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Recruiter first-round interview questions

Recruiters find people, judge them fairly, and keep hiring managers honest about what they need. These questions ask how the candidate has done that on real roles.

The questions

  1. 1Tell me about a hard role you filled. How did you find the person you hired?Scores: Finding candidates
  2. 2Describe a time your usual sourcing wasn't working. What did you change?Scores: Finding candidates
  3. 3Tell me how you decided between two strong candidates on a recent role. What did you base it on?Scores: Assessing fairly
  4. 4Tell me about a time you had to give a candidate disappointing news. How did you handle it?Scores: Assessing fairly
  5. 5Describe a time a hiring manager's expectations didn't match the market. What did you do, and how did it end?Scores: Working with hiring managers

The rubric

Finding candidates
Builds a strong pipeline for hard roles and goes beyond people who apply.
Listen for: Specific channels and messages, a pipeline they built on purpose, and changes based on what wasn't working.
Assessing fairly
Judges candidates against the job's criteria and keeps a good candidate experience.
Listen for: Job-related reasons for the choice, and care for how candidates were treated.
Working with hiring managers
Agrees what the role needs and gives honest advice when expectations don't match the market.
Listen for: They used evidence to push back, kept the relationship, and got the search back on track.
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