The Bagg Group Blog

Great question. Many people approach their meeting with a recruiter as a casual get-together. In fact, it’s better to think of it as a dress rehearsal.

Your recruiter is the stand-in for the employer. When they meet with you, they have to consider: How would this candidate come off in front a hiring authority?

At The Bagg Group, we’ve been working with GTA employers for so long that we know what they expect, and what works for them and what doesn’t.

You may be surprised to learn that there are a few casual behaviors and habits that a lot of us do without thinking which are frowned upon by hiring authorities. As always, it’s the little things in life that can lift you up or bring you down.

Here’s a list from our experts for What Not To Do when meeting with an employer or a recruiter, whether you’re meeting to talk about temporary work, contract work or full-time employment:

Don’t wear sunglasses on your head. Sunglasses dangling from shirts or on top of the head suggest a flippant attitude.

Don’t bring your own coffee into the meeting. Many people don’t think twice about picking up a latte to take into a meeting. But staffing experts urge you to think again. The protocol is that unless you’ve called ahead and asked the recruiter if they’d like a coffee, save the java for after the meeting.

Don’t remove your shoes. Believe it or not, recruiters and hiring authorities at top employers in the GTA have many stories of people casually slipping out of their shoes during meetings. And these are not stories with happy endings. Often people wear uncomfortable dress-up shoes to attend a job interview, but no matter how much the shoe pinches, try to grin and bear it.

Don’t shower in perfume. Too much of a good thing can give someone who is sensitive to fragrance a serious headache. You don’t want the interviewer to pick up any odors, of any kind. If your after-shave or perfume overwhelms them, they’ll be thinking more about getting away from you than hiring you.

Don’t smell of cigarettes. If the interviewer is a non-smoker, you face the same problem as above. If you smoke heavily, you may not notice the smell of tobacco on your clothes, but in a closed office, an interviewer, who is not a smoker, may find the smell overpowering. Try to wear smoke-free clothes to any interview.

Avoid the soft-chair slump. A good interviewer makes you feel comfortable. But you can’t afford to get too comfortable in your chair, according to the experts on body-language. Here’s why:

• If you slouch, it may appear that you’re not taking the interview seriously. And you risk coming off as a slacker. 
• If you put your hands behind your head while talking, you project arrogance.
• If you sit with your legs placed wide, you are perceived as acting over-familiar.
• If you lean too far forward, you may off as aggressive.
• If you lean far back, you come off as overly casual.

The experts say there’s only one way to sit in an interview—with a straight and upright body. This way, how you sit doesn’t distract the interviewer from what you’re saying.

You want to be yourself in any interview and keep the focus on what you have to say. You are the star of the interview. So you don’t want the little things, like too much perfume or a sore foot, to upstage you.

Trivia question of the day… Who coined the phrase, “Honesty is the best policy”?

(And no, it’s not a Bagg Group recruiter, although we live by those words)

The answer: Miguel de Cervantes, the 17th Century Spanish novelist who wrote Don Quixote. I quote his words whenever hiring authorities ask me how to get the most out of their recruiting agency.

If you were a fly on the wall at a meeting between a hiring authority and a recruiter from The Bagg Group, you might be surprised by the breadth and depth of the conversation.

Asking questions on a range of issues is how recruiters help you build your best team. So, for example, when a staffing expert inquires about the pet peeves of the position’s direct manager it’s not to judge or critique. It’s because they know that little things can make the difference between success and failure on the job.

Here are just a few questions that you can expect from recruiters who are experienced in providing top-notch staffing solutions for you:

• Tell me about people in your firm that have worked out the best, and why?
• What are the direct manager’s pet peeves?
• How would you describe your company’s customers?
• What are their expectations and issues?
• Who are the internal clients that new employees must serve?
• What are their characteristics?
• What are their challenges?

I recommend that clients meet staffing experts face-to-face and take them on a walk about. A tour helps recruiters get a feel for the people and the energy of your organization. Again, this is contributes to finding the best fit.

And here’s an important tip: make sure you are having a two-way conversation with your recruiter.

The best employers use recruiters as their staffing coaches. Experienced recruiters have a wealth of knowledge to share about hiring and retaining employees. And our clients are right to make the most of it.

The guidance and tips they receive from our staffing experts are based on facts, figures and thousands of discussions with managers and candidates over the years.

(For a good article on retaining employees through engagement, check out Gerard Seijts and Dan Crim’s article in the Ivey Business Journal, The Ten C’s of Employee Engagement. )

So – to help your recruiter be the best solution provider possible, sit down with him and her and tell it like it is. I can’t tell you who originated that turn of phrase, but I can assure you that it’s one well worth remembering the next time your recruiter calls.

Leave a silly message on your machine and that click you hear may be the sound of a recruiter hanging up on you.

Recruiters make dozens of call a day, so they don’t have the interest, or time, for anything but a message that gets right to the point.

Besides, while some people may laugh at, “Hello, I’m Jane’s answering machine. What are you?” others may just groan and question your sense of humour.

So before you give your phone number to any recruiter, make sure you clear your answering machine message of jokes, music, barking dogs, crying babies and kids, and all references to late night parties.

Whether you are seeking full-time employment, temporary work, or contract work, your message must to be professional. It should sound like the message you hear when you call someone at an office.

Here’s a tip sheet, compiled by recruiters at The Bagg Group, for how to leave a message to impress human resource professionals:

Short and simple is the way to go. “Hello, this is (name). I’m sorry I’m unavailable to take your call, but please leave a message. Ill return your call as soon as possible. Thank you.” That’s really all you need to say.

Put a smile in your voice. According to studies, 85% of a person’s impression of you over the phone is determined by the quality of your voice. In other words, how you say your message is even more important than what you say. If your voice has no energy and you sound exhausted or depressed, hiring authorities will be put off.

Articulate. Often people speak so fast that the message sounds like one garbled word: “Hi, plzseezeamsagemelateatbeep.” That doesn’t make a good impression. And all accents sound stronger on the phone, so be sure to enunciate every word.

Borrow a voice. It doesn’t have to be your voice on the recording. Many people have friends or family who are natural voice talents to record their message for them. But don’t use a young child. The voice may be adorable, but the impact is unprofessional.

Ask relatives to let the machine pick up when you are not home. Recruiters say it’s not unusual for someone to pick up a phone, bark, “He’s not home” and hang up before they have a chance to leave their name and number. That doesn’t help you land the job opportunity. Unless you can trust the person to take a message well and deliver it, insist members of your household let the answering machine do the work.

Update your message. From Monday to Friday, your message has to sound like a work message. So don’t forget to delete “Heeeeey, party at my place tonight. Prepare to go wild,” message from the weekend.

Make sure you have an answering system. It’s not a big investment to get a message feature for your phone and it’s an essential one for every job-seeker. If people can’t leave a message, they’ll move on to the next person on their list. And check your messages frequently.

Finally, when leaving a message with a recruiter:

Give your full name and speak slowly when giving your phone number. Recruiters tear out their hair when they receive messages from people who identify themselves only by their first name or who speak so fast that they can’t catch the phone number.

Hold back the cough until you put down the phone. It’s not unusual for people to call in sick and cough their way through a message. This makes it impossible to catch key information. Rather than feeling sympathetic, the receiver of the message just feels annoyed.

For more tips, read How to make a better impression on the telephone.