Think about it – when your clients excel in their interview processes, they are more likely to secure top-tier candidates swiftly, reducing your time-to-fill metrics and increasing client satisfaction. With 83% of talent saying a negative interview experience can make them back out from a role, it’s not something you can treat lightly – and nor should your clients. And let’s be honest – how many of your recruitment clients have the skills and experience to design a successful interview process?
In this blog, we'll explore how offering guidance and insights to your recruitment clients on optimising their interview processes can be a win-win strategy. The many advantages of being not just a recruiter but a trusted partner in the entire talent acquisition journey can make you stand out from competitors and help you scale.
It ensures a better buy-in to your candidates
When you become the expert advisor in your client’s interview process, you can ensure that they understand fully why the candidates you bring them are the best of the best and fit within their role (and company) perfectly.
Passing on your expertise on the interview process can bring you much closer to your client’s needs from both the skills and cultural perspectives, this in turn means you will be more likely to find and send the right candidates for the role. The added benefit of this is that it allows you to prepare your candidates for the interview itself in a much more comprehensive manner.
For example, once you know the skills or experiences being assessed, you can help your candidates prepare some relevant examples from their own careers. What’s more, you can coach your candidates to showcase the personal attributes and interests that fit well with the company culture. Having interests and values aligned with the company isn’t something candidates often discuss but can be a surefire way of showing that they are a cultural fit.
It betters the relationship with your clients
It may seem obvious to most recruiters, but establishing yourself as an expert in all things recruitment is an excellent way of standing out and building long-lasting client relationships. Going beyond the remit of simply sending candidate CVs with your agency logo attached is the key to developing these relationships.
Sharing knowledge and resources is a great way to establish reciprocity with your clients. There are a few good examples of this: you could offer to provide input on the interview questions being prepared. This is especially useful when working with hiring managers who may be inexperienced in conducting interviews. Another way of helping your clients is to offer to conduct, facilitate, or even physically host the interview process for face-to-face interviews - this can take the pressure off of your clients and also give you the opportunity to receive immediate feedback.
It gives you a competitive edge
Sharing your expertise is excellent for building strong client relationships, but it's also invaluable for building a competitive edge in your industry. Building strong case studies of helping clients in the interview process shows prospects that you are capable of adding value across the entire recruitment process. Offering a complete service with touchpoints all throughout their hiring journey is an effective way of differentiating yourself from a mass of contingent CV-sending recruiters.
Alongside differentiating your service from other recruiters, it is also a great way of sharpening your own skills in interviewing, reading candidates, and conducting your own recruiter interviews. This in turn will improve your sourcing and screening skills as well as develop your ability to provide killer interview prep to your own candidates, ultimately leading to much better conversion rates and more placements.
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