How To – And How Not To – Work With A Recruiter When Looking For A Job

iStock | Nuthawut Somsuk

A common misconception is that you, as a job seeker, can hire a headhunter and they will find a job for you. That isn’t the way it works.

Companies hire staffing firms or independent recruiters to manage the complex and laborious process of finding, recruiting, interviewing, and successfully placing new talent. A business can employ a full-time recruiter, outsource to a staffing firm, or contract with an independent recruiter on a need-to-hire basis. In every scenario, companies employ recruiters, so no one should be surprised they act in the best interests of the employer, not the job seeker.

 However, a major quirk of the company-recruiter relationship is the recruiter’s currency is talented professionals, not the companies that pay them, so developing relationships with as many skilled professionals as possible is a vital part of their job. The wider a recruiter’s net, the more valuable they are in the marketplace, so recruiters and workers have a vested interest in developing mutually beneficial relationships that go beyond a single job.

 This is where you enter. Your initial interaction with a staffing firm or recruiter is job specific. You apply for a job through a recruiting agency’s website and they reach out to you if they believe you’re a potential hire. What if you don’t get the job? Is that it? How you approach your relationship with the recruiter will determine whether it’s one and done, or if your professional network gains an effective agent to advance your goals.

 Here are some tips to effectively manage your relationship with a staffing firm or recruiter.

1.     Be strategic about whom you contact. Staffing firms/recruiters specialize in certain disciplines like accounting, information technology, executive, etc. If you’re a database administrator, you should work with a recruiter whose relationships are in information technology, not leisure and hospitality. Each firm/recruiter will have different clients. Do your homework! For example, let’s say you have a list of the top five companies you want to work for. Try to find out if they use a staffing firm or recruiter and target that firm or person.

2.     Always Be Marketing. A meeting with a recruiter should be treated with the same seriousness and preparation as an actual job interview. You are the product and this is the time to be an aggressive salesperson. Recruiters are not part of the hiring decision. They only present candidates. However, they are the gatekeepers of the interview process and you have to get through the gate if you want to be on the inside. When you speak or meet with a recruiter, you’re asking them to lower the gate. To do that, be your biggest advocate. Make a lasting impression on the recruiter so they don’t ask, “Who was that?” when they’re flipping through resumes.  

3.     Be an easy candidate. Recruiters are busy. Very busy. If you are unemployed, you are not as busy as a recruiter. Yet, job seekers can be impatient and pushy with recruiters and that is a great way to diminish your professional reputation. Do not call them multiple times a day. Be gracious. Be prepared. Be on time. When you walk into the job interview the recruiter arranged for you, you represent yourself and them. You don’t have to get the job to make a permanent connection with the recruiter. You just have to be an easy candidate. If you are, recruiters will continue to work on your behalf.

4.     Be helpful. If someone gifted you $100, you would have a favorable opinion of them. The recruiters' currency is talented workers that they can place at one of their clients. If you want to get in good with a staffing firm or recruiter, proactively refer quality people to them. If you send “business” their way, they will have a favorable opinion of you (not to mention how grateful your friends will be if the recruiter ends up getting them a new job).

5.     Do not rely on the recruiter. Even if you have the best recruiter, they are busy. Very busy. They do not spend eight hours on you. You do not pay them. They spend eight hours a day juggling many open jobs and many people. Recruiters may have the autonomy to carry out the organization’s staffing objectives as they see fit or operate under strict timelines and directives. There is no way for you to know what happens behind the scenes, so don’t assume that working with an employment agency or recruiter is a guarantee. You are still responsible for finding a new job. Don’t punt. Stay on offense.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

10 Easy Ways to Drive a Recruiter Crazy

iStockphoto.com | skynesher

When you are searching for a job it is easy to feel like the faceless nameless recruiter is an adversary, when, in fact, he or she is just a normal person who, if given the chance, would love to give out jobs like candy on Halloween.  

However, anyone involved in a hiring process is busy with a full schedule of competing priorities and there is only so much any of us can accomplish in a single day. If you approach your job search in such a way that makes the corporate recruiter’s day easier and more successful, it is a valuable way to separate yourself from other candidates.

On the other hand, it’s not that difficult to make the recruiter’s job more difficult. Here are ten ways to drive a recruiter crazy (Hint: Don’t do these):

1.     Show up too early for your interview. It sounds reasonable, but if you show up too early you will throw off a carefully crafted interview schedule that most likely took a week of planning to finalize. The recruiter, and other staff, must now stop whatever they are doing to accommodate the fact you’ve arrived even if you are just sitting in a waiting area. Instead of seeming eager and responsible, showing up too early will complicate everyone’s day. It will make a bad first impression.

Recommended: Show up five minutes before your interview begins. If you arrive earlier than that, sit in your car until it’s time to go inside.

2.     Don’t set up or empty your voice mailbox. Have you noticed you haven’t gotten any voicemails recently? Make sure your phone has an up-to-date personalized greeting and periodically purge your voice mail of old messages so new ones can be left. If a recruiter calls and can’t leave a message, or if they aren’t certain they have reached the right person, you may miss out on a promising opportunity.

Recommended. Tend your voice mailbox like it’s a garden – keep it clean and welcoming.

3.     Change your salary expectations late in the game. Early in the process, the recruiter will (hopefully) ask for a desired salary range; the process then moves forward based upon this. Recruiters put time and effort into selecting and putting forward candidates based upon this number, so if a candidate in the final stage of an interview process ups their demands, it can derail the entire process. And you’ll appear to be an untrustworthy negotiating partner.

Recommended: Know your salary range in advance. Don’t explicitly agree in advance to a salary or salary range you are not prepared to accept.

