Melody Wilding: Emily, welcome to Psychology at Work. I couldn’t be more thrilled to have you here. This is going to be such a fun conversation, which I think that word “fun” and job searching often don’t go hand in hand. So, this will be refreshing for people, and why I really wanted to have you on the show in particular is because you go by Emily the Recruiter online, and that is such a big part of your brand, is number one, being a straight shooter, which we love around here.

Melody Wilding: We were just talking about how [00:03:00] I’m from the New Jersey/New York area. We don’t do BS here, so definitely in line with that. And you have this insider knowledge as a recruiter, which I think people are so hungry for. Like, tell me how the sausage is made. Tell me how things actually work.

Melody Wilding: So, I want to start there, because from a recruiter’s perspective, when an application or a candidate comes across your desk, what is it, especially now, when recruiters are getting bombarded with so many resumes and so many messages? What is it that makes someone jump off the page or really stand out to you to say, “I need to talk to this person”?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Oh, I’m so stinking excited to be here. Thank you. So hopefully we do put the fun back into the hellscape that is the job hunt. But the reality is there’s two different ways someone is really positively going to stand out, and one is faster than the other and a little bit more consistent than the other.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So I’ll start [00:04:00] with the more crummy of the two. So as a recruiter is looking at your profile, especially in today’s very AI-driven market, what they want to see is the fact that this sounds like a person. We actually understand the takeaway of your resume. And you know, I think a really good test for this that I often talk about is the “grandma test.” If your grandma could not look at your resume and somewhat understand what you do, I fear your resume has gone off the deep end.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): We need to make it very, very clear so people understand what you do and the impact of what you do. Those are the big things that cause mismatch, especially as you start to grow into those more senior roles. You’ll often see people not really explain the scale of their work. They’ll say, “Oh, I launched a product,” but they’re not talking about the fact that 100,000 users were impacted by that update, and that’s the stuff that often gets mismatched.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): But the truth today is that having the perfect resume means much less than having the perfect network. So although that’s what makes you stand out, we’re assuming that that recruiter [00:05:00] has actually opened your profile. So really what makes you stand out is having a referral, and I hate to say it, but I’m not going to lie to you. Right now it is all about who you know.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): It’s always been that way, but especially in this market, having someone to be able to say, “Oh, in a sea of 1,000 applicants where maybe 10 are getting ranked to the top with AI and maybe three of those are getting actually deeply reviewed, how nice is it to say, ‘Oh, I’ve worked with Emily, she’s awesome.’”

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): they’re interviewing

Melody Wilding: This is great. I was already writing notes as we were going along, because this is something I see, too. And you were saying most of the people listening are mid-career professionals, right? They’ve been around a while. And what I see, and I think you’re alluding to as well, is the fact that their resume just becomes this dumping ground that year after year, or job experience after job experience, you just kind of add to it and you don’t ever really revisit it and cull it or refine the message you’re trying to send.

Melody Wilding: You just keep dumping more [00:06:00] into it. And like you were saying, that scope and scale is everything, because if you say, “I managed the budget and the P&L for a team,” that’s very different than saying, “I managed a $2 million budget for a 35-person team that worked across three roadmaps,” right? It just, as you were saying, it immediately signals, and someone can picture in their head, “Okay, this is someone who’s more manager-level or director-level versus associate-level.”

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Huge

Melody Wilding: budget and the P&L for a team,” that’s very different than saying, “I managed a $2 million budget for a 35-person team that worked across three roadmap,” right? It, it just, as you were saying, it immediately signals, and someone can picture in their head, okay, this is someone who’s more manager level or director level versus associate level.

Melody Wilding: And so I think that’s a really important call-out for anyone listening, that you have to do this hygiene of going back to your resume and stepping back from it. I love the grandma test, because if I see another “cross-functional communication” and “change management,” these are just empty words now.

