Five tips to a better partnership with your recruiter

Every day, recruiters receive 100s of CVs for open positions, as well as calls, emails and InMails from candidates all with one aim — getting noticed!

So, what can you do differently to make yourself stand out from the crowd?

The first step to standing out with an employer is making sure you have the support of a great recruiter. Natalie Cohoon, Senior Recruiter in our London office shares her top five top tips on how to build a great recruiter partnership that ensures you are getting presented for the best opportunities and are well represented in a competitive job market.

1. Start with your CV

As clever as they may be, your recruiter is not a magician, so make sure you can be easily found. Many recruiters will do a simple keyword search to source and filter pools of relevant CVs, so start by investing time on yours. The algorithms that many recruiters use are based on the presence of relevant buzzwords from the role profile or market they are targeting. This doesn’t mean litter your CV with the latest trends to hit the market, but in order to be found and get noticed it’s important to think about how you are pitching yourself. If ‘agile experience’ is one of your key skills, then ensure you have written ‘agile experience’ somewhere in your CV.

2. Get noticed - but avoid the scatter gun approach!

Once you have written a CV, under pressure it can be tempting to send it out to all and sundry in the hope that you’ll get a response. While this approach may yield some luck, a recruiter will quickly sense if a half-hearted approach has been taken and often this will determine the level of engagement you receive in return. Our recommendation is to have a targeted plan:

• Use LinkedIn or company websites to identify the best partner for you;

• Have a tailored approach that articulates clearly what you hope to get from the contact and what you want to do with your career; and

• Try to avoid only approaching recruiters when you are actively looking — as often the proactive, slow-burner relationships yield the best results in the long run!

3. Invest time in building a relationship

Your recruiter is the key to the door for that next opportunity, but in order to achieve results, it is important to start with a relationship. Like any relationship this can take time to develop but try to invest time in meeting with them and letting them get to know you personally. This personal touch will inevitably also show through and when they market you to their end client, they can discuss how you will fit culturally as well as simply sharing your CV.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask

A relationship is the first building block to an effective partnership and once you have this, don’t be afraid to ask for more.

But, what should you be asking of them?

• Ask for references from your previous hiring manager(s) in support of your skills and to augment your CV

• To phone or meet their client rather than just sending a transactional email with your CV attached

• Secure an interview! — get in front of your target audience as quickly as you can to increase your chances of landing a new role

5. Communicate, communicate, communicate!

Even if your application is unsuccessful or there are no live opportunities, communicating regularly with your recruitment partner helps to keep you at the forefront of their mind for future assignments. You can maintain your relationship with your recruitment partner by meeting for coffee (perhaps once a quarter) and keeping them updated on any changes or if you have gained any new skills Overall, these tips aren't rocket science, but they are often overlooked by candidates. While it is a recruiter’s job to provide a service between a client and a candidate, the more you view your recruiter as a partner, the more you will get out of the partnership in the long run.