From SmartMoney.com | Oct 25, 2010
-
There are better ways
to find a job.”
A recruiter or agency is one part of a job search, but it
shouldn’t be your primary source – and maybe not your secondary one,
either. Referrals – that is, a connection made by someone you know –
remain your best bet. CareerXRoads’ annual survey of more than 200
employers shows that the percentage of hires made through referrals has
remained remarkably consistent over the last five years. Nearly 27% of
respondents said referrals were the biggest factor in external hires in
2009, practically unchanged from its 27.1% figure in 2005. Third-party
agencies, meanwhile, accounted for only 2.3% of external hires last
year, compared to a 5.2% success rate in 2005.
2. “We
don’t work for you.”
Christy Ezelle, a media advertising
executive in New York, was in her first job out of college when she got a
call from a headhunter working for a major advertising agency. It was a
good experience, until she tried to negotiate her salary – the company
wouldn’t budge. Why? They had already shelled out for the headhunter
that tracked her down – a fee that was eating into the amount they were
willing to pay Ezelle.
Recruiters work for the hiring company, and
that’s where their allegiance lies – not with the job-seeker. That
means headhunters will always be more interested in making their client
happy than in finding a candidate the best possible package, says
Carolyn Dougherty, an executive search consultant in Villanova, Penn.
“There’s a belief that the recruiter is working on the candidate’s
behalf and that’s not the case,” she says. “They’re working for the
client – that’s where the fee is coming from.” And because most
recruiters don’t get paid until the position gets filled, they care more
about sealing the deal than about getting you another $10,000.
3.
“Until a year ago, I was a car salesman.”
There
are no laws or rules that govern what constitutes an “employment agency”
or who can call himself a recruiter, and setting up shop is pretty
easy: A year’s worth of advertising, office space, travel and
communications equipment is just $50,000 for an experienced recruiter
like Eleanor Sweet, who runs the Remington Group in Barrington, Ill., an
hour outside of Chicago; a rookie could put out a shingle for far less.
Anyone can do it, she says, “It’s pretty much like getting a real
estate license.”
That means job seekers have to vet a recruiter
with the same diligence they’d investigate a potential employer. Ask how
long the recruiter’s been in the business, and where they’ve placed
candidates in the past – and then call those companies and confirm,
experts advise. Also, though a certification isn’t required to be a
recruiter, there are a handful of designations a pro can earn. Getting
certified as a Temporary Staffing Specialist, a Personnel Consultant, or
a Professional in Human Resources don’t require any coursework, but all
require previous experience and the passage of an exam – legitimate
hoops for a dedicated professional to jump through. One strategy to
avoid at all costs: firms that charge for job search services or call
themselves “fee-based counselors” raise red flags with experienced
recruiters, because “It’s expected that the company pays the fee,” says
Dougherty. (see No. 2, above).
4. “The job we advertised may not
exist.”
<a target="_blank" href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/3a3f/3/0/%2a/v%3B223183022%3B1-0%3B0%3B46920832%3B4307-300/250%3B35984900/36002778/1%3B%3B%7Eaopt%3D0/ff/d7/ff%3B%7Efdr%3D225331033%3B0-0%3B0%3B47801207%3B4307-300/250%3B36938896/36956774/1%3B%3B%7Eokv%3D%3Bkw%3DPersonal_Finance%3Bkw%3DEmployment%3Bkw%3DEmployee%3Bkw%3DSpending%3Bkw%3DConsumer%3Bcolumns%3D10_things%3Bcontentid%3D25533%3Bpos%3D3%3Bticker%3DMAN%3Bticker%3DRHI%3Bticker%3DMWW%3Bticker%3DKFRC%3Bpagetemplate%3D1%3Blevel2%3Demployment%3Bs%3D8_10001%3Bs%3D8_10035%3Btile%3D3%3Bsz%3D300x250%2C336x280%2C300x600%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/1/d7/1%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://personal.fidelity.com/planning/college/content/landing_ma.shtml.cvsr?immid=00347&imm_pid=46920832&imm_cid=c35984900&buf=99999999"><img src="http://s0.2mdn.net/2579983/095750_CIT_MA_BestBuddies_300x250.gif" width="300" height="250" border="0" alt="" galleryimg="no"></a>
Recruiters often advertise appealing jobs that aren’t
vacant, just to build up a stable of candidates, says Nick Corcodilos,
who heads the executive search firm North Bridge Group and runs www.asktheheadhunter.com
in Lebanon, N.J. From a staffing firm or recruiter’s perspective, this
is a practical way to do business, because many assignments offer a
bonus for filling a key job fast. But for the job hunter, it’s
misleading, raising false hopes at an already anxious time.