Melody Wilding: So I guess I wonder from your perspective, [00:07:00] how… Are, are there any other shortcuts or ways that we can step back to get that perspective? Because when you are in it day to day, it’s hard to see the impact. It’s hard to see, but I am doing cross-functional communication. I don’t know what else I would call it.

Melody Wilding: So I guess I wonder from your perspective, [00:07:00] how… are there any other shortcuts or ways that we can step back to get that perspective? Because when you are in it day-to-day, it’s hard to see the impact. It’s hard to see beyond, “But I am doing cross-functional communication. I don’t know what else I would call it.” So are there any other shortcuts or even examples you’ve seen of people who do that well? What does it sound like before or after?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Oh, what an amazing question. And I think it’s another little hack or exercise that I think can make this a lot easier. You know, I’m not anti-AI in the context of the job hunt. I think the reality is if companies are using these tools to make things harder for us, we, to an extent, need to be leveraging tools to level the playing field.

Melody Wilding: Oh, it’s so true. And yeah, I’m always pushing people to say, “What makes you different than any other [00:10:00] project manager or engineer or data architecture person?” That’s what needs to be in the resume. What is an example of, yeah, you managed this team or you got this launch over the finish line? Tell me more about that. What skills did you actually use? What was the result? How did that happen? You were saying that storytelling that AI can’t replace. You can maybe use it to aid cleaning up your storytelling, but AI can’t pull that out of you, which I think is so important.

Melody Wilding: Tell me more about that. What skills did you actually use? What was the result? How did that happen? you were saying that storytelling that AI can’t replace. You can maybe use it to aid cleaning up your storytelling, but that, they can’t… AI can’t pull that out of you, which I think is so important.

Melody Wilding: Yeah

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): No, and AI I think is an incredible tool. I always kind of joke, like, for makeup, not the facelift. it can’t give you a new structure entirely, but it can tell you like, “Hey, your resume’s reading junior. Hey, your resume could leverage a bit more of this kind of keyword.” that’s all fine and dandy, but the truth is recruiters can look at your resume and automatically tell it’s AI slop, so why would you risk sounding like [00:11:00] everyone else when you could

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): you,

Melody Wilding: Let’s talk more about that. What are you hearing or seeing in terms of how recruiters or companies in general are using AI during the search? What do we need to know about that in terms of our process, things we need to change, and even how we’re being found online?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): There’s really no way for you to know what company you’re applying to is doing what, but my takeaway as a candidate would be simple: I’m not customizing my resume because I don’t know what I’m filtering against in there. I’m going to have one really strong, keyword-optimized resume, and every ounce of my energy is going to a killer [00:14:00] personal brand on LinkedIn and networking like it is my full-time job.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): You’ve got category one that I would call a little more old school. They’re using the more traditional applicant tracking system. They might be layering AI to help filter candidates, meaning candidates that have certain keyword matches, candidates that are in the right geographical [00:12:00] location are going to be, put at the top of the pile.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): But they’re not really throwing out or doing any advanced search. This has been happening for years. This isn’t new. When I think of, the big, slower-moving companies, think banking, government, oftentimes consulting, most of those companies are still there, maybe a click above there. And, you know, it means different things for our resumes at each point. Then we’ve got the more new school. and the newer school companies are having you apply still to their applicant tracking system, but maybe have additional AI tools la- kind of layered in, whether that’s with some additional questionnaires, an AI pre-screen, or what many companies are doing now, which is AI summaries next to your profile.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So after you’ve applied, you go into this applicant tracking system, and there’s a summary of your profile in three or four sentences that their AI tool is using. And it sounds great, but it’s through the lens of the, the bias tool that they’re working with, right? And it’s probably gonna miss out on some of that unique experience you have, right?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): And that, that is a, a flag that I think about with those [00:13:00] tools. And then I call crazy school. this is, these people are just #experimenting. These are the people who, yes, have their applicant tracking systems, which is that traditional tool to apply with, but they’re using, full-on AI avatars.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): You’re hardly speaking to a person. There are gamified applications that are entirely being leveraged by AI evaluation tools. And that’s where we mostly see very small-scale startups, companies who are AI-forward as their product, playing around with these. And as far as what companies are using this middle ground, that “new school,” for me, what I’m seeing is mid-to-smaller scale companies, predominantly in the tech space, less traditional industries.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): And that, for me, until we learn what the new standard is, ’cause we’re not there yet, we’re in the experimentation phase, that’s where my energy is going. Two years from now, maybe even a year from now, that approach might shift. We don’t know what our new set point is. Everyone’s experimenting by either not doing anything or doing everything, and we haven’t quite found

