Hello, Hi, what's up, and welcome back to another episode of the Straight Shooter Recruiter podcast. It's your host, in, producer and everything because it's a one woman show, Emilye. Durham. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this week's episode. This is one that is particularly close to my heart because my mom is interviewing for a new job and she's super excited. She's been looking for the last couple of weeks applied for
this position. I'm going to tell you exactly how I helped her get this interview, and it's something you can easily replicate in your job search. And she's literally preparing for her first round interview next week, and we were talking on the phone about tips and tricks for a first round interview, and I was like, oh my gosh, should I just make this a podcast episode? And she was like, yes, please, I would love to listen
back. So we literally hung up and now I'm recording this episode. So this is the all in one, one stop shop guide for how to ace your first round interview, your pre screen interview because it's different, it's different than the other rounds. Friendly reminder two shot my merch the merchan goes crazy friendly reminder to also leave a rating and a review for this show. That's how we grow Hello, it's important. And also just grab a coffee.
I'm currently having a black coffee. Did add a splash of almond milk to bex it was a little too dark, So grab a cup of Joe and let's go. Also, before we jump in, I don't suspect you'll be able to hear it, but you might hear TV in the background, so apologies in advance if you do. But I think we should be fine. Okay. I want to start off by telling you how I helped my mom
get this interview. She found this job on LinkedIn that was super exciting to her and I was like, girl, if you just apply, that's not enough. We need to take it to the next level. There's hundreds of applicants, especially this time of year. Believe it or not, January is one of the best times to apply for jobs because companies have their budgets renewed
and they're actually able to post new positions. It also means that everyone else knows this, so there is more competition, so you really have to go above and beyond. So my mom applied for this job, and I told her, I was like, go on LinkedIn and look up the recruiter for this company, and she's like, how do I know who it is? And it doesn't matter. It doesn't need to be the perfect person or the
right person. But take to LinkedIn and say, I'm like recruiter at Google or I always use Google as an example, but like recruiter at Google, find a bunch of them, see who's in the area, and send them a message. Chances are they may not be the perfect person I don't know to like recruit for that job. Maybe they're not the actual recruiter, but they're going to know the other rest the other members of the team, so
it's a great idea to do that. I also had her look up the manager for the recruiting team and do the same thing, and it was the manager who responded said, oh my gosh, you actually have an amazing resume. Let me go message my team boom. Within a day, my mom had an interview. So that's a great tip. What I want to focus on is what is important and what's different about a pre screening or first round
interview. Really, the goal for those interviews is kind of unique. The goal is to kind of get a sense of if you are of values fit or like a culture fit for the company, and if you have the baseline skills. Ultimately, at this stage, they're not going to go crazy deep into your hands on or your technical skills. It's more so for them to
get like a flavor of could you potentially be a fit. It really is a pre screen prequalification, and there's a formula that almost all of these interviews follow that if you're prepared to answer questions around this, you're going to be successful. First thing you need to do go to that company's website and take a look at that job description again and pay attention to the skills they've listed
out. Is project management important? Is data management important? What are the skills they're looking for and write those down because that's how we're going to make sure we're staying ahead and staying on top of what they're going to look for. So we're going to start there piece of paper. You're going to write down the five or six skills and those are going to be relevant in a
second. The first question you are always going to be asked is tell me a little bit about yourself and the best way to answer this is in less than two and a half minutes. You don't want it to go on much longer than that, and you just simply need to say who you are, what you do, what you're looking for. I'm Emily Durham. I'm a senior recruiter and a content creator. I'm an expert in developing sales and technology,
recruitment strategies and execution. I'm looking for an opportunity to grow my career in a leadership capacity at a tech recruitment firm Boom. It is as simple as that. It is six seconds, six seconds, It is six sentences, and that's it. You don't want to do like it all started back in eighteen nineteen, like no simple sweet. If they have questions, they'll ask, So that's the first question. The next is why are you looking
or why are you interested in this job. It's a great idea to be honest in these conversations, right, Like you don't need to have a contrived answer, but be prepared to answer that if you're stuck. One of the easiest things you can say is I've really enjoyed my time at my current company. I'm looking to continue to grow and I saw this posting and was just really energized and excited by insert the skills that you wrote down earlier from the
job description. So it might sound like this, you know, I'm not actively looking. I saw the posting for a Google recruiter on your website and I saw how data focused and customer obsessed you have to be for the role, and I got really excited because that's what I love to do. So I really wanted to throw my hat in the ring. That's an amazing answer. So those are a couple of the first two questions that you're gonna get.
