A Simple Guide for your First Chat with a Candidate

The goals of this touch point generally encompass:

‍

1. Learning about the candidate
2. Determining how good a match it could be
3. Your company/opportunity narrative (excitement)!

While not exactly rocket science, your first chat with any candidate is an important start to what is usually a multi-step process. And it requires an investment of time and effort! It’s important to be both effective and efficient as it will always be the most repeated stage of any interview process (unless by some miracle you hire every single person who starts an interview process with you).

Here is a simple checklist our Invenio team has refined throughout the years to get you on the right track.

The checklist to your first chat with a candidate

A highlight before we get started

Keep a special eye on motivation and interests, as they are critically important to closing offers! The best candidates will be highly competed for and understanding what they want to change and what they are interested in lets you have conversations that address their interests.

Hit these Topics of Conversation:

• ‍Intro
  Tell them your story, give some level of excitement‍
• General
  Learn about their experience, key projects, key deliverables, key skillsets (technical and soft skills)‍
• Team/project/product details
  What was the stage/maturity/size of the product/team/project when they joined, what was the composition and size of the team, key reports up (their boss)/down (their reports, if any), how did they get requirements, what did they own versus the team‍
• Motivation
  What is their current situation, why are they open to conversation, is there something they are looking to change or have different‍
• Interests
  What do they want in the next role; career growth, skillset focus, importance of title, location requirements, individual contributor roles versus management tracks, specific skillsets/technology, industries, domains, specific challenges or problems, cultural fit, compensation; how do they rank these interests‍
• Logistics
  Notice period, vacation plans, work authorization needs, compensation [cash, equity, bonuses, etc], commute/remote, other interviews, timeline of interviewing and decision making

Extra Notes to take from the interview (not necessarily explicit questions)

Communication
Ability to be concise, how well they listen, how well they communicate, what type of stakeholder would they be good in front of (internal team only, customer facing, business facing, leadership oriented, etc)

Personal
Any mention about hobbies, family, friends, things that can be conversation points or cultural notes

Priorities

If nothing else, always cover their motivations, interests, and logistics — in fact we recommend calibrating and checking on these three things every time you speak with a candidate (are you still interested in XYZ, is your timing still the same, have your compensation expectations evolved, any other interviews moving fast, etc)

Nearly every aspect of a first interview can be dug into in further rounds (and usually will be), but often the rawest and most honest answers about motivations, interests, and logistics come in that very first call. Our anecdotal experience is that many people feel the most comfortable sharing these details in early conversations*.

*Ask your local semi-professional psychologist (ie: recruiter) for why! Note — the better your candidate experience, the more people will be open and sharing along the way!