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Okay, you said something that is wild to me—that you can have… I haven’t had a client encounter that yet where it’s been a totally AI avatar interview, but certainly the filtering and even assignments and how they’re being graded… Okay, I have so many questions coming from this. I’m going to try to prioritize them.

Melody Wilding: Okay, you said something that runs counter to a lot of the traditional job search advice out there, which is—and I’m paraphrasing here—don’t [00:15:00] spend a lot of time customizing your resume for the role. There are people who will spend hours every week, and we’ve heard, especially many of us who have been working for 10, 15, 20 years, we’ve heard “quality over quantity.” That’s what you want to focus on. But you’re saying have that one keyword-optimized resume and spend a lot of time elsewhere.

Melody Wilding: Let’s double-click and unpack that a little bit because that is going to make a lot of people listening very uncomfortable. I’m curious where that comes from, and then we can get into personal branding—that’s a whole other area I want to open up—but yeah, just unpack that idea for me a bit more.

Melody Wilding: That’s a whole nother area I wanna open up, but yeah, just unpack that idea for me a bit more.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Yeah, it’s interesting because even four years ago I would’ve told you, “Customize your resume for every job you’re applying to.” And the reason I would say that is the return on investment of your time was there. The more keywords you had aligned to that specific job posting, the more you [00:16:00] called out those specific experiences, the better your results were. We are no longer seeing that.

Melody Wilding: What [00:17:00] guarantees it is you being a person they know—a friend of the company, essentially. But the other thing I think about is a bit more predictive, which is with the rise of AI, where people are going to automate customized resumes—essentially agents that will automatically update their resumes for every application—resumes are going to mean nothing.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Harvard Business Review already came out with a study, or, sorry, a survey rather, for organizations talking about the value of the resume, and unanimously, the value of the resume has gone down. It’s less about skill. It’s more about how well you know how to use AI to update your resume. So the value of the resume is inherently declining, and that’s not to say “Forget your resume.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): You don’t need to put effort in.” I want you to have one killer solid resume knowing you could be applying to a company that uses AI or one that doesn’t, and the issue still stands. Even with all of the perfect keywords, that doesn’t mean a person is reviewing your application. And from my perspective, I want a person reviewing your application, not exclusively an [00:18:00] AI bot.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Those are tools that are still active. So I’m not putting all of my eggs in the basket of, “Oh, I’m going to hack the ATS.” I don’t think there is an ATS to hack anymore.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. Okay.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): people

Melody Wilding: There’s so much mystery around the ATS. And as you were saying before, these systems are changing so quickly that it’s almost impossible to predict what’s being engineered into them on the employer side. So [00:19:00] zig when others are zagging. I do want to get there. One last question on this actual application front: Where do you stand on cover letters then? Yay, nay, worth the time or not?

Melody Wilding: So [00:19:00] zig when others are zagging. I do wanna get there. One last question on this, on this actual application front. Where do you stand on cover letters then? Yay, nay, worth the time or not?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Eh, you know what? If it’s required, definitely apply with it. The truth is no one was reading those seven years ago, let alone today. so I would say if you work in a traditional industry, consulting, banking, God, probably just those. Consulting, banking, government, academia. If you’re not in one of those, honey, keep your cover letter.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): If you want to get real funky with it, put together a website, which you can build in .2 seconds now with the tools online. Have a really gorgeous website with great examples you can publicly share about your work and testimonials from people. Pop that into the top of your resume. That means something. Cover letter? Meh.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. Very, very good. Definitely very helpful because this is all about where you are going to get the max leverage for your [00:20:00] time, right?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): There’s only so many hours in the week, and of course, in a perfect world, would I tell you, “Cover letter, customize, do it all”? Yeah, I would. But you don’t get to apply to 10 jobs and hear back from one anymore. We’re talking you apply to a thousand and maybe you’re hearing back from one. So, we just have to be efficient.

