Recruiter Interview
Your goal is to gather specific evidence on the below signals around Recruiting. The questions are a guide for the conversation, not a script. You do not need to ask all the questions on this list.
Time: 30-45 min
Interviewer: Hiring Manager
Signals: Communication, Data, Mental Frameworks
Introductions (3-5 min)
- Break the ice
- Introduce yourself and let the candidate briefly introduce themselves
Recruiting Basics (7-10 min)
- What percentage of your time are you sourcing, recruiting, closing? (Full life-cycle)
- What roles are you typically recruit for?
- What Placements have you made in the past year?
- How many Declines have you had in the past year?
- How do you hold yourself accountable?
- What metrics do you use?
- How many searches and candidates are you currently juggling?
- How do you prioritize them?
- How do you stay organized?
Recruiting Mental Models (15-20 min)
- How do you Pitch your current company?
- Situational: We’d love to get a sense for how you approach searches. Let’s say you’re tasked with hiring the best Solidity Engineer in the EU.
- Where do you start?
- What questions do you ask a hiring manager?
- What tools do you use/consider using?
- How do you structure your search?
- Talk to me about the hardest role you’ve worked on in the past year?
- Where did you even start?
- What questions did you ask?
- What made the search so challenging?
- What did you do to overcome said challenges?
- There’s no such thing as a perfect search. What went wrong?
- What did you learn?
- How did you inevitably get the candidate over the the finish line?
- If I was a candidate for [Insert your company here] how would you pitch me?
Candidate Questions (5-10 min)
RUBRIC
Signal | Strong No | No | Yes | Strong Yes |
Communication | Dodging the question or being ingenuine about their experience | Roundabout explanations, unstructured thoughts | Articulates clear thoughts that directly address the questions asked | Communicates with humility, transparency and a gravitas. This individual is ready to be the face of your company |
Data | Does not measure their performance or track any metrics | Leverages data to hold themselves accountable but does not think about how data impacts every step of the recruiting funnel. | Maintains a closing % of >60%
They are able to eloquently paint a picture with data. | Data drives how they make the majority of their decisions |
Recruiting Frameworks | Cannot articulate a mental framework around recruiting. This individual has never thought about why they do what they do | Unable to articulate a demonstrated track record of making key hires | They ask the right questions and have a clear step by step framework for how to structure searches and how to pivot when differing priorities arise
Are thoughtful about where and how they spend their time. | Has insightful thoughts around recruiting. You’ve learned having spoken to this candidate.
They have a clear and detailed framework for how they work with XFN partners. |