My Recruiter Asked If Interviews Should Be More Technical
Zack AllenOctober 18, 20261:36
A real 1-on-1 where my recruiter asked if candidate interviews should be more technical. My answer: not technical, but enough context on the role to ask the right questions and call out BS.
Right now we're focused on two roles for our clients: media buyers and AI developers. In a recent 1-on-1, I told my recruiter I wanted her to dig deeper into the specifics of those jobs so she could interview for them better.
Her question was fair. Did I mean the interviews should be more technical? When she asks candidates how they prepared, most of them say they didn't, because it's a first get-to-know-you interview.
Not technical, just more context
My answer: no, I don't want it to be a technical interview. But understanding the role in more depth lets you ask the right questions and call people out.
I gave her an example from a different kind of role. Say you're interviewing someone for an Amazon role and you ask, "How many leads did you source?" They say, "Two." If you understand the job, you know to stop right there and ask, "Two?"
That's the context I'm talking about. Knowing how to call out BS, and how to ask questions that show whether someone did the work or just knows how to describe it.
How to get that context
You get reps through the interviews themselves, of course. But you can walk into the first ones far better prepared if you already understand the role.
To me, that means watching YouTube videos on the role and asking ChatGPT, "Hey, what does this mean?" when a term comes up you don't recognize.
She admitted she gets a little intimidated when a candidate starts talking about something specific she doesn't follow. She'd just move on to the next question.
That's exactly the moment I want her ready for. The better you understand the work, the better you can tell apart the candidates who talk well from the candidates who know their stuff. That's the whole objective of the interview.
Transcript
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The I mean, cuz those are the only two rules that we're focusing on right now is media buyers and AI developers. I think it would benefit our clients a lot if you dive deeper into like the specifics of what that job looks like so you can better interview for it.
And like when you say that, do you mean like just making it more of a technical interview kind of? Because the most of the ones I talked to when I ask like what do you do to prepare, they say nothing cuz like this is like an initial one getting to know interview. So I'm like
Yeah, no. I don't want it to be technical, but I think understanding the context a lot deeper will allow you to ask the right questions and call people out.
Okay, that's
You know, just just like the same way you would do if someone is uh interviewing for an Amazon role and you're like,
"Okay, cool. So like, you know, how many leads did you source?" And they're like, "Two." And you're like, "Two?"
Okay. Okay, I see. I see.
Yeah, just that kind of context of like what how to call BS out and like how to ask questions that actually determine if someone did it or not. And so the better you can understand the role, obviously, you know, you'll you get these reps through the interviews, too, but I think you can come into it with a lot more preparation to the first ones if you understand a bit more about the role.
And to me, that literally just means watching YouTube videos um and like asking Chat GPT being like, "Hey, what does this mean?"
I see what you mean. Cuz yeah, I am a little intimidated when like these specific girls go like, "Uh what are they talking about?" And I'm like, "Okay, you move on to the next question."
Yeah, exactly. But I want you to like understand like the better you can understand that stuff, the better you can weed out like who's actually can talk good and who just actually knows their stuff cuz that's really the the objective.