Melody Wilding: Okay, now,

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): is the

Melody Wilding: Now getting into the referral strategy and hacking relationships. There are a few different aspects to this that I want to cover with you. Number one is people who may already have a warm network, and how do you get referrals from them? Let’s say you are leaving a current role and you’re trying to make a slight pivot into a different type of organization or a slightly different industry.

Melody Wilding: Where do you even start going about getting a referral? Because this is where people really clam up. They get very awkward around, “Ugh, I haven’t talked to this person in five years, then I’m going to come out of the blue asking for [00:21:00] something, and that’s very transactional. I don’t want to be transactional.” How—if referrals are so valuable—how do we go about getting them in a way that actually feels okay for our integrity?

Melody Wilding: Then I’m gonna come out of the blue asking for [00:21:00] something, and that’s very transactional. I don’t wanna be transactional.” How– If referrals are so valuable, how do we go about getting them in a way that actually feels okay for our integrity?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Yeah. The truth is, it’s never going to feel perfect, and that’s okay. People saying online that networking is never going to be awkward… I’m like a hyper-extrovert, and it’s still awkward. It just is. I think there are a few ways you can do it, and the most important thing is you find ways to network that feel more authentic to you.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): The blueprint I give most people, because I just find it to be most effective, is reach out to that warm network. You don’t tell them, “Hey, I need a referral.” You say, “Hey, we haven’t spoken in a while. I’d love to catch up.” You spend the majority of a 20-minute phone call that you set up virtually asking how that work experience they posted about on LinkedIn was.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): I just wanted to put that out there.” Just be human with it, and the reality is it’s gonna feel transactional, ’cause it is. And guess what? They’re gonna get a referral bonus if you get hired, and how is that not transactional? Who cares? it’s gonna be fine, and the reality is most people wanna help you out.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): They want to help you out. You have to assume people are inherently good, and most times they are. So just reach out to your network, be transparent, and lead with being human. You’re going to be okay. It’s going to feel weird up until the point you get a job.

Melody Wilding: That’s right, and you’ll be so happy you did it. But that point about taking the other perspective—that this person gets something from helping you as well—that gives them value. And you also never know what’s going on for them, right? Maybe they also want to make a switch, and you have a connection you could give them, or you could review their resume, or whatever it is.

Melody Wilding: You never know, but you have to get yourself into that conversation. You have to put yourself in the path of that serendipity, [00:24:00] which is why I love what you’re saying of just rekindling those connections because you never know where they’re going to lead. They may be hiring directly for their team. They may know someone in another division or department.

Melody Wilding: They may know someone at a totally different company they can introduce you to. There are so many different ways it could go, but if you just stay in your own head, nothing’s ever going to happen.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Ever. And I think, too, we have to remove this mindset that we are somehow a burden to the people we ask for help from. The truth is, you have helped people in your career, and they didn’t feel like burdens to you. It gave you purpose, and that’s what other people feel, too. I always kind of share this example, but I had an incredible mentor when I was working at a big bank, and he was just awesome.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): I asked that man questions all day, every day, and I was like, “Oh, this poor guy. All he did was coach me. Now I’m leaving the company. What a waste of time for him.” 10 years later, he’s ready to retire. Doesn’t he message me? And he’s like, “You need to explain [00:25:00] social media to me. As a concept.”

