Jeremy Johnson has a new guest blog post this week with why it is a good idea to work with recruiters with the help/exposure they can give you in your job search.
Jeremy is a recruiter in Kansas City for EHD Technologies, a recruiting, staffing and managed services company serving the IT, Engineering and Automotive industries.
You can also follow him on Twitter at jsquaredkc
The Case for Working with Recruiters:
As crazy as I know it sounds, some people just don’t like working with recruiters. Nuts, right? Unbelievable! Well, maybe not so much, because they’re out there. You know who you are.
Now, maybe you’ve had a bad experience with a recruiter or you know someone who has. It happens. I can’t tell you how many bad experiences I’ve had with candidates. So, it really does go both ways. Or, maybe you’re just more the do-it-yourself type. Or, maybe you think that a recruiter’s fee would be coming out of your new salary, so you’re financially better off going solo (which isn’t the case, anyway but that’s probably a topic for another blog). But, regardless, if you’ve been hesitant to work with recruiters in the past, here are some good reasons you should reconsider.
We can get your resume into the right hands: In an age where your application includes an hour of filling out some strange online form just to watch that application go down a mysterious black hole, never to be seen again, recruiters can get you the visibility you want and need. The reason is that we have relationships with the actual company hiring managers and decision makers. Whereas you have to send in an electronic application and cross your fingers, we’re emailing your resume directly to the person who’s supposed to see it, and we can follow up with a phone call directly to that person. The fact that we’re recruiting on a position proves we have a business relationship with that company. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be working on it. So, consider the choice of where your resume goes – black hole or hiring manager. You choose.
We can market you better: Because we have relationship with our client companies and know their business and culture, we know how to put your best foot forward with that company. We know what it is about you that they would like, or what it is specifically about your background that would solve the problems presented in this job. For example, at EHD Technologies the first thing we put on any formatted resume that we send to a client is a brief candidate summary; it’s a customized message that tells what you specifically bring to the table that that particular company would be interested in for that role. The bottom line is that we can target the message to give you a better shot at an interview.
We can make the salary question a little less of a guess: One of the biggest complaints I hear about applying directly through a company’s website is that you’re forced to list a salary. What a nail-biter of a question. Whatever number you put in, you’re wondering, “Did I just price myself too high? Did I just leave money on the table?” You’re basically negotiating against yourself. It stinks. What recruiters can do is help to negotiate the salary minefield to where it’s not so much of a guess. We know our client’s budgeted range – something you probably wouldn’t know on your own. We can take that information, and combine it with your salary history, what you’re looking for, and where your flexibility might be, to position you for a salary you’d be happy with while not shooting ourselves in the foot and pricing you out of contention.
We can provide coaching and guidance: Job hunting is a job. For most people, though, they don’t spend nearly the same amount of time looking for jobs as they do actually working in a job. So, those jobhunting muscles probably haven’t gotten much exercise. For recruiters, job hunting is our job. We how to write a resume. More importantly, we know how to customize a resume. We know how to prepare for an interview. We know how to see and address what may be potentially red flags to a hiring company. Personally, I enjoy giving jobhunting advice. It’s sort of in my blood. And though what I know isn’t rocket science, I’ve seen countless “a-ha” moments in people I’ve worked with based on advice I’ve given. It’s because this is what I do. I should be good at it by now. If I wasn’t, I should find other work. If you’re a jobseeker, working with a recruiter means not having to figure all the job hunting stuff out for yourself. Not a bad resource to have.