Why are we asking you these questions?
By Karalyn | Categories: Career advice | No Comments
There are lots of questions around the questions that we as recruitment consultants ask in interview. We thought we would lift the lid on why we ask the questions we do.
Why did you leave your last job?
Fundamentally our role is to determine whether you match the roles we have with our clients. We ask three questions of any candidate when we are considering them against a role on offer:
- Can you do the job?
- Will you do the job?
- Will you fit the team?
We ask why you have left a role for a few reasons.
We want to better understand what you are looking for in your next role. If you left because you didn’t like the company, the work, the size of the team, the limited career opportunities and so on, then we are not going to offer you an opportunity or a role with similar conditions.
We will also dig deep on this question to understand whether your reason for leaving “makes sense.” So when you give us a reason, we ask ourselves is that consistent with what we know of that company, that type of role and the market place.
If you have many short stints on your resume, we will also probe – particularly if you are with a company less than three months, which is the standard probationary period.
What are your salary expectations?
There’s no sinister intent behind this question. We would prefer to understand what you are looking for, so we can negotiate in good faith on your behalf.
Many of our clients have salary bands meaning they can only offer salaries within a range. We want to know whether your salary expectations match the range of roles we typically have on offer.
We work in this space all the time.
We know what salaries are typical for particular types of roles. We can tell you whether your expectations are realistic, and we do understand whether you are under or overpaid in your current role.
We invite you in for one role, but we ask if you are interested in another.
We can often do this.
We can only tell so much from your resume. From our discussions in interview we may discover that you are a better fit for another company. If we do not think you are appropriate for one role, based on what you have told us what you want – and our client needs, then we will not put you forward.
We will tell you why, however.
If we have other roles that will suit you, we may well talk to you about that role in interview, or call you and discuss it at a later date.
What are you up to? We have no decision the job yet….
Often the decision to hire or organize a second interview can take time. Here are a few reasons why:
- someone internal comes out of nowhere
- someone internal makes a referral and the client wants to interview them
- the business restructures and changes the role descriptions
- the employer likes you, but is not confident they have seen the best in the market
- the employer does not have their paperwork in order and forgot to get sign-off
- you are being hired for a newly created role. If an employer is hiring for a role they have already established, then they have a more tangible sense of the opportunity cost or the cost of lost productivity. Often for newly established roles there is less urgency as an employer has less sense of what they are missing out on.
- the employer wants someone more senior to see you and that person is simply not available
We are well aware that delays in the hiring process can impact your level of enthusiasm, and ultimate attachment to a company, and that a professional hiring process can inspire greater confidence in a company.
We will always keep you in the loop about what is happening and the reasons for it.
Please let us know below what else you’d like to know about our hiring processes.