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): He’s like, “I think I wanna consult a little. I don’t get how to use LinkedIn.” phone call, and now he’s the one messaging me, being like, “What the hell’s a hashtag?” And that’s being human, and I don’t feel like he’s a burden. I feel great that I’m like, “Finally, this man did so much for me, and I get to do a little bit now.”

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So don’t undersell the value you bring to other people, too, whether it’s today or in the future, right? you are not a

Melody Wilding: Yes. Yes. Well, and,

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): You are

Melody Wilding: Yes. And hot take here—that it sounds like both of us somewhat agree on—is that relationships are inherently transactional to some degree, right? There’s always an exchange of value. That is why we are in a relationship. And so, I think it will come back around. Whether it’s now or it’s later, you will be able to give back to that person.

Melody Wilding: So, okay. I love this. What do you do… because there are a number of people I work with who say, “I’ve been at one company for 15 years now, [00:26:00] and it’s been a decade since I updated my resume” (we’ve talked about that), “but I don’t really have connections outside of here. I certainly don’t have connections where I want to go.”

Melody Wilding: And so tell me your take, or how you guide people on what to do to expand your network. Are you a fan of kind of cold outreach on LinkedIn to people who you see, asking for informational interviews? What do you do when you feel like you don’t have the sources for those referrals?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Yeah. So step number one: go to your friends—like your friends not from work. You would be shocked how many people’s boyfriend’s cousin’s uncle actually works in that industry. So go to a couple of your pals and be like, “Girls, does anyone work in this industry? Quick question, do we know anyone?” That’s an incredible place to start. You would be shocked how many times someone has a cousin who does something kind of similar to what you do and it’s close enough.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So start with your friends. I am pro LinkedIn outreach, as long as we’re managing [00:27:00] expectations. You’re going to send 10 messages and get one response, and that’s actually totally fine. So for that stuff, that’s where we unfortunately get that trial of LinkedIn Premium for the 30 days or whatever their free trial is. Pound out those messages, we get a 10% response rate if we’re lucky, and that’s totally fine. And have those cold conversations. That’s all great.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): there’s also one thing I always like to say, a lot of people will tell you if you know the format of a company’s email, just email people. I think that’s freaky and weird. Don’t do that. Stick to LinkedIn. Stick to events. Okay? Let’s talk cold email. I think it’s a little

Melody Wilding: I love that. Yes, and I remember back in the day coming across there was almost this email tool, which I’m sure you could do this with AI in a second now, but it was like a manual spreadsheet that would take—you would input someone’s name, and it would spit out hundreds of possible email formats for them, and you would just put them all on BCC to try to reach that person at that company.

Melody Wilding: [00:29:00] Yeah, please don’t be that person. The ambition is there. Let’s channel it in the right way. And it’s interesting for people to also hear that recruiters may be there looking for talent. A lot of people don’t think that way. They think, “Oh, I’ll meet someone who may be able to introduce me,” but not the recruiter directly or a hiring manager directly. But that makes a lot of sense.

Melody Wilding: So with that type of person, do you have to bide your time before you ask for a referral? How direct can you be about like, “Hey, I saw this role is open. Would you put in a good word for me?” Where do you land with that?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Yeah, I think it’s where networking feels even more uncomfortable when we feel like we have to play fake for three months before we ask for a favor. I’d argue: don’t do that. Be genuine and be kind in your conversations. Ask real questions about how you can learn and grow, and be upfront in that first conversation.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): you know, someone [00:30:00] already knows when you’re networking. You probably want something, maybe it’s coaching, maybe it’s referrals. It’s okay to just lead with that. Don’t feel like you need, a four-month runway to get there. But it’s about how we ask it. How I always recommend people ask these questions isn’t, can I get a referral?”

