now you are in your office and you have a pile of say 8 people that you need to interview. What do you do now?

Well, if you are an interviewer who will potentially get this person into the team, and with your boss hounding you up a tree, you would want to make sure you get this right! Furthermore, you might potentially be working with one of them after the day is done. You read the CVs... should I work with the Gold medalist in running who has a track record in drug abuse, or the top top top student who entered Harvard/Cambridge at 12 who happens to be a complete freak?

So, as a recruiter, the first things you want to know about a person is

1) Can I actually stand being around this person? Can my colleagues work with this person?

I'm fierce, don't come near! Rawr!

2) What skills does my organisation need/demand?



3) How broad is this person's skills? Is he/she only capable of performing dynamic thermonuclear simulations or can this person also give presentations, think about the company's finances, think about other people's wellbeing etc.



4) What will it take/ how long will it take to train this person to be useful in my organisation?



and the most important question you would like to know about a person if you were recruiting,

5) Is this person a good monetary, time, saliva investment for the company?



Now, I hope I made you realise that being a recruiter is really difficult as well! Think about that. Now as an interview candidate, the best thing to do is prepare and I will be showing you how to prepare for a face to face interview! Same rules apply to telephone interviews!

Stick around for to find out how to prepare for an interview!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Biggest regret Questions