R e c r u i t e r s

You may have read the in newspaper or seen on the TV news, the economy is improving! Really... Companies are still sitting on a ton of money and not hiring as fast as they might. But my recruiter friends tell me that things are picking up.

Working with clients who are looking to change jobs or land a job may use the services of a recruiter. In an article last week, CNN Money reported that Siemens is hiring 10,000 positions this year and have some 80 internal recruitersworking on the thousands of resumes and applications Siemens are receiving each month. Recruiters are a common element in many job searches.

So job seekers should become familiar with “The Kennedy Red Book” AKA The Directory of Executive & Professional Recruiters. This book is available at your local or university library. The book lists all the recruiters out there, separated by type: Contingent recruiters and retained recruiters.  Both these recruiters are paid on commission, based on the salary of the position being hired. Years ago, recruiters were involved only in the hiring of management, skilled professionals and specialty careers. Today, a third kind of recruiter is out there, that works on hiring all levels, this is the internal recruiter who is paid a salary, sometimes on a contract basis to hire needed employees.

For the most part retained recruiters are the ones I’ve preferred to work with. Although there are poor retained recruiters and great contingent recruiters. The Kennedy Red Book helps you identify who is who and it contains indexes by industry or field and geographic locations they operate in. If you find one that might be a fit, look them up in LinkedIn and check out their references. It should be noted that internal recruiters are not normally in the Kennedy Red Book.

It is important to understand one thing; the candidate (or job seeker) is not the client, or the customer, or the most important character in the situation from the recruiter’s point of view. The most important person, is the person who pays the fee; the company hiring the candidate is who the recruiter if focused on. You are the product that the hiring company is buying. Too many people think that the recruiter is working for them. They’re not, no matter how it sounds!

There is also another type of recruiter that we encounter; they recruit at temp or contractor firms. Regardless of which recruiter you are associated with, the bottom line with recruiters is that the job seeker is not the customer: you are the merchandise. However, the recruiter can be a wonderful source of information about the company and the background on the open position. Recruiters will never jeopardize their relationship with a hiring company, yet if you can establish a good rapport or even a relationship with one you have another tool to use in your job search. Always keep in mind that you need be responsible for your own job search.

The SYSTEM of Job Search Isn't Fair

   The simple truth is that the players, organizations and activities involved in the area of employment and hiring are not there to help you find a job. This job search system or simply “The System” is set up to comb through candidates or to eliminate resumes. This is very different from finding the right person for the job.

So often I listened to clients and others in job search say, but I was perfect for the job and I didn’t even get a phone interview. How can that be? Let’s take a look at The System…

A company finds that they need to hire someone. A manager needs to fill out a requisition to hire. Let’s say there is enough money in the budget and the manager makes a good case for the hire and the requisition is approved. What happens next?

Most companies have a formal procedure for hiring in order to comply with state and federal employment regulations. HR (Human Resources) is called into the process. They check a database of candidates and the position is advertised internally. If this fails, the posting is then advertised outside the company. (Note: only about 20% of jobs are advertised.) This can involve print media, online service or an outside recruiter (AKA Headhunter). The result here is hundreds of resumes.

HR processes the resumes and presents to the hiring manager five or six “good” candidates. In a stack of 200 resumes what are the odds of any specific resume being chosen? Depending on where your resume is in the pile of resumes no one may ever see your resume.

I’ve heard HR people complain about the volume of resumes they have to process. If they find six appropriate candidates in the top of the stack are they really going to keep looking through the rest of the stack? A company's formal hiring process is there to mitigate the risk of legal complications - not to find the “right person.”

I've really simplified this but you can see that long before an interview can be scheduled you have to do something to break out of The System and get yourself noticed. This is why networking is so important; it's a numbers game or a lotto and the odds are stacked against you. Beat The System: become excellent at networking.

-- Edited by Alice Dechene