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Or, “Can you, you know, pop in a good word for me?” Unless it- that’s, your close personal we get on friend. I’m a big believer in, “I saw this role posted. Do you know who’s running that process? Do you know, who’s, who’s, who’s leading that?” they’re probably gonna say, “Oh, it’s, yeah, it’s this, this gal from HR.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): I know she’s awesome. Why don’t I connect you?” Or, “Oh, actually, you know what? My buddy’s hiring for this. Let me connect you to them.” So asking it like that softens it, removes some of that anxiety, and it offers the best-case scenario. Which isn’t… Side note: the best-case scenario isn’t that you get referred in their system.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): That’s not your best-case scenario. The best-case scenario is they send your resume to the person they know, and they say, “I met this person. I like them.” That’s your best-case scenario because then you get automatic connection. [00:31:00] They’ll still put you in the system afterwards, but you know, there might be 12 other people referred for that job.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): But there might only be one asking, “Do you know who’s running the process?” And boom, you’re in their inbox. that’s the stuff that I think, really, really makes the difference. And there was one candidate I had who came to a lot of in-house events. We would host little mixers, stuff like that. She was at all of them, and she was upfront from the jump.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): She’s like, “I want to work here.” And I was like, “I like your energy.” And we would chit-chat, yada yada. And there was a point where she’s like, “You know what? I’m officially ready to make that jump. Let me send you my resume.” I popped her resume off to four or five of my managers and was like, “This girl wants to work here.”

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): She’s been consistent, her energy is great, experience in this is good. What do you think? She was hired within a month because she was a “friend of the company.” I was able to say, “I spoke to her enough. I think she works the way we work. I think she thinks well.” It makes you a person, and that’s so important.

Melody Wilding: Okay. That question is golden. “Who runs this process?” Golden. Because it’s such an organic way [00:32:00] to open the door. You get intel either way, but it also opens the door without saying, “Hey, can you just slip my application in?” Yes, pretty please. But, okay, so you’re saying an actual referral is different than someone basically giving the other person your name.

Melody Wilding: What’s the difference, and how do you make sure you get one versus the other? Because I have had people where the person on the other end at the organization will say, “Yep, I’ll submit your name to our system.” But what I hear you saying is: don’t go that route if you can avoid it.

Melody Wilding: Try to get a conversation. So can you just give us the nuance of the difference between the two, and then how might you redirect if someone is pushing toward, “Yeah, I’ll just put it in the system as a referral”?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So both are good. So to be clear, if you’ve got an in-system [00:33:00] referral, this is not to complicate your life. Both are really good. How the in-system referral works is that employee goes into their HR tool—it’s their little referral page. They’ll pop in your name, your resume, and any notes about you, how they met you, whatever. That goes into the applicant tracking system.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So next to your job application, you have a fun little flag or a star next to your name that indicates, “Hey, someone at this company vouched for them.” What’s great about this is often recruiters are measured against how quickly they get back to referrals. If they get back to referrals, it basically gives you a white-glove experience, so it gives you a bit of a more elevated experience.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): What it doesn’t do is break that wall of technology. It doesn’t have two people talking about you. It says, “Okay, Melody’s a referral. Emily referred her.” Notes: they met here. Cool. It’s a good resume. It’s much less emotion-driven. It’s still very factual—it’s still very “words on a page” versus when someone has emailed me, especially someone I really respect at work, going, [00:34:00] “Met Melody at a coffee mixer last week. Good profile. Had a nice chat.”

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): That’s all it has to be. Now I get your resume. Now I have a personal, directed vouch for this candidate. I’m looking at this resume through a slightly different lens because not only did you upload the referral, you felt like she was good enough that you had to message me personally, and that says something.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): you know, most people are just gonna do what they’re comfortable with, and again, both are fabulous, but that’s why the question of who runs this process is so helpful ’cause the best case scenario is they connect you to the recruiter. You chit-chat, and the recruiter goes, “Have that person submit you as a referral,” and boom, now you’ve got both.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So it’s all about how you

Melody Wilding: So good. So good. Okay, I do want to talk a little bit about interviewing. Huge topic for us to get into, but specifically, how can you suss out in an interview if this is going to be a healthy place for you to work? That’s a big fear people [00:35:00] carry into these situations.

