I don’t want to use recruiters in my job search!
At Resume Spider, we hear the following statement often… “I don’t want to use recruiters in my job search!”
My question to you, the job seeker, is why?
It is like you are telling me, “I want to get to the finish line first, as long as I don’t have to run!”
I am not a recruiter, so here is my unbiased response towards this statement…
Get people to work for you for free. Duplicate your time and effort by using MANY recruiters that specialize in your discipline and have connections to decision makers. Furthermore, if you get your resume into the hands of enough recruiters, you will find the ones that have opportunities right now.
Here are more reasons not to eliminate recruiters from your job search…
- Many employers only work with recruiters, which means you will never get access to those jobs unless a recruiter has your resume.
- Executive Search/Recruiting Firms maintain the largest network of un-advertised jobs. This is an obvious reason to get connected to this network and work it aggressively.
- Recruiters are hired by the employer to find the best person for the job and are rewarded financially when this happens. As a result, recruiters are always interviewing great candidates. A common misconception for many job seekers is they believe that recruiters work for them. Knowing this, you need to get yourself in front of hundreds of recruiting professionals. Take advantage of ResumeSpider’s economy-of-scale to make the numbers game work for in your favor. We have thousands of active Executive Search/Recruiting Firms in our network waiting for your resume.
- Recruiting is done nationally, so do not limit yourself to the recruiters in your area. Jobs in your town are constantly filled by recruiters from other cities. But do not worry. Our technology will connect you to any recruiter that has jobs in your area.
- If you have special skills in high demand or have a remarkable work history, some recruiters will proactively market you to potential employers. Remember, recruiters are only paid if a successful hire is made. ResumeSpider’s targeted distribution allows you to get your credentials to the right group of recruiters.
- If you are employed and confidentiality is a concern, recruiters will discretely provide access to opportunities.
I hope this makes sense!
Tags: career, job search, Resume submission, Using recruiters
December 27th, 2008 at 9:11 am
You can read a lot of insight into this post about recruiters, recruiter behavior and more. Since the posting we have seen a lot of recruiters face difficult circumstances in placing candidates in parts of the financial and banking fields. But that does not mean third-party recruiting stops during high unemployment historically. Other fields like sales, technology, accounting and related opportunities may remain hot and needed even during a rash of layoffs and unemployment figures rising.
Here are a few reasons why recruiting by third party recruiters can thrive in bad economic times:
1. Third party recruiters often niche. That means they focus on very hard to find candidates and match them for the company. For example, forensic accounting, auditing and tax accountants still are in high demand. That may not surprise you. But also people with hard to find technology skills may be very marketable now. Additionally, people in sales who bring in new revenue and who have a book of business to bring to a new company may be close to recession proof.
2. In one instance over the last month the president of one of the largest banks whose home office is in Raleigh, NC said directly to me: “John, I find that this may be an unprecedented time where we can locate and hire top talent from our competitors.” So this person who is in a field that has taken a huge hit still feels he can find and hire top talent.
3. You can read most leadership books like “Good to Great” by Jim Collins or “The Dip” by Seth Godin or others. Soon you find out that setbacks are merely setups for great comebacks. This is the time, an opportunity for you and for companies to set themselves up to prosper. One key way is to get the right people on your company bus. Another client of mine received a raise this past quarter and his company made record profits in the energy sector. What did they do? They did a 4% layoff. When I inquired why he said that it was a convenient time to get rid of “some dead weight” at the company. Believe it or not but a recession can be a good excuse to reinvent your team. Is it fair? You may not think so but it happens. Companies clear the decks to set the stage for growth. What do they want? They want or should want the best players on the field. A recession may be a time to find that talent.
So there you have it. If you are not the hunted and most placeable candidate during this recession then what are you doing to follow your personal brand, your worklife mission? By niching properly and following a most marketable path you can do a lot to stand out and potentially recession proof your career a little bit more.