On this episode Jordan and I continue to dig into The Truth Behind Recruiting. Today, we’re focusing on placement from the talent side (that’s you).
In this installment, we cover:
– How to use a recruiter as a resource
– Why having a good recruiter in your network is important.
– How can you leverage recruiters to help land your dream job!
Now it’s your turn. How have recruiters helped you or your company in the past?
If you missed Episode 1, check it out.
Plus catch the whole series.
Dave: The first time we talked to Jordan, I think that went really well. I actually have some more questions. I think you guys have some more questions. So let’s go into this, Ask A Recruiter series, Part Two.
Dave: And today I wanted to ask Jordan questions from the talent side. So that being folks in the industry who are open and looking for other jobs, which is what I imagine most people watching this video would be using recruiters for. So Jordan, can you give everyone like a brief synopsis of why talent would want to work with a recruiter as opposed to going through the job application process by themself?
Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. Great question. Typically you’re going to get into it with a recruiter if they’re looking to fill the job. So you had somebody reach out to you, a recruiter and said, Hey, I’ve got an automation position open. Are you interested? No, I’m, I’m, I’m happy where I’m at. I’m good. But what happens when you don’t have a recruiter relationship? You want to look at other jobs or you’re going to be just like everybody else. Where do we go? LinkedIn, Career Builder Monster, and we’re going to type in controls engineer, automation engineer, the job we’re looking for. Who’s, who’s hiring? So you may be able to find, you probably will find some people that are looking for positions. But then the process is crap. Now I’ve got to get into it with an ATS or I’ve got to apply online. And then I get into that monster.
Jordan: I’m sure plenty of you have had that experience. I’ve applied to this great job, never heard back from them. Maybe I got a reply six months later; very inefficient. Unfortunately, technology has not helped us out yet in the recruiting industry. The best way, in my opinion, is we used a recruiter, do reverse recruiting as I call it, to market a candidate. You know, I sometimes tell people I’m working with, I’m kind of a, a career realtor if you will. You’re looking to buy a new house, well let me know what you’re looking for and I’ll go out and find it for you. So in that respect, I’ll talk with you. Dave, you know you’ve been with your company five years. You’ve told me you’re looking for something else. What exactly are you looking for? You know, a four-bedroom, three-bath, pool and all of that?
Jordan: You know, we’ll put that list together and say, great, I’ve got some contacts out there. I’ve got some immediate calls that I want to make for you, and if not, let me do some marketing for you. I do it for my clients, why wouldn’t I do it for my candidates? So this is an underserved population. And this is where we get back into good recruiters. A good and even great recruiter will do this for you. I’ve had a lot of success with, if you’ve, like I said, if you’ve developed a relationship with a couple of recruiters, reach out to them and tell them, Hey, I want to get on the market. What can you do for me? Another big thing if somebody is going to do this is confidentiality. You don’t want somebody just taking your resume and posting it everywhere. You don’t want that either.
Jordan: You want somebody to be confidential, do some blind resumes for you. Don’t have a recruiter, you don’t have somebody? You need somebody that can be an advocate for you and get into human-human contact. Find out who the hiring manager is. Find out who the HR person is. You want to try and connect with them on LinkedIn. Send them a message, get on their radar. The best thing that I can tell you as a recruiter, if you go through me and give me your resume and I sub you, the hiring manager is going to look at your resume. That cannot be guaranteed if you go into an ATS and you’re lumped in with 50 or 60 other engineers. They’re going to look at the first couple and oh, I’ve got a couple of guys that I can contact, and move on. What if you were the 58th or the 59th person to apply? You’re S O L. So that’s why I try to tell people, you know, get on someone’s radar, have a conversation if you can. Let them know, stick out. Who do you know? And that’s another big resource for the recruiter. I spend all day making relationships, talking with people in the industry, on both sides. Use my network for your benefit. And here’s the other thing, I’m free. I will never ever charge you for anything. And if any recruiter ever tries to charge you for representing you, hang up the phone and report them to the police, please.
Dave: No, no, that’s good. And I think that is very much along the value conversation of how valuable recruiters are and why you need them in your network, and why you should proactively start to have these conversations with recruiters before you’re ready to start to look for a job. And on the flip side, if you’re an employer and you’re going to start to look for people, you should figure out who you’re going to use as a recruiter long before you have a job posting and you need to fill the spot. And Jordan, I think the other question for you is how, how do you find someone within your industry? Like do I want to look for any recruiter? Do I want to look for a recruiter specifically within an industry? Can you kind of dig a little bit deeper for people who are interested in that.
Jordan: So yeah, you’re ready to get on the market, want to be working with a recruiter or somebody to look for an opportunity for you, but how do I find, how do I find a good one? Or the right one? If you don’t have a relationship with the recruiter yet, again, we’ve encouraged you to do that, and don’t limit yourself to just one. You know, I have a great network. It’s blowing up. It’s building every day, but my network is not the end all be all. There’s other people out there with other networks, so get a couple of them in your, in your pipeline. So obviously we’re automation, industrial automation, factory automation, controls. I can speak more to that because that’s where my niche is. So if you’re in this industry, you want to find a recruiter who is in this niche.
Jordan: My advice to you is find somebody that knows your industry, whether that’s IT, engineering, can be even more granular or niche as I do in automation and control. That way they’re having conversations with people in your industry. Building relationships, have contacts, people they can call already for you. So Dave, when you’re looking for something, we get off the phone. I’ve already got four or five people I want to contact that could be looking for your services. That way, within a week you might have four or five phone interviews. Finding somebody that has good recommendations, you know, ask the recruiter, Hey, do you have anybody that would recommend you, you know, in my industry, I’m an automation engineer. Do you, have you placed any other automation engineers? Well, yes I have. Would any of them be open to talking to me about it? Find some references, some referrals. If they’re on LinkedIn, look at their activity. What are they posting?
Jordan: Are they posting? Are they just posting their open jobs and that’s it? You want somebody that’s going to be interacting with their network. That’s how more conversations come up. That’s how more information is passed around. That’s how we can get the inside track on roles. Soft-skills wise, you want somebody that’s going to be honest with you, even if it’s not pretty, no filter. You know what you need to work on and somebody that’s going to be honest with you and follow up. Hey Dave, we had a great conversation. I’m going to make a couple of calls, get this started. You’ll hear from me by the end of the week. A whole week goes by, haven’t heard from him. Another week goes by, haven’t heard from them, and now I’ve got to reach out to my recruiter. You don’t want to have to reach out to your recruiter. The recruiter is very busy. Sometimes that has to happen, but in a perfect world, I don’t want my candidates to have to reach back out to me for feedback. One that’s going to give you honest feedback, quick feedback is vital, and somebody is going to provide that for you is a good recruiter. Don’t leave me hanging. Don’t ghost me.
Dave: Awesome. So thanks so much Jordan. Again, let’s ask everyone watching this if they have other questions that they want to ask a recruiter, and we’ll get you back on and continue down kind of our Ask A Recruiter series where your open and candid and transparent and probably make lots of other recruiters in the industry cringe because of all of those things. It’s okay. They need to cringe. Perfect. And then one other thing that I want to throw in, if you are an industrial automations or controls or IT or any of that, or looking to get into it, I would completely recommend having a conversation with Jordan. If that needed to be said, I would completely recommend having a conversation with Jordan about that opportunity or the other opportunities that you’re going to find. I appreciate that Dave, and, yeah, the invitation is open. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’ll give you my information. We can have a conversation, email, text, whatever’s good for you.
