Candidate Prep Friend or Foe?

When it comes to candidate preparation, there seems to be two major schools of thought. On one side, there is the school of recruiters who believe strongly in the benefits of preparing candidates before send outs. These staffing professionals believe it's their responsibility to provide a good candidate prep to help close hiring gaps and assist hiring managers with weak interview skills. On the other hand, other recruiters feel coaching their candidates before an interview interferes with the integrity of the interview. These recruiters feel their highest obligation is to not interfere and let both candidates and clients be their natural selves. They fear prepping results in a candidate who appears rehearsed and that it prevents their client from getting a "true" picture of their candidate's abilities. They also point out that many candidates are using more than one agency, as such prepping is a time consuming task that may not yield returns.

What do you think?

Comment by See_Jane_Recruit on February 18, 2009 at 12:51pm: I do a moderate amount of pre-interview prepping. For an initial phone interview I just relay who will be calling, what their title and role is in the company, and what kind of questions to expect (technical, personal, HR stuff, etc.) If the client is quirky or extremely focused on certain qualifications I will give my candidate that info and make sure they have a seamless explination/response--otherwise I think it overwhelms the candidate to do a lot of interview prepping. Then again, it depends on the field you are recruiting for...