How to Crush Your Technical Recruiter Interview, Part 2

Last week, we covered some of the most common, yet challenging questions you may be asked in a Technical Recruiter interview (click here to read Part 1). Today, we are continuing with more key themes to consider and sample questions to practice.

Item #8—Data

Know your numbers! Break down and share the data as much as possible. You should have a really good pulse on your hiring data, including hiring numbers, types of hires and other important hiring details. Your data doesn’t have to be perfect, but if you can’t remember your numbers it’s a big deal.

• How many hires did you make last month/quarter/year?
• How many of those hires were referrals vs. sourced vs. applications?
• What was your best hiring quarter and why was it so successful?

On the analytical side, consider how you analyze the data and have used it for specific recruiting decisions. A common question might be:

• Tell me about a time when you utilized data to help drive hiring decisions?

Item #9—Candidate Experience

This is a significant challenge area for Recruiters. Here are a few common questions you will likely be asked:

• How do you keep candidates up to date on their status?
• Tell me about a time you created a magical candidate experience?
• How have you trained others or collaborated with others to make the candidate experience better?

Provide examples and talk through your answers. Think about how you stay organized and the methods you utilize to provide a positive candidate experience.

Item #10—Projects

As a Technical Recruiter, how you are contributing to the greater good is critical. Most of these larger tech companies are expecting you to do more than just hire people. Think through and create great examples of how you have contributed to projects, programs, and initiatives in your career. Some questions to practice include:

• Tell me about a time you created or enhanced a recruiting process?
• What’s an initiative you might implement in our organization to help the HR department?

Item #11—Collaboration

Being a Technical Recruiter is a highly collaborative role. We’re always thinking about collaboration with Sourcers, hiring managers and Recruiting Coordinators. However, you must also consider other people you are working with, such as other Recruiters, cross-functional stakeholders, the compensation team, leadership, etc.

• Tell me about a time your collaboration achieved great results?
• What are your strategies for building strong collaborative partnerships?

Item #12—Goal Setting

You may get questions about how you set goals. More specifically, you might get questions about setting and/or hitting stretch goals and how you have achieved exceptional results. A couple of questions to consider:

• Tell me about a time you hit a stretch hiring goal and how you achieved it?
• How do you make sure your hiring goals are aggressive, yet achievable?

Item #13—Resume/LinkedIn

This is related to the sourcing category we discussed in Part 1. Just be thinking about how you look at resumes and how you utilize LinkedIn to source candidates. Put some extra thought into this item specifically. You are likely to get some questions about it, such as:

• When looking at a resume, what do you look for?
• What are the best strategies you utilize to identify the best candidates on LinkedIn? 

Item #14—Questions to Ask

Just like any other position, you are going to have to ask questions of your own at the end of the interview. Let’s talk about a few Recruiter-specific questions you should be asking:

• What does success look like for a Recruiter in this role?
• What types of roles will I be recruiting for?
• Does this position have sourcing support?
• What are the typical monthly/quarterly hiring goals?

You should also consider closing questions to help determine if you are the right fit and show how your skills match the recruiting role:

• What are some of the skills that other Recruiters have been missing that you may be looking for now?

Item #15—BS

Let’s be honest, sometimes, Recruiters are full of it. A consistent challenge area for Recruiters is that they think they can talk their way through anything, including during an interview. Do not try to talk around critical items. Provide data, but remember less is more. Be succinct and don’t try to BS your way through it.

These are some of the questions to practice and items to understand when practicing for your Technical Recruiter interviewer. Be sure to watch my full video on this topic below for additional insight and examples:

For more resources visit my website -  Practice Interviews and check out our AI Practice Interview App.