It can be hard to impress a recruiter. Honestly, we see so many resumes a day and talk to so many people that it kind of makes us jaded. It can be hard to impress a recruiter and make them notice you from among the thousands of applicants.
But there are ways to stand out. There are some things you can do that will make your resume get noticed and might make a recruiter call you over the next person who is applying for the job.
I wrote an article a while ago which discuss three ways to impress a recruiter. These traits somewhat overlap, but they are so important that I wanted to stress them again. Really, they are that important!
Some of these aren’t really tricks, but more suggestions on how to behave more professionally.
Now, it’s important to know that these suggestions are not meant for medical professionals. If you are working in the medical field (which include any clinical role from a PCT or CNA to an R.N. or O.T) then you are working in a separate job ecosystem. There are different rules for medical recruiting, so this is not applicable.
The suggestions here are for anyone who is interested in applying for work in the corporate workplace. It doesn’t matter if you are applying for a job in a mailroom or as an entry level administrative assistant or are interviewing for a higher level role such as office manager or marketing executive, the tips discussed here all apply.
Don’t Have a Resume Riddled with Errors
The first thing that I’d suggest is to make sure your resume looks good. It’s important to have a well put together resume when applying for jobs.
There are several things that you need to have in order when putting together a resume. Any single thing wrong can throw off the entire process.
While you should pay some attention to the design of your resume and how it visually looks, the first thing you need to do is proofread the resume.
If you send in a resume with spelling errors or typos on your resume, then you’ll not stand a chance.
People who are applying for work in the for profit sector in corporate settings need to have perfect resume.
What do I mean when I say a “perfect resume”? Well, I’m not discussing a resume that is perfect in the sense that you will always get the job when you send the resume. When I say perfect, what I mean is that there are no grammatical errors, no spelling errors, no typos, no huge page spaces and breaks.
The resume needs to be proof read to make sure that the recruiter doesn’t look at it and immediately see a misspelled word.
It’s a good idea to have someone else review your resume. If you get a new set of eyes on your resume, then you’ll be better able to get feedback on mistakes and errors. Sometimes a person who wrote a document is not going to see the mistake. It’s a classic example of not seeing your own mistakes.
So, once you’ve finished your resume send it to a friend to review and have them point out any errors on it.
Respond Quickly To Emails and Messages
Recruiters never want to deal with people who are slow to respond to emails. The longer you take to respond to a recruiter, the more of a problem it will be.
If you receive an email, or a message on LinkedIn and you don’t respond within the day, then you will not impress the recruiter.
This is especially true if you are already in communication with them. The thing that you should understand when it comes to recruiting is that recruiters do not want to waste time on people who are not good at communication.
Someone who forgets to answer emails or check emails isn’t a strong candidate for a role. There is immense competition in the corporate world. It’s much different than working in a government job where the hiring is based on a list which people add their name to, or in the medical field where having a license (PCT, CNA, LPN, RN, etc…) guarantees you work.
It’s crucial when dealing with recruiters to understand how time sensitive their work is. If you are someone who takes days or weeks to get back to someone, then no recruiter will ever want to work with you. It could even be a reason why they won’t call you back or respond on LinkedIn.
So, if you are someone who is slow to respond, either change that behavior or resign yourself to not hearing back from recruiters when you do follow up.
Show Up On Time
If there’s one thing you should take away from this article it is that you should always show up on time. You never want to be late for a meeting with a recruiter, or with a client that they’ve sent you to.
If you are late, or worse, if you cancel at the last minute or no-show, then you are killing any chances of working with them again.
A recruiter who works with corporate clients cannot risk sending someone to them who is not responsible and who is late for interviews. Again, there is a distinction between the corporate world and the world of government workers or medical personnel. Corporate employees are expected to be on time all the time.
So, if you are meeting with a recruiter, or certainly if you are going on a job interview that the recruiter has scheduled, then it’s of paramount importance that you show up on time and are not late.
Give Feedback
Here’s a little tip that most people might not think of. If you go on an interview with the recruiter, then it’s important that you give them feedback.
You can’t just show up and not let them know how it went. That’s not as bad as ghosting the recruiter, but it’s annoying just the same.
There are a number of reasons why you want to give feedback to a recruiter. Let’s look at them.
First off, you should always let the recruiter know how the interview went. It’s just common courtesy for you to let them know.
This can help the recruiter when they contact the client and see how the interview went.
The second reason why you’d want to give feedback is to get feedback. If you don’t connect with your recruiter to give them feedback, how will you get feedback?
It’s a two way street. You should be open and communicative with the recruiter that you’re working with so that they can help you plan and make better moves career wise. You don’t want to schedule meetings and calls and then never follow up about how those events went.
Giving a recruiter feedback is paramount in keeping the lines of communication open and making sure that you are operating towards the same goal.
Jennifer Miller- Recruiter and career advisor. Here to share wisdom to help you learn how to work with recrutiers. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to send me a question and I’ll do my best to answer it!
You can also check out some of my writing at Medium here.