I found an interesting post on RecruitingBlogs by Paul Gumbinner, a recruiter. I love to hear what recruiters think about the job search process and job seekers. Their perspective can really help us refine our message and usually self-made systems.

Paul’s post is titled A New One On Me, and talks about his experience with a shady competitor that was doing something that was likely unethical.  Apparently, it is abundant in the recruiter space. It’s an interesting story – read it here.

What really got me, though, was the comment from Sandra McCartt – Sandra comments a lot on these posts and always has really good, fair input.  Check out this snippet from her comment:

I tell candidates that when any recruiter asks them to sign any kind of contract or any agreement other than a permission to check references they should limit it to that specific job if they are dumb enough to sign anything at all.

and later….

I agree he was foolish to sign it.

So what do you sign, with a recruiter?  I’d love to get Nick Corcodilos to weigh in on this one… but here is my take-away for today: Don’t Sign Anything!!

I was reminded of a post I wrote back in June of 2008: How To Be A Passive Candidate When You Are An Active Candidate. For example, if you are unemployed, looking for marketing jobs, you are an ACTIVE candidate.  If you have a job in marketing already, and you aren’t looking for another job, you are a PASSIVE candidate.  Interesting that to a recruiter, you are always a candidate, right?

It’s fun to go back and read my old stuff… I had totally forgotten about this post. I only had 2 suggestions (at the bottom of that post), but they are pretty good…

Are you an “active candidate,” and is that hurting your job search?  Read this post. You need to understand the difference between the two.

Yesterday I blogged about working with recruiters.

Here’s another post of interest: The recruitment database is far from dead….

Peter Cosgrove says that his firm, the largest recruitment agency in Ireland, took their 20 last placements and lists where they came from:

• Only one applied through a job board
• Two came from a cv database such as monster
• 3 came from our own Cpl website
• 2 were found on Linkedin
• 12 were by referral or internally found by the recruiter on our database.

Read his short post for his thoughts.

My thoughts?

NETWORK!!!!

Network with recruiters, but NETWORK with people who can refer you!

I saw a question on a LinkedIn Group about working with recruiters.

Job seekers continue to wonder how this relationship works, how to get value out of it, etc.

Here’s a post from Harriet Constable titled The Importance of Recruiters for Job-Seekers. I never had the benefits listed by Harriet, as the 30 or so recruiters I tried to network with were all busy trying to find inbox zero, or working with better candidates.  I was nothing more than another resume to them.

As job seekers we’re told we shouldn’t blast our resume out, so that employers could find it and take all the incentive away from a recruiter to promote us.  There is a conflict of interest there… they will promote us if they can get a commission from a placement, BUT if another recruiter submitted our resume, or if the hiring manager got our resume because of our networking efforts, the recruiter might feel slighted, and will not be able to get a commission if we are hired.  If they know our resume is all over the place, they lose incentive to ever work with, or promote, us.

If you ask me for advice on working with a recruiter, here it is: Pay $40 and get Nick Corcodilos‘ book: How to Work with Headhunters.

Nick is well-known in the industry for shooting straight from the hip and telling it like it is.

If you have ANY questions about how to work with recruiters, or you want to go to the next level, you MUST get his book.  It will be well-worth the $40…. OR, spend hours and hours asking unqualified people what they think… I’d say drop the $40 and get it from the expert.

(nope, I don’t get a penny out of Nick’s sales)

Check THIS out:

I love it when recruiters rant.  They help job seekers become better, or they tell us what our competition is doing wrong.  Danielle says:

People, how many times do we have to tell you, write down the jobs you are responding to so that when I call you THE NEXT DAY or after the weekend, you know who the heck I am or can at least pretend!

Anyone know a tool that could help you track this?

JibberJobber!

Totally.

Read Danielle’s entire post, and make a list of stuff you will and won’t do so that recruiters are IMPRESSED with you.  Make their job easy.  And don’t be lazy!

Get on, and use, JibberJobber!

