As my friend Skip Freeman noted in his excellent post titled SECOND Most Used Website by Recruiters and Companies, it is important that job seekers work to improve their ability to be found and professional presentation on LinkedIn and Zoominfo. If you are actively looking for a new job or simply would like to have strangers call you and offer you better jobs while you are NOT looking, I recommend you read Skip’s post and follow his suggestions.
My post today examines the recruiter world from some additional perspectives, based upon some recent recruiter training I have received. Since recruiters are the gatekeepers you must engage to access many jobs, the following information will benefit you by increasing your odds of them calling you rather than ignoring you.
To keep it simple, recruiters are driven by two general strategies. The most common strategy is to identify a position that needs to be filled and then seek candidates that match the job description/requirements. The second and less common strategy, used almost exclusively by third party recruiters, is to begin by locating a Most Place-able Candidate (MPC) who they will direct market to potential employers… even though there is no specific need known at the time.
Regardless of the strategy being pursued by a recruiter, in order to identify likely candidates they must leverage technology to sort through vast amounts of information efficiently. Here are five suggestions from which you can benefit:
- Recruiters want to focus on industry and professional niches, so they can be more efficient. For example, if they focus on finance people supporting smaller manufacturers then they figure out what type accounting and financial reporting software these employers tend to run, what functional parts of the job are most important to them, etc. So, as a job seeker, you need to be sure you understand these same things and insure they are specifically highlighted in your resume, your LinkedIn profile, and your ZoomInfo profile.
- Recruiters want to be able to contact you easily, which means they need your phone number and email address. So, as a job seeker, you need to be sure this contact information is included in your LinkedIn and ZoomInfo profiles.
- Recruiters want you to be responsive to their information requests, which means it is to your advantage to promptly complete their applications, questionnaires, etc. So, as a job seeker, you need to be responsive in order to avoid immediate and future elimination.
- Recruiters want to work with upbeat candidates, which means your voicemail prompt needs to be perky and you need to answer each phone call in an energetic, positive manner. So, as a job seeker, you need to record a great voicemail prompt and answer all incoming calls properly.
- Recruiters want you to be honest and they tend to be better judges of character than most candidates realize. So, as a job seeker, prepare in advance for the most challenging questions you anticipate (“Why did you leave your last job?”, “What is your greatest weakness?”, etc.) so you can give honest responses while not over-volunteering negative information. As mentioned in Chapter 8 of Fast Track Your Job Search (and Career!),
If you are not a good fit for a position they are seeking to fill, admit it. Continue to chat them up if they will give you the time. They will give you credit for being honest and, as you talk more, they may think of ideas that will help you.
If you will take action in the first two areas, you will more likely be found by recruiters. If you will take action in the last three areas, you will tend to get more recruiter calls that will produce better results. Good luck and happy hunting!
