A recruiter has contacted you seeking to schedule an interview, either an intro call with themselves or a phone screen with one of their economist interviewers. Great! The interview process is about to begin. But don't rush through this exchange. From what I've seen, a fair number of candidates doom themselves by not investing in the recruiter interaction. If that sounds like exaggeration, I can honestly tell you that based on my economist interviews at Amazon, I would estimate that this happens to 5-10% of candidates - and I suspect the problem might be even worse for non-economists.
Before I get into the details of how this happens, let's start with a couple simple facts:
Recruiters are generally not economists
Recruiters are paid, in large part, on how many applicants they bring to the company who are then eventually hired.
Most companies using recruiters to help their hiring process are large, or they would have their economists do the hiring themselves.
Obvious? Yes. But most people don't think through the implications:
The recruiters don't really know what you (economist/technical specialist) do.
The recruiters definitely don't know how what you do is different from other economists / people with seemingly similar backgrounds.
However, the recruiters do work for companies that are generally making multiple hires, usually for different teams at the company doing different things.
The recruiters will probably get paid (or receive favors that help them get paid) if they refer you to other teams / their friends in the company
What this means is that you should ask detailed questions about how you'll be interviewed. If it sounds like you'll be interviewed on things you don't know well: tell the recruiter that's not a good fit for you, suggest several things that would be a good fit for you, then ask if it's possible to get an interview that's more aligned with what is a good fit.
You should especially do this if your skillset is not in forecasting or applied micro, since most economist roles (and data science roles) focus on these skillsets in the technical interviews. However, even if you do have a skillset in forecasting or applied micro, you should at least confirm that your interview will focus on the right skillset! I've encountered plenty of people who wanted a forecasting interview but were assigned applied micro and vice versa. I was usually able to switch the interview, and in one case, I actually told an EIO candidate in an applied micro interview to just interview with someone else (and I told the recruiter as well). But given how frequently I see this, I am left wondering: how many candidates wander into an interview that doesn't test their area of expertise, get shelled, and never get called back?
If I had to summarize all my advice for you, it would be this: most recruiters aren't going to know what you do, and they're not going to know how you're different or special, even if they work closely with economists. But if you have that conversation with them about what you do, they will make an effort to understand, help find interviewers who are a good fit for you, and calibrate those interviewers' expectations.
Your interviewers having calibrated expectations is perhaps the most critical steps to you passing an interview. And you have some control over this!
A last word on recruiters: Dealing with them can be frustrating. The most common complaint I've heard (and that I personally have had) is that after being contacted, you can submit a resume or even do an interview and then never hear back from them again. This "reject by ignore" policy is inconvenient and - frankly - emotionally miserable. At the end of my job search, I had a pretty low opinion of most corporate recruiters. 300 interviews later, though, I think about recruiting very differently and I understand why the recruiters do what they do. They are hard working, cheerful (amazingly cheerful!) people who genuinely want the candidates to succeed. The problem is that they are completely overworked and the company does not pay them to interact with people who didn't get an offer, besides maybe saying, "Try again in 6-12 months." So hate the game, not the player.