“What’s your best friend do?”

Curiosity screening question

My favorite interview question when you’re hiring a recruiter:

“What does your best friend do for a living?” followed by “Tell me about that.”

Why? It gauges curiosity. A lack of which is (in my humble opinion) the root cause of half-assed recruiting.

If someone isn’t curious enough about their closest friend’s work, how can you expect them to be curious about anyone else?

(And yes. There are people who don’t have a good answer for this.)

You need curiosity to be a good recruiter. Full stop. Without it you’ll never:

👉Ask the a hiring manager the right probing questions to fully understand the job requirements.

👉Ask the candidate the drill down questions needed to proper vet against those requirements.

👉Stay on top of the always-changing industry trends of your recruiting domain.

👉Develop expertise in new skill sets to recruit on.

👉Understand why your hiring process isn’t efficient. Or why your messaging sucks. Or why no one is getting back to you. Or why the hiring manager isn’t getting back on your submissions. Or why literally anything else is busted.

Curiosity won’t make you a good recruiter by itself. But a lack of it will make you a bad one.

If you’re a recruiter now and just realized you have no idea what your best friend does for work, maybe it’s time to find a new profession.

Something easy and mindless. Like sales. 🔥🔥🔥

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.