Three Ways to Impress a Recruiter

The job market’s incredibly competitive and everyone is looking for a way to impress a recruiter. It’s a common complaint on Reddit and even LinkedIn that recruiters simply ghost people or never follow up to begin with.

Why is that?

Well, as a recruiter who has been on the other side of the aisle, I’m hear to give you a few ways to impress your recruiter so that you don’t get ghosted and so you do get that return email or message.

The ugly truth in the recruiting world is that recruiter’s only want to deal with people who will make them money. We’re not there to work for free!

So when it comes to impressing a recruiter, what you’re really doing is impressing on them that you’re someone who can make them money. Here’s three ways that you can do that.

Respond To Them: Fast!

If I could tell people one sure fire way to impress recruiters, it would be this: respond to them and do it fast!

If you get a connection request on LinkedIn, respond to it that day if you’re interested in the job. And if you start a conversation on LinkedIn, don’t suddenly go dark for a few days and expect to rekindle that convo.

Recruiters don’t want to deal with people who are flakes. People who don’t have excellent commination skills and are not fast to respond are not going to impress a recruiter.

If you wait days or weeks to follow up with a recrutier, don’t be suprised when they dont respond to you.

Now, I should point out that I’m primarily speaking about professional roles. These might be low paid admin roles, or they might be six figure executives. When you’re working in the professional space, you have to be responsive and fast to get a recruiters attention and impress them.

This advice isn’t applicable for field such as medical staffing (medical assistants, nurses, occupational therapists, and the like). That’s non-professional work and is deeply tied into government funded hospitals and there is a totally different approach to hiring and working in those atmospheres. It’s the main reason medical professionals don’t use LinkedIn—they don’t have to network to find jobs.

But if you’re someone who works in corporate America, and by that I mean any non-government funded business, non-hospital, or anything that’s not a non-profit, then you’re going to need to be a fast and responsive person.

So, here’s my tips:

If you get an email from a recruiter, respond as soon as you can—if you’re interested in the role. Don’t waste their time with back and forth questions if you’re not interested.

If you get a LinkedIn connecting request and message respond as soon as you can. Recruiters can tell if you’re online on LinkedIn, so if you don’t respond for days they will assume you are not someone who is competent and checks their LinkedIn messages or emails.

Show Up on Time for Appointments

When people show up late it makes a bad impression on recruiters. If you show up late to an interview with your recruiter, they will immediately discount you as someone who is not serious and professional.

If you show up late to a job interview, then it’s not just a red flag, it’s basically a guarantee that the recruiter won’t contact you again in the future for other jobs.

So, the take away here is that you shouldn’t show up late.

It doesn’t matter if the interview is on Zoom or in person, make it a point to show up on time if not earlier.

What showing up early does is tell the recruiter that you’re someone who is dependable. That goes a long way, believe me.

In the event that you don’t get hired after an interview, you will want to make sure that you’re still on the recruiters list of people to contact again.

Remember, recruiters who work at staffing agencies use databases known as applicant tracking systems. These systems allow recruiters to take notes on how people interact and behave. If you’re someone who is late for interviews, it’s going in the notes. And that one recruiter isn’t the only person to see those notes. Every recruiter who has access to that ATS system will know.

You know what’s even more scary? Those systems are often sold to different agencies. So what happens is that you no show to a job interview or are seriously late and end up as a “do not call” across many agencies.

As you can see from the possible results of being late, you really should take care to show up on time for interviews. It signals to the recruiter that you are a professional and someone who is reliable.

You can control being on time, so make sure you’re always on time or early and this way you can impress your recruiter.

Be What They’re Looking For: Don’t Be Thick

This is the big one. And it’s hard for people who don’t understand what recruiters do to really wrap their head around.

You need to know if you’re of value to the recruiter. If you are someone who is a top notch accounting professional, that’s great. But if the recruiter only works on Public Relations A.E. roles, then you’re of little value to them.

Continuing to email, message, and call these recruiters won’t impress them.  

The way to impress a recruiter is to be exactly what they are looking for.

If you’re someone who fits the role that the recruiter is looking to fill, then you’re going to impress them.

If you have the skill set, the proper resume, and good follow up—that’s going to impress the recruiter.

On the other hand, if you’re not in the same field, it doesn’t matter how good your follow up is or how fast you are to respond.

You know what a recruiter will think in those instances? They’d say…why can’t I find someone like this who has the right skill set.

Here’s the secret. People think that they have skills that can be carried over from industry to industry. Employers don’t think like this. The truth is that employers only want to see resumes and job profiles from people who align exactly with the opening that their company has.