Job Seeker Articles

Here are links to several articles for Job Seekers and hiring managers

• Do You Need a Mastermind Group?

• Feeling Stressed?

• Hiring Managers - You need STARs and CARLs

• Goals to Live By

• Managers and Honest Pay for Honest Work

• The Cost of Bad Hires

• Resume Gaps? Own Them!

• Playing Hard to Get

• The Secret Life of a Job Posting (2nd Ed)

• The Secret Life of a Job Posting

• Making Your Brand

• Kill All the CV Writers

• What is it worth to you?

• What if Your Performance IS Bad?

• Thought Leadership

• Do You Feel Like You're Going Down for the Final Count?

• Is This Your Street?

• Communications Myths, Reality, and Five Rules

• IES - Indispensable Employee Syndrome

• Your Mental Board of Directors - Your Fist Factor

• You're Fired! Now What?

• This Will Go On Your Permanent Record

• The "I" in Team

• A Very Odd Duck

• Job Interview With a Mime

• Borrowed Glory - Resume Failure

• It's (NOT) All About ME!

• Become Known as the Expert

• Killing You Softly: 5 Ways to Blow and Interview

Job Searching: Working with Recruiters

There are three broad categories of recruiters.  

1. Executive placement recruiters

2. Consulting company recruiters

3. "Head-hunters"

Executive placement recruiters are only needed when you are looking to land a position as a senior executive, typically in the C-suite.  You pay them and they do the job searching for you.  They tailor your resume and use their contacts to get you interviews.  Most people will never need or want to use executive placement recruiters.  In fact, for most people, if someone wants you to pay them to help you get a job, you should take a tight grip on your wallet and back away until you can make a break for it, because you are likely looking at someone whose only goal in life is to take as much of your money as you will allow before you dump them and do the work yourself.

Consulting company recruiters are looking to hire you as an employee of their company and place you on one of the consulting contracts their company has obtained.  Although you may interview with their client, they will be your employer and when one contract ends, they are looking to place you on another contract as quickly as possible.  Their company will offer you a comprehensive benefits package and be working hard to keep you employed.  Also, in this situation, you may be consulting or you may be “hands” to get the work done.

Head-hunters are looking to get you hired.  They may interview you to prequalify you, but whether or not they like you, you will get hired, or not, depending on if their client wants to hire you.  Head hunters are just looking for hands to get the work done.  They may not even offer you any benefits and usually when your contract is ending, you are on your own to find your next position.  With head hunters you may be nominally working for their company (AKA W2), or you may even be working as an independent contractor (AKA 1099 or C2C).

Head hunters get paid by your employer when they successfully bring you onboard.  If one asks you for money, then they are not legitimate.  When you are hired C2C it means your company is hired by the client company.  In those cases, the headhunter gets paid a fee when you are hired and they are all done.

When you get hired by the recruiter on a W2-basis, you are nominally an employee of the same company as the recruiter and they keep getting paid every time you do.

Your Resume

When it comes to your resume and recruiters, never assume they will help you with your resume or do anything with it other than to transfer it to their letterhead prior to submitting it to an employer.  You need to make sure your resume is well done and tailored to aim at the specific job.

Most recruiters will provide you with the job description and other information, but withhold the name of the company.  This is because you can still circumvent them and go directly to the HR department of the company.  However, once your resume is turned in by a recruiter, they “own” your relationship with that company, at least for that particular job.

When working with recruiters you need to make certain your resume is not submitted to the same job opening by different firms, or even by you and by a recruiter.  Having that happen will almost automatically knock you out of the running.  No company wants to get into a debate about who should get the referral fee.

Employers

Companies usually attempt to fill vacancies themselves by advertising, first internally, then in job boards and such.  Most companies will start accepting resumes from recruiters after the internal solicitation period ends without success. 

See: The Secret Life of a Job Posting (2nd Ed)

Some companies will only accept recruiter-sent resumes from recruiters who are “approved vendors.”  Others will accept resumes from any recruiter or individual who submits them.  Approved vendors give you a tiny advantage.  I say tiny advantage because directly networking your way into a job interview is still worlds better than using any recruiter.

The notion behind an approved vendor is that the vendor has earned some degree of trust by pre-screening and sending only resumes from qualified candidates instead of spamming the hiring manager with the resume of anyone who is still sufficiently alive to fog a mirror.

The Successful Job Seeker is NOT a recruiter.