By: Chris Robbins – Staffing Manager
If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of job seekers across the country embarking on new job searches every day, you may run face-first into the difficulties of looking for new employment opportunities in the digital age.
For job seekers, long gone are the days of picking up a local newspaper (younger job seekers may ask “what’s a newspaper?”), calling a hiring manager directly from the number they have listed in their ad and immediately setting up an interview. Resumes are now put through heavy digital screening before they even make it to a human being. Hiring managers now have their name and contact info so heavily guarded few candidates reach them directly until much later in the hiring process.
From the employer perspective, the hiring process can be a daunting task in the “always connected” world. Hiring managers now often get bombarded with resumes from unqualified candidates as online submission tools, job postings, job boards and professional networks make it easier than ever for candidates to send resumes and information with one click.
As a recruiting professional, I understand these job search and hiring challenges better than anyone, dealing with dozens of hiring managers and candidates each day.
Here are 3 quick tips I’ve compiled that are designed to help job seekers successfully revamp their job search and successfully connect with hiring managers that are looking for the right candidate.
1. Make Sure Your Experience is Directly Relevant to the Job Posting
Job seekers need to think of themselves as part of a tremendously qualified candidate network, collectively possessing more and stronger skills than ever before in our country’s economic history. Any hiring manager should be interested in speaking with you if your experience is relevant to the position for which they are recruiting.
Here’s a typical job-seeker scenario in today’s market; you come across a LinkedIn job posting with just the title you are seeking. Upon opening the job description, you read through the qualifications, degree requirements, etc., that so many employers drill down on in their postings. After further investigation, you recognize (purely based on gut reaction) that this position may be a stretch based on your skill set, BUT you apply anyway. This may happen several times a day in a heavy- hitting job search.
I encourage you – as a qualified candidate – to ensure you are carefully evaluating the position for which you are applying. The unfortunate side of online resume submissions is the hundreds of resumes filtering through that are not qualified to fulfill a given role. To make sure you stand out as a good fit, be certain you are applying for a position that you are qualified to fill. A technique that personally benefited me was drawing out a table and putting necessary or required skills in bullet points. If I met 80% or more of those bullet points, I went ahead and applied. Any less, I gave serious consideration to the fact that my time may be better spent looking at other roles. Stick to jobs you know match your skill set – don’t waste your time on jobs that don’t fit what you have to offer.
2. Set Up Informational Meetings, Not Just Interviews – The Hidden Job Market
Open the door to informational meetings, not strictly interviews. Any line manager should be thrilled to hear that their team or organization has been the target of your job search. Utilize your network to coordinate meetings with the manager or director over a department within which you might fit. It’s no secret that the hidden job market accounts for a significant portion of open jobs out there… right now! The person sitting opposite the desk from you may be just the person who can open the door to one of these so called “hidden jobs.”
Another crucial detail to any meeting is to treat it like an interview – dress for it, study for it and make a positive impression. If you want to be remembered, a quick and easy way to establish yourself in the meeting is to impress the person you’re meeting with about how much you already know about their company. If nothing else, know what exactly the company does or offers and at least have read through the “About Us” section of their website. Come prepared with questions to ask them that are not “yes or no” questions but thought evoking, open-ended questions.
While a job may not be discussed in this initial contact, you never know when something may come up a week or month later and you are at the top of the hiring manager’s mind. I am a living, breathing example of the effectiveness of this method and will stand firm by it.
3. The Importance of Follow Up and Follow Through
Follow up remains an integral part of one’s job search and may look different from situation to situation. Regardless of your employment status, be sure to not over or under-do follow up. This means that while you may have needed work two weeks ago, the Marketing Director you just met with who is interested in hiring you, is not going to have a position open for another month.
Do:
- Send an Email or handwritten thank you letter after a meeting or interview.
- Connect with them on LinkedIn.
- Follow their company on social media.
- Ask them what is appropriate for follow up beyond your interview or meeting.
Don’t:
- Ask them for a job if it does not exist.
- Call daily or even weekly if they don’t request that of you.
- Be too pushy in your follow up conversations.
- Talk poorly about a current employment situation.
As recruiters at Xcentri, we see both perfect follow up and excessive (or non-existent) follow up. Those with appropriate follow up stick out among the many candidates we meet with daily, and stand a higher likelihood of being placed because they are top of the hiring company’s mind for all the right reasons.
While revamping your job search with these 3 tips, don’t forget to reach out to us at Xcentri to see how we may be able to advocate for you during this process. We work day in and day out to match qualified candidates (like YOU) to positions open with our highly regarded client base. Give us a call today to see how we can find the fit for you!
To read more about Xcentri’s Chris Robbins, please click here
