How To Work With a Recruiter
“I don’t find good people jobs, I find my clients good people”.
How to work with a recruiter.
I have been recruiting for 13 years and I’m sure I am mostly like other recruiters accept I never wanted a big firm with lots of employees. I have just focused on a small niche and developed great clients that I like to work with and I thoroughly enjoy the interaction with candidates in the search and hiring process.
One thing that I have had to deal with constantly, is what I would call a misconception on the part of active candidates looking for a job, and that is that they have this idea that I probably can hardly wait to talk to them. They falsely assume that their need for a job is exactly in line with my desire to find them a job. Unfortunately, that is rarely how it works. The truth is I would love to help them find a job, but I just don’t have time! Let me be blunt and tell you exactly what I communicate to these people in my 2-3 minutes spiel over the phone and it is this simple: “I don’t find good people jobs, I find my clients good people”. My clients pay me a fee to help them find candidates that they are struggling to find on their own. So, unless you happen to be in the right geography and happen to be an exact fit to the current job description I am working, chances are I can’t help you at that time. It sincerely breaks my heart when I hear the desperation in some people’s voice as I can tell they are really struggling in their job search. So, let me give you some simple tips about recruiters and how to work with them:
- You should absolutely call on as many recruiters as you can, especially ones that specialize in your field of interest. In the above commentary I am serious that I can not typically help the person at that particular time, but that does not in any way mean that I don’t want to make a connection, get your resume in my database and take notes on things like income target, possible cities of relocation and other pertinent information for future opportunities. I would follow up with a recruiter from time to time and indicate that you are keeping an eye on the job listings on their website and that you just want to stay in touch so they don’t forget you. They will appreciate that immensely.
- Don’t expect a recruiter to call you back every week to “check in”. Over the last 13 years I have a home grown database of over 30,000 professionals. My database is very searchable and when I have a “job order” that you are a fit for, you typically will pop right up when I search, and I will definitely be in touch to check your interest. There is just no way I can keep track of this many people.
- One thing I often tell active job seekers that I don’t have anything for at the time is “hey, if you see a job that looks like a great fit, please don’t hesitate to drop me a note to see if I can help make a connection. A hot hand off is way better than a cold online application”. I am more than happy to help make a connection thru my network if I can, and I don’t need a fee out of it. I have certainly had my fair share of placed candidates who became clients down the road and all because I still try hard to abide by my old Boy Scout Motto “Do a Good Turn Daily”. I think any good recruiter worth their salt would want to help if they can as well.
- I am a professional independent recruiter, i.e. I work for myself and offer my services to companies struggling to fill key roles. There are a ton of what I call “direct recruiters” and these are people who work directly for the company and are almost always part of the Human Resources department and often do mostly what I do as well. There is a lot more to it than this, but I just mention this as it will be helpful to know if you are dealing with a “middle-man” like me who may have many jobs across many companies across the whole country or a direct employee of the company trying to fill the position. You peeps that have been around a while can stop rolling your eyes now, there are always newbies to every industry you know!
- LinkedIn: I love’em and I hate’em (could write 10 blogs on this), but the fact is they are a recruiter’s playground, and you should understand this. If you are early in your career, do a good job and very professionally connect with as many people as you can on LinkedIn. If you are in Job search mode, I highly recommend that you put your contact information front and center on your profile, and this is why. Every recruiter knows that a good LinkedIn profile is worth it’s weight in gold, and if your contact information is very visible, you are probably at least subtlety telling recruiters that you are open to be communicated with and open to opportunities. Being able to reach out to you directly saves them the expense of an “InMail” and hoping you check your account once in a while. Depending on the services a recruiter pays for, there are other more direct ways to know you are open to opportunities, but this is a great way to receive good job opportunities in my opinion.
That’s it for now, if you read this, fire me a connect request on LinkedIn: