Recruiters are the gatekeeper, help them help you.

Help me help you

Recruiters are your friend

Can job recruiters help you? I recently participated in an HR panel, answering questions from people seeking new jobs. What stood out to me was that this group asked specific questions about the application process and was surprised by my answers. I thought it might help to share their questions and the reasons behind my answers.  Here is a sampling of the questions:

• Why don’t we get a callback when we are told we will be called?
• Why does the process take so long?
• Why don’t we at least get a response via email?
• Why doesn’t the recruiter know anything about my position?
• Why don’t they call back?  I am overqualified for the job and could do that role in my sleep.

The list continued, but most questions pertained to the recruiters’ role in the hiring process.

Recruiters perspective

If you work with a recruiter who works out of an agency, their customer isn’t you, the candidate. Their customer is the company paying their recruiting fee to hire you. If you can’t fill the agency’s position, they will move on to a candidate who can. It is simply a matter of human nature and short-term thinking. It’s business, and I understand. That being said, I have worked with several recruiters for over 10 years.  They are professional and take their craft seriously. These professionals are not in it for the short term. They are committed to building lasting relationships. They treat both their candidates and their companies as actual customers. These groups are the rare exception in the world of recruiting.

Multiple positions to fill

Often, in-house recruiters (recruiters who work full-time for the hiring company) have 15-20 positions to fill. I know recruiters with 40+ positions in their queues. 40 positions!!!!  4-6 positions would be considered full-time, depending on the specific roles and levels. Fifteen positions are a lot to fill. Here is a sampling of what it takes to fill a role:

• Meet with the hiring manager to set expectations about the hiring timeline and the salary market.
• Draft a job description and obtain approval from the hiring manager.
• Post the ad on Monster and Craigslist, and then develop a social networking strategy that includes Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
• Start sorting through the 100 responses they will receive from this single posting. Narrow it down to 5-7 candidates who require an email, a call, or both to set up an initial phone screen.
• Meet with the hiring manager to discuss which 2-3 candidates you would like to bring in for an in-person interview.
• Call / Email to set up appointments for an in-person interview
• Interview the 2-3 candidates and then hope that 2 of these are worthy of pitching to the hiring manager
• Set up interviews with the hiring manager, department manager, and a few team members

The above steps do not include scheduling meetings with the hiring manager. Uhhggg!  We haven’t made the hire for the position above yet, but you get the idea.  We will be back to the drawing board if we complete those steps and don’t make a hire.

Logistics

All of the above applies to a single position. Multiply that by 15-40, and you get a logistics and scheduling nightmare.

I say all of this to set the tone.

The recruiter is the gatekeeper, and a big part of their job is to ensure that hiring managers’ and interviewers’ time isn’t wasted.

The recruiters don’t want to waste your time either. If a candidate is declined during the interview process, the interviewers time was “wasted”.

Because of this, recruiters are personally vouching for any candidates they schedule with the hiring manager.

No one wants a reputation for wasting managers’ time. When I bring a candidate to our CEO, I put my name on the line.  Hiring managers take credit for great hires. The recruiter will likely be held accountable for a bad hire.

Yes, less than 10 seconds

As the candidate, you get about 5 seconds of eye time on your resume and cover letter.  When I review a stack of 50 resumes and try to narrow it down to 5-7, I look for reasons to discard a resume before I consider keeping it.  I am not reading each line of each one and stack-ranking 50 resumes. I am looking for reasons to eliminate them from consideration, and here is the reason why.

If I receive 50 resumes, it will break down like this:

• Seven will have a misspelled word or grammatical error. OUT.
• Six will have so many technical acronyms or be so tough to read that I won’t be able to figure out what they are trying to say. OUT
• Five will be underqualified. OUT.
• A few will be overqualified. OUT
• Ten won’t even be related, and I can only imagine this is someone who needs to collect unemployment and apply to 3 positions a week just to qualify. 
• Most resumes will state their accomplishments without details, numbers, or percentages.  “Increased sales,” or “Led Agile dev group,” is not as effective as “increased Sales by 25% in the first 2 months,” OR “Led a team of 5 developers that released a product every week using an Agile development methodology”. The latter two convey the same message, but sound much more effective. It’s not necessarily out, but if I see others that list percentages and numbers, those are definitely in, and they make the job easier.

Tailor the resume to the job listing

Add what is relevant to the position on your resume and cover letter. I would have listed more qualifications in the job description if I had wanted to.

The above statistics are not scientific, but they are realistic.  Of the 50 candidates, 35 will eliminate themselves from consideration, leaving me with approximately 15 resumes to review. I don’t say this lightly. It is VERY easy to stand out in a crowd of resumes.

• Read and re-read your cover letter and resume. Then, read it word for word backward. Then ask a friend to proofread it.
• Minimize technical acronyms. As the recruiter, I don’t know what you and the hiring manager know. Assume I don’t have your technical expertise.  (The exception is: Tech recruiters do understand dev languages)
• If the job is entry-level and you hold a Ph.D. or an MBA, do not list that background. I am not looking for a Ph.D.

Help me help you

Make it easy for your recruiter to understand you. Please help me help you. I DO want to fill that position. I DO want to bring candidates to the hiring manager. However, please be patient with us and understand that we must complete the above process, along with other items on our to-do list, including new-hire paperwork, onboarding, 30-day check-ins, and benefits paperwork.

This post explains a few signals hiring managers notice.
In the full resume guide, I connect this signal to how resumes are actually read, what it competes with, and when it helps or hurts you.

See you at the after party,
HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

If you feel this post is valuable, please subscribe here. I promise no spam,