What recruiters look for

What recruiters look for:

I’ve been a recruitment consultant for nearly eight months now, so I don’t claim to know everything about the field but I can point a few things that I have picked up and hopefully I can share some of this information in order to help you in your next interview. Bare in mind a recruiters job is to find jobs they are not going out of their way to ensure that you don’t get a job.
As a recruiter consultant it is my professional responsibility and obligation to find, assess and qualify candidates for positions provided for me by my clients or organizations. In order to do this I need to find my candidates first. I like all recruiters use the internet to source candidates CV’s who have the qualifications I need. Most in South Africa use http://www.pnet.co.za/ or http://www.careerjunction.co.za/

So my first piece of advice I can offer to you; is make sure your CV is very clear and legable, use tables to put in a skills matrix, the more detail you have the more likely someone like me will notice you. For example if I get a spec from a company that asks me to find a Java programmer with a small amount of experience, and you are a programmer who specialises in C++ but also knows and would consider the position but doesn’t put it in their CV, well if it’s not there I cannot consider you. So you won’t even make it to the interview.

Once a recruiter understands your focus, he/she will want to know if you have the required core competencies or transferable skills to accomplish the job. A thorough research of employer job descriptions will help you identify the core competencies your CV must feature.

You’ll capture and hold recruiter attention by including only those core competencies relating specifically to your focus. Be careful not to muddy up your personal marketing message by including extraneous skills. If you remember the all-important rule of relevancy, you’ll go a long way toward keeping the reader’s attention on your key skills.

Job seekers must ensure that the contact information they provide on their resume is reliable. Your resume should be updated regularly. In response to one of our postings this week, one of our recruiters received a resume from a job seeker who had a disconnected phone number listed in the resume. The telephone is still a crucial part of the recruitment process; there have been other cases in which individuals are on the phone when we call, do not answer call waiting and allow the phone to continue to ring. Remember--if someone can’t leave a message for you, then they cannot offer you an interview or a position.

Bear in mind that recruiters although some of the more experienced think they are, are not mind readers. Or have special powers of any sort, so if it’s not there they won’t know it.
Now lets just say that you do fit the description they are looking for. You will get a call from a recruiter and he or she will set up an appointment to see you, the reason for this is firstly that they need to evaluate your ability and knowledge through a formal or for the less professional recruiters an informal interview.

The purpose of this is also to interpersonally evaluate the attitude and persona of the individual, this interview also allows the recruiter to evaluate whether or not the candidate fits the corporate culture of the organisation where the job exists.

So my second piece of advice is; come well presented you don’t often find a corporate company where you can dress in slacks and a T-shirt anymore, obviously computer programmers sometimes get away with it but even computer programmers must realise that if they want to work for a large high paying organisation they will have no option but to clean up and have a haircut, Now I’m not saying you can’t get a job if you like your grunge, but what I can say is if you do like grunge you do you need to change your style cause grunge is dead.

Another piece of advice for an interview is; be on time, if you can’t show up on time you obviously don’t really want the job and your commitment probably isn’t there. That’s not to say that you won’t be interviewed or make it through to the next round, but you set a bad precedent. which means, where the recruiter may have highly recommended you they will now simply send your CV if you are qualified.

Now What if it can’t be helped and you really can’t make the interview. Remember it is a recruiter’s job to do whatever it takes to try and fill the position they have been given so generally if you call and reschedule they will be understanding and set another time, don’t do this more than once, again it gives the impression that you are not that interested. Do not just not show up, the reason for this is should you want a job in the future that the recruitment agency holds you won’t get it cause they’ll have a record of your not showing up and marking you as a bad candidate.

Now you’re in the interview, obviously you’re nervous but bear in mind; if you don’t say it the recruiter cannot record it and if they cannot record it they cannot report back to the client. Also please from a recruiters' perspective answers the questions they ask you and not pre decided ones. So often I ask a question and my candidate replies with something that has nothing to do with the question, and in my case all my questions stand alone and thus if the incorrect answer is given, that section in laymen’s terms is failed thus reducing the chance of me providing good feedback to the client thus it reduces your chance of getting the job.

However it’s not as hard as it seems if you have the experience you say you do and you can communicate what you have done and experienced you have as well displaying a positive attitude you should have really good chance of getting the potential opportunity of a life time.

Good luck and happy job hunting.

Please give me any feedback you may have by posting a comment.