4.     Dress poorly for the interview. Consider the recruiter’s position. When he or she advance a candidate for consideration, he or she is putting his or her reputation on the line and the candidates presented reflect upon the recruiter’s expertise and judgment. Between two qualified candidates, the job seeker who appears professional will win out over the one that looks like they just rolled out of bed.

Recommended: Dress your best and polish your shoes.

5.     Fail to disclose a potential issue that will show up in a background check. Many job offers will not be made until a candidate successfully passes a background check [“The Skinny on Pre-Employment Background Checks”]. If your job application requests the type of information that will eventually be discovered during a background check and it is left blank, it may be construed as a “lie of omission”.

Recommended: Be honest and forthright on an application. It’s important to own it. And if it’s something serious, you may wish to consult a legal professional for advice.

6.     Play sides against each other. Even the simplest hiring process normally involves more than one person, and each has a specific role to play. Once the interviews begin, there will most likely be a single point of contact whose role it is to navigate the hiring process. If you circumvent the normal channels, which puts everyone involved in a tough spot. The perception may be that you are playing games and going behind people’s backs.

Recommended: While you should be aggressive in trying to reach a hiring manager to get your application noticed, once the interview process starts it’s important to respect the chain of command.

7.     Show up to an interview without copies of your resume. There are multiple issues at play here. First, if you take the time to inquire how many people will be present during an interview and you arrive with résumés for each of them, you have already demonstrated attention to detail and that you know how to be prepared. Second, recruiters want you to succeed, but he or she is not your secretary. Recruiters should not be put in a position where they have to make extra copies on your behalf.

Recommended: Always bring more copies of your resume to the interview than you think you will need.

8.     Be a stalker. After an interview, there is protocol. Send a thank you note and wait. Candidates who make incessant phone calls to recruiters, or flood their email box, will soon find themselves without support from arguably the most important person in the process.

Recommended: You can be assertive, but be measured. Usually a single follow-up via email or phone to the recruiter after a reasonable period of time will be sufficient. Gauge the response and decide your next action.

9.     Be a jerk. Being mindful of your behavior once you’re walking the halls of a company for the first time is important. Do not spoil your confidence with arrogance. Do not be demanding of staff you have just met. During an interview, do not speak with disdain about current or former co-workers. Do not voice displeasure about anything (e.g. parking), even if your position is justified. You are a guest in someone else’s home.

Recommended: Behave as if your mother is watching. Mom taught you manners, she wants to see you use them.

10.  Forget to be professional and courteous to everyone you meet. As a major addendum to #9, at any given company the employees are a professional family and you are a stranger. That goes for everyone from the CEO to the receptionist. It is in your best interest to get every family member you encounter on your side. Even the most persuasive recruiter dedicated to delivering you a job offer may not be able to get you across the finish line if you treat even a single employee with disrespect, condescension, or dismissiveness.

Recommended: Act as if every employee you meet has veto power over your candidacy. They probably do.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercareerstrategies.com.

High-Impact Resume Strategies For Creative Professionals

iStockphoto.com | scyther5

The most substantial asset graphic designers, art directors, interior designers, photographers, fine artists, marketers, and other creative professionals possess is their ability to translate a concept into an attractive visual presentation. It is both their tool and their trade.

When meeting with hiring managers or potential clients, creatives need to demonstrate their ideas and experience in a professional fashion.

The first piece of work such an applicant usually presents is their resume. A beautifully designed resume, with nice fonts, illustrations, layouts, and graphics can quickly demonstrate to a hiring manager at an advertising agency or within a corporate marketing department a candidate’s visual design and copy writing skills.

But, the realities of the corporate job application process get in the way. Companies often use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to gather and sort resumes, and on top of the challenges they present to every applicant, they can even more quickly derail applications for creative professionals.

Creative professionals tend to focus on form, building complex layouts in programs such as Adobe InDesign that incorporate graphic illustrations and other elements. Applicant tracking platforms, on the other hand, generally require a plain, simple design in order to parse resume data – this means a resume created in Microsoft Word, with a single column of text. These systems often disregard (or can’t read) anything presented in text boxes, graphics, or tables, and recruiters will generally pass over resumes that the system hasn’t been able to fully understand. A resume with a complex design will appear at the bottom of the applicant tracking system’s ranking of the applicants against the job description.

So, how can creative professionals increase their chances of securing an interview and, ultimately, the job?

• Build an ATS-Friendly Version of Your Resume. In order to make it easier for the applicant tracking system to parse the data and, hopefully, give your resume a higher ranking, use a single-column format. Don’t include large tables or graphics, as these can make a resume hard to scan. Even if you follow these guidelines, there could still be issues parsing data – if so, try saving your resume as a .txt file and uploading that version. And use your ATS-friendly resume for all online applications.
  

• Keep a Graphically-Designed Version of Your Resume Handy, Too. Yes, you’ll want to have two versions, because the hiring manager will use the designed version to evaluate your creative eye. If the applicant tracking system lets you upload attachments along with your resume, absolutely upload your graphically-designed resume, along with samples of your work. And print out copies of this resume to hand out during an interview.
  

• Develop Your Portfolio and Put it Online. A nicely designed portfolio of your work is a fantastic way to highlight your skills and achievements. Create an online version with your best work samples, and include a URL link to your portfolio in the header of your resume. You can also post this in your LinkedIn profile for greater exposure.
  

• Don’t Rely Solely on Your Online Application. There’s a lot you can do to get noticed. After applying online, try to identify the decision-maker for the position on LinkedIn. Then send him or her a brief note – via LinkedIn or through email – to inform them that you’ve applied online, and ask where you can send your resume and portfolio samples. A well-timed message can potentially improve your changes of being seen by the hiring manager, regardless of how the applicant tracking system scores your resume.

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercareerstrategies.com.