That
doesn’t mean an applicant’s efforts are useless. Just because there’s no
job now doesn’t mean there won’t be one in a few months. Jeremy Dixon,
general manager at A-1 Temps in Tampa, says client companies will ask
him for 50 people qualified for customer service positions “in a couple
of weeks.” If he has a sufficient pool of established applicants, he can
place them in a hurry.
For the best odds of success, job-seekers
should identify companies and positions they’re specifically interested
in and seek out recruiters who work with them. (This is particularly
true for anyone seeking an upper management job, for which companies
typically rely on an established relationship with a recruiter or
recruiting firm.)
5. “We already know quite a bit
about you.”
As soon as you sign up with a recruiter or
search firm, they check you out – your background, your credit history,
even legal records. That’s why they have applicants sign all those
disclosures. If you want to work with them, you have to submit. That’s
fairly standard in the job market these days, whether or not you work
with a recruiter, but unlike a recruiter, a prospective employer usually
doesn’t do the background check until after he’s met you. That gives a
candidate the opportunity to impress on his merits, and explain anything
that might be dodgy in his history. Working through a recruiter, a job
seeker might never get that chance.
In that case, all you can do
is make sure that the information they have is accurate, says
Corcodilos. Almost 80 percent of credit reports contain errors, and 25
percent have what’s considered to be a “serious error” such as false
delinquencies or accounts that did not belong to the consumer, according
to a 2004 study from U.S. PIRG. To ensure you’ll be judged on your own
merits, check your credit report for errors and take steps to fix what you find.
6. “Our jobs aren’t
so hot either.”
Because most agencies don’t get paid
unless they place candidates at jobs, the weak labor market has taken
its toll. In Orange County, Calif., for example, the 20 largest
employment firms saw revenue drop almost 20% in 2009, prompting many to
lay off employees, according to an Orange County Business Journal
survey. A lot of experienced people have left the field, says Darrel
Gurney, an independent career consultant who runs the CareerGuy.com web
site, leaving “empty desks and brand spanking new people who have never
done this before.” That means you often don’t get the best help in your
job search, particularly working with smaller firms, he says.
Bigger,
national and international firms are doing better. Revenue at
Switzerland’s Adecco, the world’s largest staffing company, rose 16% in
July and August. Meanwhile, revenues at domestic search firms Manpower
(MAN: 55.73*, -0.73, -1.29%) and Robert
Half International (RHI: 27.01*, -0.43, -1.56%) are up
15% and 6% respectively in the last three months, in part a result of an
increase in revenue-producing job placements.
7. “You’re at the mercy of a
computer, just like online job board users.”