When I got laid off I created a simple plan to land a better job quickly.

My plan failed.

What I didn’t realize is that the job search is broken, on every single level.

Job Seekers are broken because they don’t understand, and many times don’t want to understand, the process.  They just want the freaking job!  The problem with not understanding the process is that they then do things that seem to make sense, but really don’t.

The Recruiting world is broken.  Just head over to recruiting blogs to learn about all of their issues and topics they talk about.  I’d call it a mature industry, but they struggle with so many things it is clear there are still many wrinkles to iron out.  And, ask any job seeker what they think of recruiters – it usually isn’t good for two reasons:

1. The job seeker doesn’t understand the role of a recruiter in their job search, and
2. The recruiter has no time to follow-up with unpromising candidates, leaving them hanging, not providing even a sentence of counseling/coaching/encouragement/feedback.

HR is broken.  Why do you think every job counselor in the country says “AVOID HR!”  They are a mess. I’ve worked with them, and I know they have many issues.  Many times they don’t have a seat on the executive committee, and aren’t involved with strategy.  They are disregarded by the strategic thinkers, and are left to do a very, very important role without being properly funded, or empowered.  Also, just how much influence do they have in a hiring process?  Either way too much, without the right tools, or way too little, when hiring managers go around them.

The process hiring managers follow is broken, especially evidenced when they hire based on emotional input rather than seeking out the best candidate.  Their A-player employee strongly recommends someone?  Go with that, instead of equally weighing out all of the strongest candidates!  Yeah, that will last.

Job boards are broken. Typically, they don’t care about the job seeker, or the job search process.  Job seekers are transient users who pay nothing (leeches, maybe?).  They care about whoever at the hiring company is going to pay to have a job posting put up.  That’s why on some job boards you get contacted by “opportunities” that have NOTHING to do with what you have on your resume.

What else… there are other aspects of the whole process of what is broken.

What does this mean?

There is PAIN for job seekers (and for everyone else involved in the hiring process).  Some of it is very deep, personal pain.  Other pain is just work frustration.

There are OPPORTUNITIES to fix various parts of the puzzle.  I’ve seen people/companies come along that will fix a very specific issue, without really affecting the big picture, and I’ve seen people/companies try to fix the entire puzzle (which is really too big a problem to fix, imo).

Are you going to focus on the  PAIN or the OPPORTUNITIES?

I am a nut for job journals.  When I speak I tell job seekers to take an entire day, go somewhere quiet (mountain?), and brainstorm past accomplishments.

I think, for multiple reasons, this is more important than spending all day on the computer.

Get away, document and brainstorm, and remember the great things you’ve ever done in your career.

Steve Levy, a recruiter in New York, recently tweeted this:

Then he followed up with this:

In JibberJobber we have a place where you can put these emails, transcribed kudos, reports, etc.  and store them.

It’s all about CAREER MANAGEMENT.

Collecting this stuff helps you define your brand, and craft stories to communicate what you’ve done and why you are awesome.

As Steve says, “you don’t think you can remember all of these?”

You absolutely won’t remember all of them, especially when it most matters (in a networking setting, or in an interview).

That’s the premise of my most commented post, Depression Clouds Everything.  The idea is that when your emotions get in the way, you get clouded, and can’t recall why you are awesome, or that you’ve ever done anything good in your career.

You might not use all of the stories, but just having them could really help you communicate much better, because stories back up what you say about yourself.

To get this in JibberJobber, login and then go to TOOLS, then Job Journal:

Seriously – take the time to do it and you’ll reap the benefits for many years to come!

One of my users asked about a job as a tech recruiter so I pointed him over to a buddy of mine who is a … tech recruiter.  My friend’s response was VERY interesting. I remember, in my job search, thinking that being a recruiter might be a fun and interesting job.

