Learn To Schmooze Because Your Interviewer Might Not

Via Fistful of Talent:

Most junior HR and recruiting pros get requisitions for other junior or entry level positions….[so in the interview,] they are sitting there talking to an entry or junior level candidate – different discipline, but let’s say within a year or two of experience of each other – neither of them are really fully comfortable with the whole interview setting. Your junior recruiter patiently waits for that S-T-A-R response to the list of behavioral interview questions you’ve helped them prepare. And meanwhile the kid across from them is fumbling.

The solution? You both need to learn to have conversations.

An awkward recruiter could turn off 80-90% of the jobseekers s/he speaks to, because only 10-20% can talk about themselves in an articulate manner, FoT says. And that doesn’t do much for your employment brand—think that one jobseeker is going to tell his friends and family what a great experience he had?

So put down the iPhone and the facebooks and learn to talk to real people.

Obviously, for jobseekers this may be even more crucial. A recruiter can theoretically not bother to learn to talk naturally, because that still leaves the 10-20%. So what if everyone else has a bad experience? Employment brand be damned, we’re The New York Times* and people will want to work for us no matter what!

If that happens—if you’re stuck with a recruiter who’s a bad interviewer—it’s up to you to take control of the situation.

*EXAMPLE only. I have no idea how the NYT interviews.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.