1 of 10

Recruitment Tips:

How to cooperate with recruiter and prepare for the interview

2 of 10

Anna Zenovich, TA Director at IT Creative Labs

  • Hands-on recruiter and experienced TA Manager
  • 12+years in talent acquisition:
  • started my career at employment agency
  • moved to in-house recruitment at Heineken
  • 9 years at Wargaming (gamedev), going through a path from recruiter to TA team manager
  • currently TA Director at IT Creative Labs
  • Targeted Selection methodology-certified and STAR interview method follower
  • Still keen on recruiting in all its aspects😊

Feel free to join my LinkedIn network

3 of 10

RECRUITER IS YOUR PARTNER

4 of 10

What does a recruiter do?

Recruiter drives hiring process within the company :

  • posts vacancies
  • works with applications
  • evaluates CVs and cover letters
  • conducts preliminary screens (interviews) via phone, Zoom, Google Meet, etc.
  • is the first to make a decision if a candidate moves forward to a hiring manager review/interview
  • guides the candidate till job offer stage and onboarding

​

For a candidate a recruiter is usually one of the closest people in hiring process, and this person can help if your communication goes in the right way

5 of 10

How and where to communicate with a recruiter?

  • Expand your network of contacts (e.g. LinkedIn), add recruiters, especially from those companies that you are potentially interested in
  • Follow recruiters’ updates about the companies/projects/plans/new vacancies, etc.
  • When you are already in contact, it is easier and faster to write directly, present yourself and tell what you are interested in
  • After you responded to the vacancy, write additionally a short follow-up letter via LinkedIn or by email (if it’s known) to show your interest and draw attention to your application

​

Personal contact always draws the attention of a recruiter, and you are more likely to receive detailed feedback and continue communication.

6 of 10

How to prepare and increase your chances to pass recruiter’s preliminary screen?

  • Preliminary screen with recruiter (~30-60 mins) – an important stage on which it depends if you go forward
  • Prepare in advance:
  • your experience summary for 3-5 mins (don’t try to tell everything at once, recruiter will ask additional questions later)
  • an answer to the following questions: why are you interested in this job/company? why are you looking for a new job? / what is important for you in your new job/company?
  • collect as much information about the company (its values, team, projects, vacancy) as possible
  • Ask questions
  • this shows your interest, preparation, motivation
  • first do more emphasis on professional aspects rather than benefits, vacation, etc.
  • you will have an opportunity to receive more valuable information from the recruiter and will use it for next interview steps preparation and understand if the company/culture/team/vacancy suit your expectations or not
  • Be responsive, reliable, punctual during the process. Remember about your reputation on the market.

AND don’t be shy to ask for advice and recommendations before the next interview with the hiring team – this works!

Soft skills and motivation often play a more important role than hard skills.

​

7 of 10

STAR Method

STAR – an excellent working technique for answering questions during an interview

S (situation) – describe the situation you experienced at work

T (task) – What was your task in that situation?

A (actions) – What were the actions that you took?

R (result) – What were the results of these actions?

You can describe all your results and achievements using the STAR method. This method is universal and suitable for any questions about your experience.

You can also use the STAR method to talk about your failures. You just need to describe the situation, when and why you made mistake(s), share what you learned from this situation and how you can use this experience to prevent mistakes in the future. Even when answering questions about failures, you can present yourself as a successful specialist who can analyze your actions, learn and grow.

8 of 10

STAR Case Example

Imagine that you are being interviewed for a Project Manager position.

A Project Manager needs to manage the expectations of different stakeholders and interact with a lot of different people. It is necessary to have excellent communication skills, planning and organization skills, influence skills, stress resistance, etc.

Here is an example how you can demonstrate these skills during an interview.

​

Question: What did you do as a Project Manager at ABC company?

In the beginning, you can say a few sentences about your main tasks, but then give a specific example that will better show the essence of your work.

  • Situation: One of the challenges I faced was the slow decision-making process to launch new features.

Decisions were delayed, this slowed down the development process compared to the agreed plan.

  • Task: To speed-up the decision-making process
  • Actions: I analyzed the situation and identified that our decision matrix didn't work, because a new stakeholder had appeared and began to influence decisions. I spoke to all stakeholders, including the new one, and prepared a new decision-making process aimed at the increase of speed. It was agreed and I implemented it in our working process.
  • Result: It worked. I managed to shorten the approval process twofold (from 6 to 3 days). This allowed us to eliminate downtime in the development and testing teams and increase the frequency of releases by 20%.

9 of 10

Practice

Examples of most popular behavioral questions you can meet during any stage of interview process

  • Tell me about a situation when you identified a problem that didn’t really concern you, but you took the initiative and solved it.
  • Tell me about your job achievement that you are particularly proud of. What exactly makes you feel proud?
  • Describe a situation when you faced regular misunderstanding from your colleague. What did you do in this situation?
  • Tell me about a situation when you needed to convince a person who initially didn’t agree with your proposal.
  • Describe a situation when you successfully pitched an idea to a group of people.
  • Tell me about a situation when an unexpected problem ruined all your plans. How did you cope with that situation?
  • Tell me about a long-term project. How did you manage it and monitor the timely progress of the project? What did you do when there was a deviation from the plan?
  • Tell me about a situation when you had fully planned the project and then something went wrong.
  • Tell me about a situation when you made a mistake and needed to correct it promptly.
  • Describe a situation when you made a mistake in cooperation with your colleague. What would you do differently now?
  • Tell me about a situation when you acted as a team leader although you were not given formal authority.

Task: you have 5 minutes to remember a situation from your experience and answer one of these questions using STAR method.

​

10 of 10

Thank you!

May all of you have your dream job☺