CORPORATE RECRUITERS

Have you ever chatted to one of these individuals while searching for a job?

Well congrats, you have encountered a real life pokemon. Try and catch him/her (most likely her) before they disappear!

If there is one thing that I think transitioning military folk are bad at, its understanding the role that corporate recruiters play in the hiring process. So what is a corporate recruiter?

Generally corporate recruiters fall under the human resources function of a business and are responsible for sourcing talent for a company. In practice their day to day responsibilities and level of influence they exert in the hiring process varies greatly

• Some corporate recruiters exercise a wide variety of discretion and movement in the hiring process. They can control resume selection, initial interviews, final interview selections and even have a say in salary negotiations

• Other corporate recruiters are merely functionaries for actual hiring managers in a company. They try to broadly shape the recruiting process, and let internal hiring teams make the tough decisions. They make sure that certain timelines are hit and requisition targets are hit, but other than that are not very useful to you. This is more common in professional services, such as banking or consulting

It’s important to understand two things.

1. Recruiters are not your friends. They are judging your every interaction

2. You need to try and understand what role they play in the hiring process for that particular company (this can be hard)

Why is this important? Because it tells you how much weight and effort you need to take when dealing with these people. Let’s look at two examples. The first is a professional services firm and the second is a consumer products firm.

Professional Services Firm

For example, at many consulting and banking firms, talking with recruiters is almost a total waste of time. You need to get on the recruiters radar, but what’s more important is the interaction with the internal hiring team. Each group in a consulting firm has employees who make critical recruiting and hiring decisions. The general idea is that the sort of work done is so high touch and specific, that only actual practitioners could understand what is really required. Internal hiring teams will actively maintain lists and resumes. Conduct informational interviews, initial screening interviews and first rounder interviews all the way to final rounds. They will often have their own internal procedures and dates. In this case, the recruiter does whatever the hiring manager says for that group. Your interaction with the recruiter is perfunctory.

Consumer Retail Products Firm

A second example would be recruiting teams from a large consumer retail products firm such as Target. These recruiting teams play a very big role in the hiring process, and are very active in talking with talent and determining if they are a good initial fit. Essentially, you need to realize that the recruiter is an actual obstacle you must overcome before reaching the hiring team. Recruiters here will often do screening interviews that are very extensive and will compile a short list that is passed onto the final hiring manager. They will arrange informational interviews with full time employees, schedule final rounds, and even have a say in the salary range that can be applied to the position. Your interaction with this type of recruiter is very extensive and much more than that of the internal hiring team. You need to do your best to impress that recruiter from start to finish.

VERY IMPORTANT THINGS TO UNDERSTAND

You don’t need to have applied for an actual job to get a job offer. Recruiters will often decide you are the right fit and then tell you to apply. Applying to an actual job can be an administrative affair.

In other cases though, their might be a closing date on the job and it is only after that date do recruiters start screening resumes. The point that I am trying to make is that you should not self select by not.

A recruiter is not HRC, they are not like a commander, you are not going to work for them. You are going to go work for an entirely different part of the company.

Some recruiters do not have a good understanding of the job you are applying for, and you will need to work with the internal hiring team to ensure that the recruiter understands what role they are to play

Recruiters at large companies literally talk to 1000’s of people a year. By human nature they are only able to apply so much attention to you. Find a way to stand out in their mind, either through continuous contact over the course of job pursuit process, and/or saying something of extreme value that makes you stand out. This might take the form of knowing who works internally or you find a way to connect with the recruiter on an emotional level. This can be done. Just be a normal person. I know that seems like weird advice but hitting it off with someone can really go a long way.

Understand that recruiters can and will let you know through either verbal or non-verbal communication that they like what they seeing and hearing. This requires you to actually listen to a recruiter when they are talking. Instead of thinking of what you are going to say in response. Trust me people can tell the difference. if you can tell positive or negative reactions, then adjust accordingly.

If a recruiter is dismissive, unresponsive or in a shity mode, then it might be time to move on chief. Recruiters deal with a ton of people and they get immune to being a dick to you. They make half promises all the time to lure people in, and have no qualms about breaking those half promises. So never believe that a deal is done until you sign that offer form.

Conclusion

Look you need to realize you are dealing with a human and not an automatron. These poor recruiters are dealing with so many people that everything starts to blue together at some point. They are making critical decisions about people’s lives and they make mistakes like all of us, their mistakes just fuck up people’s lives instead.

So help them out, be polite, punctual, helpful, responsive, understanding and overall not a pain in the ass to deal with. If a recruiter tells you to do something, then fucking do it. Help a recruiter understand the value you bring to a company by clearly articulating why you want to work there and what skills you can bring. This involves homework on your part, That is the low hanging fruit and really makes their decision easier. Do the following

1. READ THE FUCKING JOB LISTING. See what the keywords and desired skills are. That is what the recruiter is looking for. Wouldn’t you? Align your previous stories with the required skills. It ain’t hard. Make sure to highlight those stories on your resume and when you talk to them. Understand the requirements and close dates of the job

2. Try and talk to the internal hiring team or people have done the job before. This really helps because essentially you get to talk the internal language and have a real practical knowledge of what goes on within the firm. That helps a recruiter see you at the firm. It makes the decision easier

3. Respect their time. Like I have said before, they deal with thousands of people. Be the person that isn’t a pain in the ass