You connect with a recruiter at a company and after reviewing your resume, the recruiter is now interested in speaking with you. That’s awesome, but now what?
This is where you enter the “recruiter call stage” aka “recruiter conversation” or “recruiter screen”.
Having been a recruiter at an agency and now currently in-house (and hundreds of recruiter conversations later), there are a few tips I would like to share!
Treat the recruiter conversation as you would an interview.
In many cases, if not all, the recruiter is the gatekeeper who ultimately decides if you proceed to the next stage, whether it’s sharing your resume directly to the hiring manager or even proceeding you into first stage of interviews.
So unlike my photo above, you would want to have the conversation in a quiet place free of distractions. Also, you’d want to answer the phone at that scheduled time or let the recruiter know at least a day in advance if you need to reschedule (life happens, we understand).
Practice your pitch! Provide important details, keep it concise, keep it relevant.
Unless you just graduated from university, avoid starting your resume from bottom up (or oldest to newest). And avoid starting the pitch with “well, let me start from the very beginning” – this also applies to your interviews. Although I would love to hear about your internships and jobs from four years ago, I would be more interested in knowing what you’re currently doing that can be transferrable to the role I am hiring for.
- Limit your pitch to 3-5 minutes
- Be concise in the core role of your relevant and most recent experiences.
- Add a brief explanation on the background of your current company (is it a tech startup? is it a healthcare company? established marketing agency?)
- Mention data points, accomplishments, impact, promotions
- Avoid jargon, fluff, abbreviations
- Tie it all back to why you’re excited or interested for the role you’re speaking about
Example: I am currently a recruiter at XYZ company, which is a talent agency based in the Bay Area. In my role, I work with 5 active clients in the tech industry where I fill positions focused in sales, finance, and marketing. I do full-cycle recruiting so my days have a variation of working with both clients and candidates. With my clients, I conduct meetings with them to discuss role details, time to hire, (etc). In addition to clients, I keep an active pipeline through sourcing candidates on LinkedIn Recruiter and conduct 20+ screens a week (etc). My biggest accomplishment in my role is …
My example is an abbreviated snippet but I hope you get the picture. It starts at where I am currently, it provides data points, adds in an accomplishment, and most importantly – free of jargon and is easy to understand.
Be mindful of your tone and practice clear communication.
The emphasis on clear communication can depend on the role you’re applying for. For example, if you’re applying for a client-facing position where communication is important, the recruiter will be paying attention to how clearly you’re able to communicate. However, if you’re applying for an accounting role or programming position, it might not weigh in as heavy.
But regardless, since you only have your voice to showcase a first impression, it’s important to have the right tone. You don’t have to sound like someone you’re naturally not but add some enthusiasm, speak at a normal pace, and if it makes it easier, mirror your recruiter’s tone.
Be prepared to answer these questions:
The recruiter conversation is also the time to confirm general candidate information and that can include the following questions:
- Preferred work location
- Work authorization (there will be some roles that won’t be able to sponsor candidates, some roles will be able to accept certain Visas, and of course, some roles will be able to provide sponsorship) If you’re unsure, you can always ask the recruiter.
- Time to start / availability
- Highest form of education (some roles will require a bachelors or PhD and some roles might not require a degree)
- Compensation expectations (in a recent law passed in California, recruiters are not allowed to ask you how much you currently make. This prevents pay inequality. But what a recruiter can ask you is what is a range of your expected compensation. So be prepared to answer this.)
You might get asked basic interview questions
It’s not entirely common to include an interview question in the recruiter conversation but my goal to prepare my readers as much as possible. And in my recruiter conversations, I normally ask 1-2 interview questions. This will help me gauge a candidate’s performance before I invite them to interview (which is normally 3x more challenging).
If you were asked, “Tell me about your biggest accomplishment. Why was this so significant and what impact did it provide to the company?” would you be prepared? If not, brush up on those basic behavioral questions!
I’ll write a blog post on tips on how to tackle these behavioral questions.
Have your own questions prepared and … what about thank you notes?
Recruiters should always wrap up a call with, “do you have any questions regarding the position that I can help answer?” A good tip is to always have 1-2 questions regarding the role to ask the recruiter. This shows that you’ve taken the time to understand the position to ask a relevant question.
As for thank you note …. this one is optional; however, it can only help you, not hurt you. So you decide!
