The recruitment interview various from that of the standard job interview, which means you need to prepare differently. Recruitment agencies will either interview you for a specific position in which case you need to prepare and answer the interview questions as you would in any interview, as the recruitment agency will only put the best candidates forward as this is how they make there profit.
In many situations though, recruitment agencies will interview you to put you on their books, a great selling point to the employer “we have 5000 candidates ready to start work.” Recruiters will also question you about other positions you have applied for, which they then use as a lead to generate them, not you more business.
Rule One
As with any interview you need to sell yourself and the best way to sell yourself in the interview is by matching yourself to the job specification. In the recruitment interview use a little psychology and persuasive language, to uncover exactly what positions are available. This will need a little preparing beforehand.
At the interview start by taking control, “thank you for inviting me down today your agency has a great reputation (praise goes a long way), can I check what current positions are you looking to recruit for?” you may be given a general answer “oh, erm we have lots of finance positions available all over the northwest” when given general answers, chunk down for more detail “that’s wonderful, I have over 10 years experience in finance, what type of businesses are you recruiting on behalf for, banks? Small enterprises, government organisations?
Now they have to give you detail or look stupid, if they say “Hmm I don’t Know” they probably haven’t any vacancies and are looking for leads from you (yes this does happen..alot) with this I would say “OK, well if your not sure who you are recruiting for how do you know if I will be the correct candidate?” you can either leave at this point or use the interview as a practice interview, as it is unlikely that there is a real job.
If they answer with detail “we have several banks that we are currently recruiting for” you can use this to answer the following interview questions relating your experience to the skills required for the banking industry.
The idea is to get as much detail in your initial questions so you can target your answers, as the recruitment agency will then match you to the specific job, rather then having a general interview to check your skills.
Rule Two
The final part of the interview is to highlight to the recruitment agency how they can quickly make a profit out of you, which is their ultimate aim. Drop in to the interview at some point, how you always secure job offers at interviews, because employers recognise a key (skill, experience, qualification) of yours, you can even joke with the interviewer that this will be an easy sell for them. Remember some agencies don’t specialise in your industry they are recruited to shift the applicants, which means that they don’t always know the job role in-depth, only what is recorded on the employers job advert.
If they believe you will get the job at the employers interview, they will quickly let you pass there shifting interview, knowing that you will be recruited. Remember in many cases the recruitment agency is the gatekeeper to the real industry interview.
