The Best Ways to Win a Recruiter’s Favor
Your resume will help you get the job, but in interviews you can show who you are and what makes you stand out from the crowd. This will also give you the opportunity to make a good impression on the recruiter. And this is very important: having someone rooting for you within the company can help you move forward in the process, and even if this particular job doesn’t pan out, it can help you gain access to other positions in the future. Standing out and winning over a recruiter or interviewer may be easier than you think, but it does require some forethought and understanding of the inner workings of the interview process.
Be flexible in communicating your availability.
Probably one of the most boring parts of the interview process is the planning: communicating your availability, waiting to hear what will work for your interviewer, going back and forth trying to find a general time. It’s a headache on both sides, and making planning as easy as possible for your recruiter goes a long way.
In general, even if you know the interview will only last 30 minutes, it’s helpful to set aside larger chunks of time to give the team flexibility in scheduling. There’s no way to know if your 30-minute proposal will work for your interviewer, and there’s no way for your recruiting team to quickly pull up your calendar to see what else might work. The worst experience on both sides is going through a 15-email thread trying to figure out how to have a good time.
Instead, where possible, send larger ranges that can reasonably overlap with another stranger’s calendar, and avoid too much availability information outside of normal business hours. Reporting availability only at 7am or 9pm, or listing only short periods of time, is an easy way to frustrate the person interviewing you.
Unless the company you’re talking to has explicitly stated that their business hours are longer than average, try to indicate that you’re available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you’re calling your current job all day and still trying to get an interview, consider communicating your availability during your lunch break or when you’re expected to call in sick or go to a doctor’s appointment (sorry bosses, but we’re all do it).
Address the recruiting team and interviewers by name.
This may seem like a small detail, but calling people by name can go a long way in establishing rapport with someone new. Repeating a customer’s name is a common tactic among salespeople to grab people’s attention and retain them, but it can also be a quick and easy way to show respect and recognition to the person on the other side of the computer screen.
While calling a recruiter by name probably won’t help you get the job, it will be noticeable if you never address anyone by name—your recruiter or interviewer might wonder how you’re going to communicate with your teammates. A simple “Hi, [NAME]” at the beginning of your email or “Thank you, [NAME]” at the end will do the trick!
One important caveat: make sure you call someone by their correct name—people often refer to me as Whitney because they read my name too quickly. If you have ever been contacted by the wrong name, especially via email when your name is clearly visible, know that it does not have the desired effect in establishing rapport.
Make appropriate small talk during calls and interviews.
This can be difficult to get used to because interviews are such a stressful and vulnerable experience, but being able to make (short) small talk at the beginning of the conversation can help build comfort and rapport on both sides. Ideally, we don’t want the interviewer to walk away feeling like the conversation is like pulling teeth. Many interviews start with general questions about your day, weekend or weather, and we usually want to avoid these types of conversations:
Interviewer: How is your day going?
You’re good.
Interviewer: Okay.
…and instead have a more open conversation, like:
Interviewer: How is your day going?
You: Very good, just trying to get used to the sudden sunset at 5pm! And you?
Interviewer: Oh my God, I know it’s getting dark so early now.
Is it a stimulating or memorable conversation? Absolutely not. Your interviewer probably won’t remember your joke about daylight saving time, but your interviewer will likely remember if the conversation seemed awkward or difficult to move forward. If you’re nervous about a job interview and are afraid you won’t be able to relax enough to have a natural conversation, consider taking a walk around the house to shake off your nerves, do some quick breathing exercises, or recharge your batteries. poses. I also find that forcing myself to smile while talking on the phone helps me relax and sound more friendly.
On the other hand, you can also become too comfortable with small talk and start treating the interviewer as a friend, which is also not the desired outcome. Generally, you want to demonstrate that you are a friendly, kind person who will make an excellent professional colleague, without appearing too relaxed or familiar from the start. Joking about the weather is fine, but joking about wasting company money or how much you hated your last boss is going overboard.
Research the company and your interviewers in advance.
In 2023, we all know that we stalk each other online even before our first conversation, especially when it comes to job interviews. Spending 20-30 minutes before your interview researching the company and getting to know what it does can help you impress the interviewer and stand out from the hundreds of other candidates asking generic questions like, “What does the company do?”
Getting to know the company can also help you tailor your answers to what they might be looking for: if you know they use Zapier, you can highlight how well you use Zapier and how long you’ve been using it. You’ll also be able to ask more interesting and thoughtful questions about the company and your interviewer’s unique perspective. Interviewers often answer the same questions over and over again, so if your question goes a little deeper, it will help you make a positive impression. If you’re interviewing a startup and notice that your interviewer previously worked for a nonprofit, you can ask what convinced him to change industries and/or what surprised him most about the company. Your interviewer will likely have more fun answering this question, and you’ll learn more interesting information than just hearing a snippet about what the company’s product does.
Thanks to the interview coordinator
Whether it’s a recruiting coordinator, an office manager, or an executive assistant, the people doing the planning work behind the scenes are still important parts of the recruiting team and can influence hiring decisions. If someone is unkind to the coordinator, it may be a bad sign for how he will treat junior staff if they join the team. On the other hand, if someone is kind and gracious to the coordinator, it can stand out and be a green flag for how you can relate to your new colleagues. Coordinators are also often consulted about a candidate if interviewers need more information before making a decision—even if they’re not actively interviewing you, their opinion of you still matters.