You’re Hired!

If you’re looking for a job, these are the words you can’t wait to hear. Here are 4 tips to help you get there faster. 1. Work with a recruiting firm: Don’t go it alone. The job search can be difficult and a recruiting firm will help guide you through the process in a much quicker and more efficient way. Yes, I’m a recruiter and we do this all the time, so we have the process down. I know many of you out there think recruiters suck or aren’t your friend. You’re wrong. You are our friends! Our goal is to make placements and fill our job openings and we can’t do it without candidates. One benefit of using a recruiter for candidates is we have a relationship with our client, the person you want to say – “You’re hired”. The online job posting doesn’t call you as soon as they get your resume for an interview, or prep you for the interview, or doesn’t call you back after the interview to see how it went. We are not a “black hole”. We have relationships with our clients and we can get you feedback. Good recruiters do this as part of our daily practice! We help you through the process and all the while, we are hearing from the client with their thoughts on you. 2. Apply for jobs that you are qualified for: I know you really want to find a job but if you’re going to respond to job postings you see on the internet, make sure to apply for jobs that you are qualified for, not underqualified or overqualified. When you apply for an Entry Level job and you have 5 years of experience, we wonder why you want an entry level job? Would you stay in a job like that or if you start this job, then in a month get a call from a company that’s looking for someone with 5 years of experience, will you leave? That’s what we worry about. I recently read a blog that said “job hunting is a game of numbers, the more you apply, the better chance you have of getting a job”. I disagree! Instead of just sending out a bunch of resumes to job postings, take more time and only apply for a job you would really want. Consider for a minute, being the one receiving the resumes and think how you would feel if you received the resume you are about to send – would you hire yourself? If you can honestly answer that question with a yes, then send away. 3. Tweak your resume for every job you apply for and make sure there are no misspellings: Every job posting that you apply to is somewhat different than the last one, so take the time to read the job posting and see what they are looking for. Sell yourself to the job posting and it just may help you stand out. Companies and recruiting firms receive many resumes for every job posting. If you take the time to tweak your resume to the job, it will pay off. It may only be changing one sentence that identifies specific experience you have that the company is looking for. Your resume is your representation of yourself, so make sure to sell yourself well. Lastly, make sure there are no misspelled words in your resume. It does make a difference, so take the time to run spell check! 4. If you submit your resume to an online posting, respond when someone calls you: I’m amazed at the amount of people who apply for job postings and when we call them to follow up and actually talk about the job, they don’t respond. That seems so odd to me. Why take the time to submit your resume if you’re not really interested? So, to all those people out there who slam recruiters for not returning your calls, this is a post from a recruiter saying it goes both ways. Return our phone calls. I’m not talking about calling a passive candidate and them not returning my call. I’m talking about someone who responded to our job posting and then they don’t call us back. You will not hear those magic words “You’re hired” if you can’t take the time to return phone calls and emails. So, if you’re looking for a job I hope these 4 tips will help jump start your search. Good luck and hope you hear “You’re hired” soon.