Melody Wilding: “Okay, yes, I feel comfortable enough talking about my expertise, but I’m really concerned. You know, I’m coming out of a difficult workplace situation. I’m afraid everyone’s on their best behavior during this interview process, and I’ll only discover the skeletons in the closet once I get into the role.” Is there anything you suggest that can help pull out or uncover maybe some of those dynamics before we say yes to an offer?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Definitely. The first is you need to realize recruiters are salespeople. and that’s not a dig. it’s- they’re great at what they do. Our job is to make sure that we sell you why this job is a great fit for you, why the company is great. A recruiter is never gonna sit there and be like, “This place is horrible.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): “Run.” That’s just the truth. They’re protecting their job as well. So you just need to be realistic about how transparent they’re going to be. I still think it’s worth asking some questions, though, because it becomes—especially the more you interview—easier to realize who’s trying to cover your eyes. Saying things like, “What does performance management look like?” That’s one of my favorite things to ask.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Good answers to this are, “We have a structure. We do annual performance reviews.” If it’s, “Oh, it’s up to the discretion of each team”, eek, that sounds like room for a lot of bias. So performance is great. What does attrition look like on this team? Do you mind if I ask why this role is open? Those are things. And I gotta be honest, I’ve had candidates ask that, where the truth was the turnover on this team’s high ’cause it’s hard, and I would tell them, “This is a tough job, and then you get to decide if that’s the right fit for you.” If you don’t think you’re gonna get that out of the recruiter or you’re just frankly not feeling comfy, go on LinkedIn.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Look up the job title that you’ve applied to with the company. You can DIY see what attrition is. If people are leaving this job every six [00:37:00] months to a year, friend, that’s not good. That is… Something is amiss. Something is amok. How long has that manager been in place? go on Fishbowl or Reddit. Look up this company.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): See what people are actually saying. I would take it a step further: go on TikTok. You know, people come home from work, and Gen Z especially, they’ll be like, “These people are crazy.” You can get a sense of the company culture through socials now more than ever.

Melody: Yeah.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): them a

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Love this. Love that. And that also makes me think, too, that even you could use LinkedIn to go kind of poke around at other people’s profiles. I know that tenure isn’t always a sign of someone’s happiness, but there’s still a gauge you could get from people’s posts. Are they posting about their team and their outings and whatever?

Melody Wilding: How long have they been in a certain role? Do you see that they’ve progressed there from manager to director to VP, whatever it is? So all of these are little signals that you’re gathering to create a fuller picture. As you were saying, it’s not [00:38:00] foolproof, but it gives you a leg up certainly.

Melody Wilding: The last thing I want to get your opinion on is follow-up, because we’ve been talking this whole conversation about how everyone is busy, everyone is bombarded by AI, and job applications are getting 2,000 applicants in the first couple of days. It is just… the volume is so difficult to keep up with.

Melody Wilding: What do you do if you are getting ghosted? I want to hear this from two perspectives. Number one is being ghosted during the networking phase, where you are trying to get on a call with someone or get a referral through them. And then I want to ask about during the interview process, when you’ve maybe had a screening and they go cold from there.

Melody Wilding: So let’s talk about that first one, during the referral process. How much should you follow up? Because going back to your burden comment before, people don’t [00:39:00] want to bug people. I don’t want to be annoying. What would you say?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So when it comes to the referral, “slow” is different than ghosting. At the end of the day, they are doing you a favor. You are not their number-one priority. That’s just the hard truth. So I think following up after you’ve gotten a referral, wait two weeks—that’s how slow things can be at times. Do a little check-in. A couple weeks after that, do another little check-in.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): If you don’t hear back with anything from the recruiter—because in theory, after you have been referred, it’s no longer the referrer’s job to give you updates, it’s actually the recruiter—shoot your referrer a message after a couple of weeks and be like, “Hey, just wanted to check in.”