The recruiter is probably then going to give you an explanation of the position, what you can expect, what the process looks like. She's gonna you know, they're going to ask if you have any questions. It's totally appropriate to ask questions. Some of my favorites at this stage are what does success look like in this role? What does your ideal candidate look like when you think about what successful people at this company do differently, what is that How
do you kind of project that sess factor or that growth. So have a couple of really strong questions because they're definitely going to ask, and then typically they're going to go into the more technical questions. Don't worry, you don't get super technical in a first round interview. But they're just trying to get a flavor of if you can do the things you said you could do on
your resume. And this is again where that skills list comes into play, because I want you to look at that list and anticipate some of the questions. If you get stuck, you can also just like Google, Hey, questions about project management for an interview, and you'll know how to answer. But those kind of skills they've listed are clearly what they're looking to assess for.
They're probably going to ask you tell me a little bit about your experience with answer whatever that skill is. Can you tell me a time where you had to collaborate with the team and there was some challenge. Can you tell me about a time you had to escalate a concern? Like think of those more specific questions, and a bunch of those are just accessible on Google. And I told my mom this too. Whatever you do do, do do
not do not write out a full answer or a script. What you're going to want to do is bullet point notes, like you want notes that you can reference. You don't want it to feel like a script, so you're going to write those bullet point notes. So to summarize your actual interview structure is going to be tell me about yourself, why do you want this job. You're going to learn about the position. You're going to ask a couple of questions, and they're gonna have technical questions for you. That's it.
That's usually all you need to do. So the best thing you can do to prepare is go on that site, have a couple of examples ready, and get familiar with the best ways to answer questions. I have an entire YouTube video about this, so I won't go into super you know, like crazy detail, but answering with the Star method is the best thing you can do. Star stands for the situation, the task, the action, and the result, and you have a couple of sentences that represent each of those
when you answer. Again, Like, I won't go crazy in detail because I've talked about this a lot, Like I have to talk about the Star method all the time, but it's because it works, Like it's an amazing way to make sure you're giving the right LIAE level of information without it getting a little you know, a little choppoloo, a little bit too much information, So make sure you're preparing for that. Another thing I would say is
do a good creep of the person who is interviewing you on LinkedIn. Not a bad idea to ask some targeted questions like, Hey, I saw you used to work at this company. What was that experience like for you? You know, shows that you do your research, shows that you do your homework, and the other kind of portion of it is almost the confidence. So the confidence around you know, answering those questions, are you comfortable,
are you nervous? Are you speaking too quickly? Too slowly? The best way to test for that is to record yourself answering interview questions on your phone and then watch it back to understand do I speak quickly? Do I speak
too slowly? Am I using filler words? And being aware of those habits is half the battle, because once you know you might have the prepentancy to speak quickly when you're nervous, or to use filler words like like, or you end up doing it less because you know it's a potential risk and that it's a thing you do. You know, Okay, that was like actually seven minutes of non stop talking. But it really is like the end to
end comprehensive guide. First round interviews are not that painful. They are really about just getting a better sense of who you are and what you want. It's not meant to be super stressful, so I hope it helps. If you have a first round interview, you have to let me know how it goes. And we are approaching the holiday season, so it's a great time to brush up on your interview skills and just give yourself the space to explore
a little bit. But I'm super super excited for you. You know, if you're here, it's because you're looking for a job, but I love that and I'm super jazzed. I'm actually recording this early because I'm heading out to go on vacation with Farnas, one of my best friends, this week. So if you're listening to this, I'm probably on my flight to Jamaica woo. If you're interested in following along, I'll be posting a lot on Instagram and on TikTok. But thank you so much for hanging out with me.
I appreciate you much, Lee, and I'll talk to you later.