Pimps. Blood Suckers. Ambulance Chasers. Scum. Some of the words I've heard used to describe Recruiters by those within Australian industry.

Often though I've found that hostility or hatred is underpinned by misconceptions about how the recruitment industry works......


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Are you a great candidate?

If you were paying the bill for a recruiter, I'm sure you'd expect them to go out and find you great candidates for your role. People who fit the brief technically, who will fit into the team and company culturally and also come in under the budget. And indeed that's what we always aim to do.

So if you are not getting a lot of traction with recruiters, ask yourself this - are you actually a great candidate?

Just about everyone's automatic answer to this is Yes. "Hey, I've got 6 years of Windows server admin experience, I've got an MCSE, etc, etc". But saying you have x years of experience or certs y and z doesn't really answer the question. We've all seen people in the workplace who aren't very good, in spite of having experience, certs and degrees. Are you genuinely good? 

Reflect on this for a moment - 50% of people are worse than average. And recuiters are trying to track down that top 5 or 10%. That's 9 out of 10 who don't make the grade. Here are some questions you might ask yourself as to whether you are a great candidate:

  • Are you an excellent communicator? Articulate, engaging, able to speak directly to the point. 
  • Do you actually answer the questions you are asked?
  • Is your CV polished, well formatted and sensibly structured?
  • Is your career history stable? Good tenures in roles, with no major gaps in your experience.
  • Have you worked for well known, well regarded organisations?
  • Have you moved to different organisations across your career to prove yourself in different environments?
  • Have you kept your skills up to date and relevant? (Keeping in mind it's commercial experience that counts)
  • Are you certified in the technologies and methologies that you consider your core area of expertise?
  • Are your pay expectations reasonable given your experience?
  • And finally, the big one - Are you actually as good as your peers? (and how have you benchmaked this?)
The answer to more than one of two of these questions is no, you might now know why you aren't getting much traction.

My own personal feeling is the people that have the worst experiences with recruiters are in fact the worst candidates.
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6 comments:

  1. mattMay 8, 2012 at 10:31 PM

    The recruiter is in an excellent position to judge candidates on many of those bullet points but from an employee point of view, we keep a lot of this stuff personal so don't have a good idea of what the standards are. I have found many recruiters in the past don't give good feedback on my resume. My experience of recruiters falls into two types of interaction: the first where they are positive about whatever position they might have matched me up for (sometimes where I think they are way off) and the other where they want to talk me down to accept a low paying contract so are trying to poke holes in my resume (so I naturally don't trust their assessment as being particularly objective).

    I usually try to get feedback on my resume but it's hard to get a really objective assessment that you can trust.

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  2. Greg PankhurstMay 9, 2012 at 5:43 AM

    I think this comes back to understanding the nature of our role. We are going to market to find the best people for our clients within their budget. That means negotiating hard with people, and as harsh as it sounds, it doesn't entail coaching people we don't think are up to scratch how to best cut their CV.

    In reality I'm happy to give people tips and ideas how to improve their chances in the market, but I think expecting recruiters to do this all the time is unrealistic.

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  3. julesJune 10, 2012 at 12:21 AM

    Can you inform me about your professional qualifications? Also what is the average age of your consultants and what qualifications do they have? What do you consider to be mature age?

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  4. Greg PankhurstJune 11, 2012 at 8:35 PM

    My qualifications: a PhD and a Bachelor of Science from Sydney Uni. I've also done a number of courses on Recruitment Skills, Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
    Average age of our consultants: 39
    What's considered mature?: It's more a state of mind than an absolute number. I will say though that it makes life easier if your age is in keeping with the gravity of your role

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  5. mattJune 12, 2012 at 5:52 AM

    I don't know if you take requests but if you are ever stuck for topics I'd be interested for you to expand on this post. Could you write more about what you look for in a CV or if there is such a thing as over-communicating: like gabbling when maybe you should just shut up.

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  6. Greg PankhurstJune 13, 2012 at 3:01 AM

    Happy to write something Matt. Will put something togther.

    Short answer on CVs: plenty of detail and specifics, nice clean formatting, and make your career history the star of your CV not your studies, hobbies, etc

    Can you over-communicate: for sure. No-one wants to hire someone who waffles on for 10 minutes before they get to the point. You want direct and to the point answers, ideally backed by examples

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