6 Recruiter Secrets That Will Help Your Job Hunt

6 Recruiter Secrets That Will Help Your Job Hunt Recruiters have seen it all when it come to candidates. From embellished resumes, to a total lack of commitment. Its their job to match up the top  candidates with their perfect job, so theyve become pretty well practiced at reading people and spotting the red flags a candidate  may display. So if you want to catch the attention of a recruiter, for the right reasons, you want to get inside their head and build  an idea about what they are looking out for. Although Im sure recruiters dont want you to know all of their secrets, there are a few things that you should know to make a good impression. 1)  First you must beat the robot Recruiters will often receive dozens or even hundreds of applications for each  role, so personally  reading every single resume that lands on their desk just isnt feasible. To narrow down the applicants, automated screening software is often used to scan for  the relevant information in a resume. So if you havent included the keywords they are looking for, Im afraid yours is headed for the trash. To ensure your resume gets seen,  use keywords that appear in the job description. 2) They WILL check you out on social media This isnt limited to just LinkedIn. Recruiters want to build an all round impression of what kind of person you are and check that information is consistent across platforms. If you have other social media accounts open to the public they will without a doubt have a snoop. So make sure its clean and represents you positively! 3) Recruiters will  probably send your CV out without your permission Once your resume is on the recruiters system, its likely that they will send it out to employers whenever a relevant role comes along. This can become a problem if you work in the type of industry where everybody knows everyone, as news of your job search could quickly become public information. So if you need your job search to be kept on the down low, its important that you let the recruiter know and hopefully theyll keep a note that you do not want your resume shared without permission. 4) Flaky candidates are a recruiters worst nightmare If you pull out of an interview, it will not go down well. Even if you think youve changed your mind about the role, youre wasting the  recruiters hard work if youre a no show. So if you have gone through the motions and the recruiter has put in their time to convince the employer that they should give you an interview, the very least you can do is go along and see how it goes. It might go great, in which case you would have done yourself a disservice not to go. If at that point you realise its not the right opportunity for you, you need to let your recruiter know. 5) Theyll scope new business from you If they ask you if you have been interviewing elsewhere, it may come across as though they are genuinely interested in your job hunt. Sure, this may be true to an extent, but it also offers them an opportunity to scope out what companies are hiring and then they can swoop in and pick up the job. 6) The recruiter is not the decision maker Though they do have some influence over the hiring decision, the recruiter only really offers the hiring manager their thoughts and suggestions about candidates up for the running. At the end of the day, it is the hiring manager and possibly their colleagues who will make the final decision. This means that you should not focus entirely on building a relationship with the recruiter during the process. After an interview, be sure to send a follow up email to the hiring manager, so that you are fresh in their mind and it shows that you are serious about the job.