In case you haven’t noticed, good recruiters are busy people. They don’t have a lot of time for chit chat. Corporate clients want their help; job hunters need their help finding work and want their attention.
How can you get noticed by the busy recruiter?
1. Send them a resume that fits a role they are recruiting for. Don’t just send a generic resume when you can really see your experience fits a role they are trying to fill. Send one that that makes the fit absolutely clear. Otherwise, your resume goes into the “maybe I’ll call when I have a few minutes” category . . . or the “no call” or “maybe I’ll put this resume in my data base” category.
2. Write a great LinkedIn profile. A keyword rich LinkedIn profile will go a long way to attract the attention of a recruiter. It needs to be congruent with what you say in the resume you send to them ESPECIALLY if you work for a company that is not in “top tier of firms” in your business or in your specific field. Recruiters are cross referencing with LinkedIn
3. No B. S.. Be honest about what you are looking for. Ask great questions of them. Don’t be rude or insulting if you disagree with an opinion. File it away and look for confirmation as the process goes on or a reason to change your opinion if the recruiter is proven right.
4. Specialist or Generalist. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is the relationship the recruiter has with the client and whether they can accurately assess for skills. Check their background on LinkedIn just like they check yours. The recruiter who says they have 15 years experience and only has 5 months is more common than you think!
5. Consider a blog. Recruiters aren’t just looking at LinkedIn. They are sourcing using many sites and services to identify talent their client might be interested in. Blogs are a great way to show the depth of your knowledge (assuming you have some depth to your knowledge).
6. Don’t hound recruiters. A daily or weekly call to see, “What’s going on,” will get you noticed for the wrong reason. If recruiters took calls from everyone who wanted to know what was going on, they wouldn’t have time to do what everyone really wwants them to do– find a firm who wants to hire someone with their experience.
7. Follow the firm’s job openings and let them know when you think you fit. I used to operate a Yahoo! group that notified people when there was a new opening. Now my website does that for me plus I post to my Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn accounts. Recruiters sometimes make mistakes. Follow their jobs and let them know when you think you fit something they are trying to recruit for.
Good recruiters are busy, just like you are. They provide a service and you don’t pay for that service–the corporate client does.
Put yourself in a position to be found and then understand how you can influence the process in their minds so they believe in you will go a long way to getting noticed and having a successful relationship with one.
© 2014 all rights reserved.
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Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.
JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.
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