Consider this (slightly edited, and emphasis is mine):

Do you want to work for an agency? If so, I think __________ is hiring. _________ has a reputation for having an excellent training program as well. _________ and others are reasonable as well. _________ is one of the “boutique” agencies in the market right now and does top-notch work. Finally, you may want to talk with _______ at _______, a very good, high end tech shop. I can introduce you, if you wish.

Watch out for non-compete agreements, if you go with an agency. They are fairly standard, but be sure if you leave a company, you can still make a living… 6 month waiting period or 50 mile distance from your “home” recruiting area is what you should go for. 1yr max. More than that, and I would seriously think that company knows they will burn you out and not make you successful. Also, make sure their comp structure rewards you for performance and doesn’t cap out on you.

Good luck. It’s a crazy world out there.

Great advice… the lesson I learned from this is to ask for advice from people who are in the field you think you want to go into!

I just got an email from the founder of RecruitingBlogs, where recruiters go to learn, share, complain, laugh, etc.  Here’s part of it:

Below is the top 10 posts of 2010 on RecruitingBlogs.

1. Stupid Girl Loses Job Because of Facebook status

2. The Best format For Your Resume

3. Linkedin Profile Photo? 5 things Not to do

4. 3 Reasons I’ll read your Resume

5. Who Owns Your Linkedin Profile? What Everyone Needs to Know

6. Recruiters: One Ugly Question That Can Save Your Life

7. The Recruiter Personality Test

8. R.I.P. recruitment Search Agencies. Thank you for all your contributions but you will not be missed

9. Linkedin and the Future of Recruiting

10. What You don’t Know Can Hurt You

I share this because I think it’s important for job seekers to know what recruiters are thinking about.

If you read in-between the lines there is a lot there that can impact your job search…

I think it’s intriguing to learn about what recruiters talk, and learn, about.  Understanding what they are paying money for and what they are trying to incorporate into their business can help you understand how to better position yourself, whether you are in an active or passive job search.

Here’s parts of an agenda (full agenda here) from a recruiter conference… do you see a consistent theme?  Browse through these and then I’ll make a conclusion at the end of the post:

Kristin Graham, VP Global Recruiting & Engagement, Expedia is going to talk about the new candidate… how the talent pool has changed since the recession.  This sounds really, really interesting.  She’ll talk about how to maintain credibility with different generations (including the high-tech high-touch candidates).

Stephen A. Lowisz, President and Chief Executive Officer of Qualigence will talk about a role the recruiter plays in helping the hiring manager realize what they want vs. what they can get. Interesting role I never really thought about.

Eric Winegardner, Vice President, Client Adoption, Monster.com and Marie Artim, Assistant VP of Recruiting, Enterprise Rent-A-Car will talk about the power of social media.

Shally Steckerl, EVP Arbita and Founder of JobMachine will talk about “key social media sourcing initiatives for 2010 and beyond.”

Rusty Rueff, Glassdoor.com Board Director will talk about the employment brand: Your employment brand is transparent! Yes, Really!” I hope he helps these people understand that when they treat candidates with disrespect that has a negative impact on the company.

Simon Conroy, CEO, Madgex will do a presentation called “Social Media Dreams and Digitally-enabled Fantasies.”

Traci Scovel, Sr. Program Manager, Genentech and Kasey Sixt, VP of Branding, CKR Interactive will give a presentation on getting started with social media by committing 15 minutes a day.

Gautam Godhwani, CEO and Co-Founder Simply Hired will talk about how to “prepare for the future of job search.” I bet he’ll talk a lot about Twitter and Facebook (it’s in the description).

Social Media is over 1/2 of the agenda!

This is what recruiters are scrambling to learn!

Where are you in your personal social media strategy?  Are you “there?”  Do you have a plan?  Will these recruiters FIND YOU?

When they find you, will they be impressed and think that perhaps you are the exact person they were looking for?

Or… is it all just crickets? (that is, you aren’t there, you don’t exist)

Whether you are in a serious job search now, planning for one in the next couple of years, wanting to get promotions at your work or have your own business, I think it is time to SERIOUSLY figure out what your social marketing strategy means.