We interviewed a recruiting expert about employment trends in 2023

Being able to connect with industry experts and pick their brain (=get information) about emerging trends is something we have always loved to do at English For IT.

Especially when our audience gets to participate in the process!

This is exactly what happened when we interviewed ​​Lesya Arnold, a recruiting expert based in the USA.

Lesya is the Founder of A-Players Recruiting. Her company has hired talent for Wix, Unstoppable Domains, Mindvalley, Veriff, and many other impactful startups helping mission-driven founders fundraise and build top-performing teams.

Here are some of the questions our audience asked Lesya during our recent live event and the answers she shared.

Question: How could I showcase (=demonstrate) my soft skills before the job interview? Should I or should I not mention soft skills on my resume?

Answer: Yes, you can by all means mention your soft skills on your resume but be sure to give specific examples of how you used them. For example, instead of putting the word “collaboration” in your skills section, put that as an achievement in your work experience section. For instance:

Collaborated with clients and stakeholders to generate product feature ideas.

Some other things that validate your soft skills are:

- your online presence (consider writing posts on LinkedIn or professional forums if you have something to share)

- networking events (use soft skills to attend events and connect with people, including recruiters and prospective employers)

- using ChatGPT (yes, this is genuine advice) — show that you have used emerging (=brand new) technologies such as ChatGPT in your specific position and how it helped you optimize your work, save time, or add value.

Question: How to look up the salary range if it’s not public?

Answer: Not every company has their salary information publicly available and that can make research a bit tricky. Still, there are things you can do to find out the salary range for a specific position you’re applying for. The best thing you can do is leverage your network.

- talk to people who work at the company you’re applying to and have them give you an approximate salary range for your desired position.

- talk to people who have left this company — they are even more likely to give you accurate salary information since they have more freedom to share it.

Of course, you can and should also use public resources such as glassdoor.com.

Question: What are the main recruiter’s pain points these days?

Answer: Good question! There are quite a few (=many) actually:

1. Time management — everyone including recruiters these days needs to hustle (=actively look for opportunities) more to get results. Hustling in a competitive industry is time-consuming so you really need to figure out what you want to pour your time into.
2. Optimizing the hiring process — now is the best time for companies to hire top A-player talent but knowing where and how to find this top talent, then attract and filter it is a challenge that requires strategic thinking.

There are many more pain points of course, but let’s not ramble (=talk at great length) too much : )

Question: My recruitment agency conducts a full MBTI assessment of candidates. Is this something worth mentioning to the US clients? Can this be a selling point?

Answer: MBTI is probably the best personality test out there. I’m a big believer in it and my team uses it very often.

Having said that, MBTI is just one of the tools in your toolbox. I don’t see how using it sets you apart (=makes you different) from other recruitment agencies on the market. It’s a bit like saying that you’ve mastered using Google Calendar — good for you, but it’s not going to be a major deciding factor if you get the job on not.

To recap, MBTI is a great tool to leverage. Feel free to tell the client that you’re using this test as part of your assessment process, but remember that it is not a major selling point — just a nice little addition.

Thanks, Lesya for sharing your expertise with our audience!

Need to prepare for a job interview? Check out our Job Interview Crash Course.