How To Get Hired – A Recruiter Speaks (1 of 2)

The struggles of those who have sought career opportunities in recent years have been well chronicled. I enjoyed a presentation yesterday from a man on the other side of the equation, legendary recruiter and author Lou Adler. Here are some insights to consider.

Recruiters Have 3 Ways Of Finding Candidates
1) Postings for individual job postings
2) Talent pool databases
3) Networking

Networking is critical for a variety of reasons. Mainly, this humanizes the candidate-position matching process.

How To Maximize Your Profile
1) Reverse engineer your resume (using keywords commonly used by recruiters)
2) Use diversity terms
3) Have recommendations (again, bonus points if you can humanize the search)

Adler also suggested ditching the address in the header of your resume. Instead, replace it with a career headline. For example, consider a positioning statement such as “Respected sales manager with track record of growing revenues and building team cohesiveness” as being more important than listing where you live.

What To Do When Switching Careers
Adler advised considering a generic job title, not necessarily your official title at your former position. Then, list accomplishments to illustrate how your experience translates to a new career. Your focus should be on transferable skills.

What To Do When Switching Locations
This can get tricky. A job seeker should realize using a recruiter may not always lead to optimal results. Recruiters typically don’t know the ins and outs of each position they are managing (remember, they attempt to fill various types of vacancies at any given time). Likewise, hiring managers don’t always trust the recruiters they use. These detachments are flaws in the hiring system. Adler also suggested career changers move to a location with a seemingly shallow talent pool. You can use the area’s lack of qualified workers to secure a position, gain experience for a couple years, then transfer to where you want to go.

The Most Important Question To Those Out Of Work For A While

Adler feels this question is critical when evaluating those with a significant gap in their employment history. He feels a proper response to the question should illustrate self-motivation, self-improvement, and a general desire of one to get better during a time of unemployment.

That’s it for now! But, that’s not it in terms of advice from Lou Adler. My next post will be a more in-depth look at how to reverse engineer your resume and take a look at other job search tips offered yesterday by Lou Adler.