Tips for Finding a Recruiter
How to Find and Partner With a Recruiter
By Alison Doyle
What’s the best way to find a recruiter and to work with a recruiter once you have established a recruiting relationship?
Here are tips and advice on finding a recruiter, standing out in a large candidate pool, building strategies relationships with recruiters, and how to make the best impression when working with a recruiter from career and recruiting experts.
Don’t Submit Your Resume to Every Recruiter
It’s best to identify one or two recruiters that specialize in your field and start to build relationships with them. Job seekers make the mistake of submitting their resume to every recruiter, thinking it will maximize their chances. But recruiting agencies are typically all working within the same client pool, and if you have multiple agencies submitting your resume for a job, it puts the hiring company in a difficult situation of determining which agency to work with. In many cases, the hiring company may choose to pass over a candidate completely, rather than get into a debacle with competing agencies over who deserves the referral fee.
Dana Leavy, small business & career consultant,Aspyre Solutions
Dress to Impress
Even when meeting with your recruiter, not future employers, you should dress formally. Recruiters want to know that they are being represented in a professional way. Dressing formally every time reassures them of this fact.
Rebecca Meissner, Director of Enterprise Products and Recruitment Specialist, BranchOut
Establish Strategic Relationships
Do yourself a favor – establish strategic relationships with a select few agencies whom you feel confident are working with your best interest in mind, check in with them regularly, make sure they keep you in full disclosure about where they send your resume. A solid relationship with a good recruiter should be more of a partnership, a potential win-win for all parties involved.
Dana Leavy, small business & career consultant, Aspyre Solutions
Send Thank You Notes
Sending a thank you note to your recruiter means you’ll do it for their client. Most recruiters will remind candidates to send a note post-interview, but doing it for the recruiter shows that you are responsible. Most importantly, they’ll remember you, and that’s important seeing as the average contingent search recruiter meets with five candidates a day – that’s 20 per week. You need to stand out!
Rebecca Meissner, Director of Enterprise Products and Recruitment Specialist, BranchOut
Stand Out From the Crowd
Always be upfront with a recruiter and tell them if you cannot make an appointment, have other long-term goals, are waiting for a job offer you interviewed for last week. Recruiters are professionals and deserve the right to be treated as such. This will allow you to build a rapport with the recruiter and professional etiquette will make you stand out in a large pool of candidates as someone with integrity and professionalism both for now and in the future.
Cindy Lopez, Blogger of Career Casual – Work/Life Balance for Women
Use Them Again
Once you pick a recruiter, stay loyal. When you job hop, always let them know. It confirms that you had a good experience with them the first time, and re-brands your name in their brain. The more you go back to them, the faster they’ll want to help you find a job. You performed well for them the first time, why wouldn’t they want to help you again? Candidates that use recruiters for a second and third time tend to get placed almost double the time.
Rebecca Meissner, Director of Enterprise Products and Recruitment Specialist, BranchOut