<a target="_blank" href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/3a3f/3/0/%2a/g%3B222822269%3B4-0%3B0%3B46584228%3B4986-300/600%3B37589066/37606944/1%3B%3B%7Eaopt%3D0/ff/d7/ff%3B%7Efdr%3D225177141%3B0-0%3B0%3B47801207%3B4986-300/600%3B37255032/37272910/1%3B%3B%7Eokv%3D%3Bkw%3DPersonal_Finance%3Bkw%3DEmployment%3Bkw%3DEmployee%3Bkw%3DSpending%3Bkw%3DConsumer%3Bcolumns%3D10_things%3Bcontentid%3D25533%3Bpos%3D3%3Bticker%3DMAN%3Bticker%3DRHI%3Bticker%3DMWW%3Bticker%3DKFRC%3Bpagetemplate%3D1%3Blevel2%3Demployment%3Bs%3D8_10005%3Bs%3D8_10001%3Bs%3D8_10023%3Bs%3D8_10035%3Btile%3D3%3Bsz%3D300x250%2C336x280%2C300x600%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/1/d7/1%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.fidelity.com/midyear?immid=00329&imm_pid=46584228&imm_cid=c37589066&buf=99999999"><img src="http://s0.2mdn.net/2579983/1-102763_01_Viewpoints1_300x600.gif" width="300" height="600" border="0" alt="" galleryimg="no"></a>
The rise of online job sites like Monster
(MWW)
and Careerbuilder has changed the way many staffing professionals work.
The sites use computer programs to scan applications for particular
keywords – and now, so do recruiters. Even if you submit your resume on
fancy stationery, it gets scanned by the recruiter or staffing agency.
Especially for entry or mid-level jobs, cover letters don’t get read,
Gurney says: It’s this digital process that drives the professional
match-making.
To get through the computer gatekeeper, applicants
need to make sure the relevant, searchable words are on their resumes.
For example, he says, if you want to work in the entertainment industry,
listing a past job at Sony Pictures on your resume isn’t enough; the
word “entertainment” must be there too. Candidates who aren’t sure what
the magic keywords are should look at the description of the job they’re
applying for, says Jessica Mazor, an account manager for the accounting
and finance business at Kforce Professional Staffing (KFRC)
in New York. The “must have” criteria in the description are
particularly important.
8. “The ‘temp-to-perm’ carrot is
rotten.”
Many staffing agencies hold out the promise of
permanent jobs after success in a temporary position, but that trend
isn’t holding in this recovery. Since temporary employment trends hit
bottom in September 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor says the service
and professional sectors have added 392,000 temporary jobs. But the
CareerXroads survey showed that positions explicitly advertised as
temp-to-perm accounted for just 1.6% of all hiring in 2009 – and even in
better times, that rate was only around 3%. “Temp-to-perm is basically a
marketing ploy,” says Corcodilos, who says it’s really more of a
fantasy: “It’s what recruiters would like to see happen.”
9.
“If you have a job, I could get you fired.”
Not all
recruiters are careful, and the last thing you want is to have your
resume land on the desk of your current boss. This is a very real risk,
says Sweet, president of the Remington Group, so job seekers need to
make sure they know exactly what recruiters are doing on their behalf.
“Put every recruiter you work with on notice,” she says. “Say, ‘You do
not have permission to release my paperwork without my permission.”
And
then there are the aggressive recruiters who pull resumes off LinkedIn
profiles and job boards and circulate them without getting the
candidates permission – or even letting him know. That’s what happened
to Michael Segel, an information consultant in Chicago, who was
interviewing with several different companies when one prospective
employer asked him why he’d received his resume twice. An overzealous
recruiter whom Segal had never met had sent it. Now Segal only posts his
resume as an un-alterable PDF, and he keeps careful track of where he
and any recruiters he’s working with send it. He says it can’t stop the
practice of unauthorized circulation, but if he’s contacted by a
recruiter he doesn’t know, he can quickly figure out what’s happened. “I
usually cut off contact right there,” he says.
10. “If
I’m in Virginia, I probably won’t help you find a job in Nebraska.”
If
you’re willing to relocate, don’t rely on your contact in your home
city to help you find work outside the area — even if you’re working
with a national search firm. Recruiters at big firms have little
incentive to spread your resume around to other locations; they’ll have
to split a commission with the colleague that helps you land a job.
Instead, send your resume to the branch offices in the places you would
like to go. As soon as that office has you on file, “they take ownership
of your search,” says Sweet. Smaller, more local firms agree – and may
even refer you to someone else. “We have alliances with other staffing
companies,” says Diana Wall, a senior account manager at Accel Financial
Staffing in Oklahoma City. “There’s no commission – it’s all friendly
referrals.”
Related
articles and videos