As a recruiter I am constantly asking candidates a variety of questions ranging from their work experience to their birthday, and everything in between. Many people ask me if there is any rationale behind the types of questions (behavioral, personality, tricky) that recruiters ask, so I wanted to share some of mine (and other recruiters!) reasoning with all of you 🙂
Hiring the right candidate for an open role is such a subjective process! From having the right set of skills, experience, and loyalty to simply meeting compensation requirements… a lot is judged or pre-screened on “paper.” However, personality and being the right fit for the “DNA” of the team will always prove to be the final deciding factor. Recruiters know their hiring managers (or try to!) and will sometimes dig a little deeper to try and get the X-Factor that their client needs.  For instance, if the open role is on a team that has had some turnover, perhaps the recruiter will ask “How have you handled welcoming a new member on to your team in the past? Can you suggest ways to make a transition into a new day to day easier” and then use those answers to report back to the hiring manager to explain verbally what can be expected from the hire.
Interview questions that are tricky and/or behavioral are almost the old school way of taking a personality assessment. Maybe, just maybe, the person will answer with the same number of golf balls as the hiring manager & the recruiter can say, “Look here is a suitable match!”  Sometimes, recruiters are just trying to see how a candidate will fare in a unique situation. It says a lot about a hire if they handle any question thrown at them with grace and clarity. Lastly, we all know recruiters (I am guilty sometimes here too) that want to know a candidate’s birth sign. This is to see where they will fit in on a team… an astrological Myers-Briggs if you will 🙂