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): I don’t want you burning bridges for a potential [00:40:00] connection in the future, and seen this a lot with referrers. They don’t, they’re not recruiters. They’re not equipped at times to explain, hey, you didn’t get the job. And instead of doing that and saying the wrong thing, especially if they’re a bit more green, just ghost, and it’s the wrong thing to do.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): That’s the, that’s the wrong approach, but I’ve seen it happen. and so I, I don’t want you to start following up to the point where the, the end result doesn’t change. So I would say follow up twice. If you don’t hear back, we make peace with it, or we find the recruiter and follow up with them. As far as in the interview God, I hate this.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): I hate this. Especially, it’s one thing if you’re going to ghost me and I’m not going to hear back from an application—whatever, we haven’t spoken. But what do you mean? We had a full conversation, and now you want nothing to do with me? The best way to avoid getting ghosted is to make a personal connection so they feel guilty ghosting you.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): And I’m like, “Oh, okay. Thanks for flagging.” So there is a person there. Reach out and say, “Hey, I had an interview on this date. I just wanted to close the loop and get some feedback.” frame it as around feedback, not am I getting this job. ‘Cause the truth is you’re getting ghosted. You didn’t get the job. But the, the, the best case scenario is we get a little bit of feedback. If you had an interview process where you are three or four steps in, and it wasn’t just a pre-screen. I’m talking you’ve put some hours and elbow grease into this baby. have seen candidates, and this is an exclusively pulling case of emergency situation, look up the recruitment manager flag on LinkedIn.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): You reach out to them. They will check. “Hey, I had an interview on X date. I followed up five or six times. I haven’t heard back. Is there any way I can get some [00:43:00] feedback?” This is petty. This can be a little scorched-earth. However, you’re guaranteed to get some feedback, and I do think in certain cases, companies need to be held accountable.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): One of my close girlfriends went through a seven-step interview process, including a case study. They ghosted her for four months. She did this. I was like, “You know what? Reach out to the manager. This is crazy.” They finally declined her on New Year’s Eve at 8:00 PM via email. You know what I mean?

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So those are your three routes. The reality is it’s impossible to prevent ghosting, and ghosting is not your fault. It is typically a fundamental lack of resources on the team that is recruiting. but those are really your three routes. I, I tend to lead somewhere in the middle, where I’m gonna follow up, I’m gonna give you a firm email, I might go to the HR inbox,

Melody Wilding: Yeah. There, there’s more fish in the sea, right? So many analogies to dating. Yeah

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Just sucks. Common courtesy feels not very common, and I get it. systems make it hard. There’s human error. but if I [00:44:00] followed up six or

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): over email, honey, you saw it.

Melody Wilding: Well, I love that you’ve given us different escalation paths because I think people make that one follow-up—”Hey, any update here?”—and then they just feel totally stalled and demoralized. So even just to know you have some other levers you can pull if you want to, I think, is very reassuring and empowering for people. There are things I can do here instead of just feel like I wasted my time.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Totally. How hard is it to send someone an email? I don’t e- sometimes I don’t even need the

Melody Wilding: Exactly

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): just need you to say no. no problem. It’s fine. I spent 15 minutes on the phone with you. I’m not gonna lose sleep.

Melody Wilding: Yes.

Melody Wilding: Let me know if I can move on, yes or no, close this out rather than the open loop.

Melody Wilding: Emily, this was a lot of fun, and I think you have given people just so many practical tips—even ones I haven’t heard before. Some of these questions you gave us are gold. And I know people are going to want to follow you. Of course, [00:45:00] you have a huge social media presence, and you have a new book that is out.

Melody Wilding: Tell people where they can connect with you

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Oh, thank you so much, and you’re so incredible at what you do, so this was an absolute blast. But you can find me on socials, so Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Emily the Recruiter. You can listen to my podcast, lovingly called Clock In, which is also the title of my careers book. That’s available anywhere you get your books, but most especially available at your local bookstore.

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): So

Melody Wilding: Amazing. Thank you

Emily (@Emily.The.Recruiter): Thank you