Recruitment Interview Questions & Answers

It was a one on one where I was given a very short space of time to prove myself and make myself stand out amongst the other candidates.

I was asked why I wanted to be in recruitement, and why I felt I would be successful.

Apart from that it was just a genreal discussion about me on a personal level.

I had to make sure I tailored my answers to attributes needed for the job. Bringing in examples from my experience as shown on my CV.

It was brief with no tasks, just a conversation. A brief discussion of my CV and how I had gained more experience in this sector.

I had to really fight back to prove I had the skills to be successful in the role.

It felt quite brutal with no time for me to ask about the company itself.

If having a large family would affect my commitment to a job which required long hours.

Research what the recruitement industry is all about, what you have to do on a daily basis and the qualities that you need. Doing this illustrates to the interviewer just how serious you are.

I had no real experience in sales and so I went and got a job in telesales afterwards. This made my CV stand out even more.

Be on the ball, dont ease in slowly, hit the ground running with clear examples.

Most importantly show your ambition and awarness of the financial structure that you could be rewarded from in the future.

Resreach the different sectors the company is involved in so you can show you have an understanding of evcents which really drive the company and so you can prove you understanding the business areas and indeed international areas that you would be involved in.

I did not make it through to this stage

The initial process was a phone interview with an Internal recruitment consultant who asjed generic questions such as why recruitment and what are my goals etc. Then I was invited to the office to meet the team manager but actually met 5 people in the process, it took a total of 3 hours, from trainee consultants to director of the company.
I was asked a few questions about the company and why would I lie to be a part of the team. I was also asked why recruitment with additional questions on what a recruitment consultant does. When I finally met the team manager he got me to speak in front of the new trainees to see if I could hold a conversation. He then asked me to sell him something and we did a role play. Finally the director of the company asked me more technical questions such as entrepreneurial questions and also selling technique.

You are locked in a room with a phone and a cv, the phone can only call numbers, on the cv you have the person's information and they're phone number. To get out the room you have to place that person into a job. You have no jobs to place them into, so you have to find one and then place them. How would you do it?

Ensure that you do enough research on the company and be prepared to do role plays. Thru talk a lot so you have to be able to hold a conversation with everyone that you meet because it could be from 2 people to 5 people.
I would also recommend you read a lot of different selling techniques because I was asked to sell 2 items to them by two different people. Try not be be nervous because they will use that against you. Eye contact and speaking clearly is also very essential, make sure that you are engaged with everyone you meet and approach them professionally. Every you meet asks you the sane questions so be prepared to repeat a lot and not sound frustrated.

I did not attend an assessment centre

A fair bit of vague background knowledge was given via email, but very little as to what the morning would entail. As such I was told generic things such as 'Be prepared to explain where you see yourself ten years from now', and so on, despite most of it not being touched on in the group session. The morning involved a group exercise with approximately 18 candidates in total. First we were put into pairs and had to explain why your partner should get the job (in under a minute) which was a very interesting method and left me wondering how effective it was. Some partners for example simply didn't ask the right questions which didn't appear to be realised by the assessors, and so when a poor case was put forward I feel it was perhaps presumed that the partner who was being talked about simply wasn't well-suited. In our pairs we were then tasked with selling a generic product (for example, one option was 'a chocolate bar'), by putting a positive case forward for it. We had thirty seconds to do this in our pair. Both tasks were presented to assessors and the rest of the group. This ended the interview.

Selling an item was very difficult due to the extremely generic things people were given to sell ('a chair', 'a car') and the very limited timeframe that we were given (30 seconds) for two people to share.

Be prepared to enter a very sales-heavy interview. You'll need to not only sell yourself, but sell someone else and a random standard product. Practise your public speaking and your presentation skills so that you're not nervous. If you're not into the sales environment then this isn't for you at all.

It was a very business focussed atmosphere that started with a presentation from an executive that told us about the company's history and a brief description of the different roles in the company.

Applied online by sending my CV, about three days later I received a call and had a telephone interview. I was asked questions such as why I applied for this particular position, and what I had been doing since I graduated in June. I was also asked to describe a time where I demonstrated a strong work ethic and resilience as these are key characteristics of someone suitable for this role. At the end of the telephone call I was told that Buchanan Sachs didn’t hold assessment centre days and that I was invited to attend a face-to-face interview which would be two days after.

The face-to-face interview was very interesting and lasted about an hour and a half. I was surprised that I was not asked about my knowledge of the company at all, mainly about what other jobs I have applied to and whether I was competitive or not. I was also asked to describe what I would do in certain situations that I may find myself in, such as trying to get through to a director of a potential client on the phone. I was told from the onset that none of the other jobs I had applied to would be able to compete with the commission structure offered by this role. My interviewer was also trying to convince me that I would be more suited to a recruitment consultant role rather than an executive search consultant role – to which I disagreed as all my previous work experience was in fact in research (I wasn’t sure if they were only looking for recruitment consultants). The commissions structure of the company was also explained to me and I also discovered that the basic salary advertised was a lot higher than the one I would be offered.

The meeting concluded with an offer of arranging interviews with 4/5 directors of companies that same week for a recruitment consultant role not for an executive search consultant role. I was told that I had two hours to decide whether to proceed or not. I was also advised that these directors would try to deter me from wanting to be a recruitment consultant which I thought was rather strange. I decided not to take up the offer as there were some inconsistencies in the interview and I didn’t want to lie about wanting to become a recruitment consultant as this was not the role I wanted or applied for.

Why haven't you found a full time job yet as you graduated in June?

You have to be extremely money motived - basically you're sole reason for applying for such a role and talk about this throughout the entire interview.
Also have to be prepared to have a low basic salary and rely on commission.

There was no assessment centre - was told that the company didn't run an assessment day as it becomes more of a "shouting match".

I arrived at the offices in London for a face to face interview for what I thought was a job with Buchanan Search. However it soon turned out that there wasn't actually a specific role I was applying for and in fact it wouldn't be with Buchanan Search at all. They were interviewing me to see if I would fit any roles that their current clients needed filling.
I was asked about my work history and my reasons for applying for this "job". I was asked how people might recruit candidates in this sector and how they might find a new client to work with. I was also asked how much money was a motivating factor in my choice of jobs. I didn't have to perform any tasks. The interviewer mainly boasted about how brilliant his company was and was very patronising.

I found all of the questions hard to answer once I realised that they were not based on one specific job. I was very confused as to why I wasn't being asked about myself and my work ethic.

Do not apply for this role if you are expecting to be interviewed for a graduate scheme role within the company Buchanan Search. They are interviewing you to see if they would like to put you forward for other roles within their clients companies. They are not interviewing you to work for them. If you are looking for a recruitment company to have you as a candidate on their books then this is right for you.

The offices were very modern and clean. I was interviewed in a meeting room, just me and the interviewer. The interview lasted barely 20 minutes.