• Brandon Southern is the former head of analytics at eBay, Amazon, and GameStop.

• He explains that candidates often forget to be relatable during interviews.

• Southern recommends that candidates try to gather as much information up-front.

A key element of getting hired is being relatable, but it's something that is frequently overlooked by candidates during the interview process.

One reason for this is because it is natural to take the job description or interviewers' questions at face-value and simply provide answers to their questions.

However, to get hired, you need to do more than have experience and check the necessary boxes. You and your experience need to be seen as relatable as possible to the job that you're applying for. The trouble is, the information that allows you to be relatable isn't always openly disclosed.

In the most common scenario, a candidate views a job posting, sees that there are several basic and preferred qualifications that the hiring manager is looking for, and determines if they meet most of those requirements. The candidate goes on to apply for the job and if they're lucky enough to get contacted by the recruiter, the candidate will have a 30-minute call with the recruiter to discuss the position at a very high-level.

During the conversation, the candidate will be pitching themselves to the recruiter, trying to get the recruiter to move the candidate along in the interview process. The recruiter will also be giving a pitch, and at the same time the recruiter will be vetting the candidate. Normally the candidate has about 5 minutes at the end of the interview to ask questions.

Unfortunately, many candidates don't have any questions, or they ask questions that won't help them during the interview process.

Lack of relatability

Frequently, candidates will ask questions about compensation, culture, remote work, or possibly why the position is open. But rarely does a candidate ask questions about the details of the work environment.