Thanks to everyone who participated in our survey (link in 1st comment).

Here is a short reminder for the recruiter’s practice and our take on it.

“I work as a recruiter. I always call a candidate 20 minutes before an interview, put an Indian accent and pretend to be from a Mumbai call centre asking about a car accident. Have rejected so many people from jobs because they get so angry at me”.

Informed Decisions take:

This practice is WRONG in so many ways, here are our top 3:

1. It’s deceitful - What does it say about the values of the organization/recruiter that uses dishonest techniques to asses their candidates?
2. Not necessarily indicative of the candidate’s character - Let’s say you called a candidate and they got mad at you - does it necessarily mean that they are bad people? what are the alternative explanations? (Might be stressed out before the interview, might think that someone is messing with them). What about those candidates that were patient and nice? does it necessarily say that they always behave like this? or could it be that you caught them on a good day?
3. What does this say about the recruiter’s ability to assess the candidate on the actual interview? - Interviewing is hard. Candidates put their best faces on and manage impression. But it’s the interviewer's job to ask good and relevant questions and dig deeper to unveil the candidate’s skills and character during the interview.