Wondering how a recruiter can help you? Great question. The truth is that a recruiter can help you and you can also help a recruiter. And we LOVE a win-win here at CCG!!  So the question becomes, how do you reach out to a recruiter to make a great first impression and how can you make their life easier and give them exactly what they want?

Well, this question has been coming up a lot so I reached out to our Love Your Career Formula Certified Career Coach, Becky Carlson, to give us some behind the scenes tips! Becky is also the founder of JobSearchSuccessCoach.com. Thanks Becky!

Here’s what she had to say:

First, know the different types of recruiters.

There are different types of recruiters. The most popular are recruiters that work for an agency and internally recruiters. Most mid-size to large companies have internal recruiters. You can reach out to these recruiters through LinkedIn and let them know that you are interested in a job that they have posted. Remember that recruiters are looking for someone to fill that job, so if you have the right skillset and are interested they are excited to connect to you.

You can also go through an agency and work with a recruiter that places people at many different companies. You will want to make sure that you working with an agency that places people at the companies you want to work at. You usually can find out this information by speaking with the agency or looking at their website. Like I mentioned, if you are working with an agency recruiter you need to be clear about what type of jobs you want. I always encourage people to add both internal and agency recruiters to their LinkedIn network. 

Second, contact them the right way.

If there is a particular company you really want to get into, but they do not have a job open right now, I would encourage you to reach out to the recruiter so you can get them into your LinkedIn network. That way when they are searching in their own network, your profile will come up as one of their contacts.

I am an internal recruiter and I will tell you that I pay more attention to the candidates that reach out to me (via LinkedIn) after they have applied to one of my open jobs. They might connect to me on the same day they have applied or they might have already been in my LinkedIn network. Either way, the reason I pay more attention to them is because I know they are really interested in the job and are taking the extra step to have me see their profile and resume.

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Also, when you send a message through LinkedIn I see it come into my email box – if I can see a great candidate come to me before I have to dig through all of the resumes in the database. I will contact them first. 

If you have any other questions, definitely reach out to Becky personally!