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DEALING WITH RECRUITMENT companies is a crucial element of the job-searching process. To give you top advice on this front, our resident careers guru Liam Horan asked recruitment and career management expert Peter Cosgrove, Director of CPL Recruitment, to give us 10 top tips that you should bear in mind.
1. Apply for a job – not to a website. Find advertised jobs, and apply to those, rather than just sending your CV in speculatively to a recruitment company. That way, your application goes to a real person who is looking for applications for that job. This way, a proper match may take place. If you just send the CV in speculatively to the recruitment company, without any job specified, chances are it will not be a priority.
2. After you’ve applied, make a follow-up phonecall to the recruiters to ensure they have received it. This way, you are speaking to the very person who is looking at your application. If you’re a salesperson, you are now talking to someone who is recruiting for sales. That recruiter is incentivised to find good salespeople, so a courteous – and brief, it must be brief – call will do you no harm.
3. Set up job alerts on the various job sites. Don’t expect the recruiters to think about you when another job comes up – by setting the job alerts, you keep abreast of what is being advertised. You can tweak your CV, if necessary, and apply for that job. The onus is on you to stay on top of what suitable jobs are coming up.
4. I can’t believe I’ve got to No.4 without mentioning my old hobby horse – make sure your CV is right. I am still amazed by the number of poor CVs we received. Poor spelling and grammar, dismal layout, too long, and no effort to truly highlight the candidate’s ability – we see far more bad CVs than good ones. Invest in your CV.
5. Treat a meeting with the recruitment company as you would an interview. Recruiters remember people. Make sure they remember you for your neat dress, professional attitude, and general enthusiasm – not the half-hour delay when you turned up late for the meeting, the smell of cigarettes, or the phone call you insisted on taking during the meeting.
6. When dealing with recruitment companies, be very clear about what you want to do. Recruiters are not career counsellors. Saying “I’d like a change” will not cut it with recruiters. You need to tell them where you’d like to work, and see if they can get you in there.
7. There is no conspiracy theory – the recruiter is not out to get you. The recruiter only gets commission if they place candidates in the role. If you’re a good candidate, they will put you forward. The recruiter is incentivised to find the best candidate, and no recruiter is going to overlook somebody on a whim and then run the risk of suffering the disappointment of that same candidate being placed in the job by a rival recruitment company. So if a recruiter doesn’t put you forward for the job, there is always a reason why. You may not have shown the enthusiasm. You may not have the skills. There may be an abundance of better candidates in the race.
8. Don’t just bang in your CV because it’s easy to do so. Only apply for jobs for which you are a good fit. If you are not a good fit, try a different approach.
9. Understand that recruiters are under pressure too. They must place people to make their commission. Over 60 per cent of recruiters lost their jobs in the last two years – so the industry is going through a tough time. Be nice to recruiters: trust me, they will remember you for it.
10. Did I mention getting the CV sorted?
Liam Horan runs www.SliNuaCareers.com, a career training company providing CV preparation, interview training, mock interview, and psychometric testing services. He will be contributing a regular column dealing with career issues. If you have any topics of questions you’d like him to deal with, email him on liam.horan@slinuacareers.com.
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Liam criticised poor CVs for “Poor spelling and grammar,…”.
Then said: “If you are not a good fit, you to try a different approach.”
Physician heal thyself?
@Matt Harley, thanks for the comment. I have to ‘fess up and say I accidentally added in part of another sentence when transcribing Liam’s piece on to the site so it’s not his mistake.
Have amended now. Please note we have a ‘send a tip/correction to the author’ button for a speedy reaction to minor errors of this nature,
Thanks, Susan, Editor
Did Mr Horan pay for this advert?
@Eoin Grace. Liam Horan’s experience in career training makes him more qualified than most to research this piece for TheJournal.ie. I am happy to add a link to his own website in return – at the very least, it shows his credentials in this area.
Thanks for your comment,
Susan, Editor
Very valid pointers for every person looking for a job, however still being the successful candidate is down to the employer, not an agency thinking you’re the best fit for the position. Ultimately agency’s are only in it for their fee, I’m not disregarding their place but it is very much a dog eat dog world in the jobs sector and employers have the upper hand as they can pick and choose these days.
A lot of agencies and recruiters are utterly clueless, they mass email job descriptions to anyone whose details are returned when they search CV databases for keywords. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve been sent descriptions to jobs I am completely unsuited to.
So, Journal.ie how about a followup article from jobseekers, full of tips for recruitment agencies on how to avoid looking like unprofessional idiots.
i received a lot of cvs in my last job. you wouldnt believe how many people have stupid email adresses like hotlips89@hotmail.com or bigstudbazza@yahoo.com and then wonder why noone calls them for interview.
Nothing new in those tips.
With regard to Point 4, how long is too long? I have heard completely different things from two different recruiters.
One send me a sample CV that was around 6 pages in length with detailed descriptions of jobs worked. The other sent me a sample CV that was 2 pages are barely listed anything other than bullet points. Yet both said they felt that this was the best way to go.
I think it’s best to keep it as concise as possible, unlikely for anyone in HR to read through 6 pages of detail.
Has anyone else heard stories about foreigners in recruitment agencies dumping Irish cvs and keeping cvs from people from their own country?
My experience with recruitment companies here in London is they’re useless. The majority do not acknowledge any correspondence or even the curtesy to return calls. Registering on their websites is pointless as your CV goes into a pile that isn’t looked at. Much better to approach the hiring companies direct if possible.
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