How to NOT get a Recruiter job

People say changing a job is a huge, tremendous stress. Well, obviously it is if you don't make it more fun. Let's drop all those stages of internal struggles and doubts which lead to a decision to make a career change, because this is boring.

• reading about the possible future employer - boring and takes too much time
• taking the time to update a CV - boring, Linkedin profile will do it
• getting yourself prepared for the interview - boring and they'll ask all standard stupid questions anyway, just like I do in my interviews. I will make something up when it comes.

Why doing all those things anyway if you may just go and shine in the personal conversation - make the new company fall in love with you and come back with an offer, that doubles your expectations.

Well, you may obviously do it exactly like that, just like the vast majority of our colleagues do.

"I am just so brilliant - it should be clear to interviewers without any extra needless efforts."

OR

You may come prepared and strike the future employer with the fact you did your homework. To make it even more fun - come with a list of questions you will ask about the current recruitment processes, your possible future colleagues, and the set up in the company.

Make the interviewers feel you are interviewing them too.

Get them thinking:

"Wow, this candidate is different!"

OR

They'll think you are way too smart, will create an internal competition, and will turn you down. But then it'll mean you don't need them after all and just avoided a huge career mistake.

Anyway, you won't know until you give it a shot.

Here are the few sets of questions you may ask your interviewers to get a better understanding of what you might be getting into:

1.Company, business and development strategy

• What are your core values?
• What is the company mission?
• What is the core business? (Outsource, Outstaff, Product, etc.)
• How many billable people do you have now?
• How many people do you have in operational departments?
• What was the last year growth and attrition rate?
• What is your current year growth plan?
• What email clients and messengers are used for internal communications?
• What is the language, form, and frequency of internal communications?
• Are internal business-critical processes and workflows documented and automated?
• What are the current open positions, their levels, and number?

2. Internal/External PR and Branding

• What is the company currently doing to promote the brand internally and externally?
• Does the company have a dedicated career page?
• Does the company run a process and have dedicated people to take care of Branding, PR, Events, Social Online Content, and Corporate education tasks?
• Does the company organize any type of professional events for the local community - conferences, meet-ups and tech talks?

3. Recruitment budgets, resources and tools

• How do you allocate, plan and track your recruiting budgets?
• Does the company use job boards, paid promotions, agencies and freelancers at the peak periods?
• Which ATS is used if any? Is it fully implemented and customized? Do other functions besides the recruitment team use it?
• Which paid recruitment and sourcing tools are used if any?
• Does the company have an internal and external referral systems? What do they pay and how do they work?
• How are the vacancies salary ranges defined?

4. Recruitment processes. Documentation and Automation.

• What is the typical recruitment workflow?
• How long is the typical recruitment lifecycle?
• Does the team have documented processes and the knowledge base?
• How would you on-board a new person to your recruitment team? Do you have a set of onboarding documentation available to read? Do you allocate a mentor?
• Which routine recruitment processes are automated and how?
• Which free and paid automation tools are available for the recruitment team?

5. Recruitment team. Collaboration and education.

• How many people do you have on the team?
• What is the structure and hierarchy of the recruitment team?
• What functions and specializations exist in the recruitment team?
• What happened to the previous Lead (In case you are interviewing for the lead role)?
• What are the main ethical rules in the team (candidate property, overlapping assignments, workload distribution, etc.)?
• How does the individual and team goal setting work?
• How is the recruitment team education set up - trainings and conferences?
• How are personal development plans developed?
• If multiple locations - how does the team interact?
• What concerns and problems, if any, do you currently have about how the recruitment team functions?
• What are the things you want to change and improve within the recruitment team in the first place?
• Do you have enough visibility of what is going on in the recruitment team?
• What set of reports and how often the recruitment team prepares for the management?

6. Recruitment team metrics

• How do you work with recruiting metrics? Where do you get them from?
• What are the recruitment performance KPI’s - Ho many hires per month on average a recruiter is expected to make?
• What is the offer acceptance ratio?
• What are the other standard conversion rates?
• What is the last year average cost-to-hire?
• What is the average standard time-to-hire for billable positions?
• How many positions a Recruiter is expected to work at a time?

7. Interaction with other functions

• Who are the primary stakeholders for new positions opening: clients, management, sales, delivery?
• How does the new vacancy opening process work?
• How big is the sales team?
• How does recruitment interact with the sales team?
• How does your sales pipeline currently look?
• How does recruitment interact with delivery?
• How does recruitment interact with the top management?

8. Personal job description and expectations

• What will be my exact job description, position goals and responsibilities?
• Who is the position reporting to?
• What will be my primary tasks and goals for the starting period?
• How will you measure the success of my work? What will be the criteria for me to successfully close the probation period?

9. Financials, Terms and conditions, Legal questions

• What will be the base compensation offer?
• How will the recruitment commissions work?
• How often will the compensation be reviewed?
• What is the compensation currency? When and how is it wired? Which Bank is used? Is it possible to use another recipient bank?
• Does the company help with accounting paperwork: contracts, invoices, taxes?
• How long is the trial period?
• What is the termination notice period for both sides?
• What are the other perks the company offers? (Sports compensation, Medical Insurance, etc.)

Of course you may NOT ask all these unnecessary stupid questions. Who needs this information to make a conscious decision anyway? Let a new job be a total surprise, if you get it of course.

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