Good vs bad recruiters, a candidate's perspective | Ep. 1

It can be tough to navigate the world of recruitment, especially early on in your career. So, over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing some recruitment stories from people in a variety of tech and product roles. These episodes will cover everything from what makes a great hiring process to red flags to watch out for.  

This week we sat down with Ifigenia (Ifi) Temesio, a Product Manager at mental health startup MindLabs.  

Check out the video below to learn more. Or if you’re more of a reader, scroll down and read the interview below. 

Q: What is your favourite thing about working in Product? 

Ifi: Seeing people use your app or any experience that you've been working on. So, any time you interview someone for a user interview, or the best one is If you're walking down the street and someone's using your app or talking about your app to someone else. It's just such nice feeling to know you have been working alongside your team on something that can really bring meaning to someone else's life. 

Q: Tell us about your worst experience with a recruiter 

Ifi: As a Product Manager, you tend to get bombarded by messages from recruiters on LinkedIn. Mostly they’re hyper impersonal or trying to catch your attention – and you know you’re just one in a million people that they’ve messaged.  

In terms of a worst experience, I just remember it being incredibly impersonal. You may have had an introductory chat with them and they were like 'yeah you seem really great, this is perfect you really fit the role'. And then you wouldn't hear from them for a really long time. And that was it. And sometimes you wouldn't hear back at all! 

Q: What red flags should people look out for when dealing with a recruiter or recruitment agency?  

Ifi: Essentially these impersonal messages that you’ll get through LinkedIn. As you grow in your role you’ll become more desirable to a recruiter, so you’ll start getting more and more of them.   

When they misspell your name - they're definitely a write-off. Like, you didn't even check my name here! 

I think when they don't instil trust - that's probably the biggest red flag. For example, if you have decided to have a chat with them and you just feel like there's something not right. 

Q: What should a good recruiter be?  

Ifi: Trustworthy and responsive. Someone that will be with you throughout the whole hiring process.  

Q: What does a great hiring process look like to you?  

Ifi: You should get a lot more information from a recruiter upfront rather than just what’s on the job spec. The process shouldn’t be too long; you shouldn’t have to wait a month between interview stages.  Feedback at each stage is important too as it’ll help you improve and also hype you up for the next step.  

So overall, it should be short, have a lot of detail upfront, but also give a lot of feedback between each session.  

Q: What’s been your best experience with a recruiter?  

Ifi: My best experience was with Craig and Confido. His message was different, it was straight to the point and had loads of detail. And it was friendly! Something about his message in particular made me want to know more. It also helped that he was recruiting for MindLabs, where I work now, which is in a space I’m really passionate about. 

He was always checking in before and after and he really made you feel like you were the only person that he was contacting about these different jobs, even though I'm certain that wasn't the case. But it really did feel like it - it felt like he was holding you by the hand and really being on your side and in your corner cheering you on throughout. 

Q: Would you recommend the Confido team?  

Ifi: Absolutely. Yeah for sure I really would. I don't know if other recruitment companies work this way - I imagine they don't, based on my personal experience.  

But I would definitely, definitely recommend Confido to anyone that is looking - absolutely. 

Thanks Ifi! Have you got a burning recruitment question? Let us know at contact@confidotalent.com, on Twitter or LinkedIn.