The Undercover Recruiter

10 Scariest Job Seeker Mistakes [INFOGRAPHIC]

Halloween is right around the corner, but that doesn’t mean you should let your job search turn you into a clumsy zombie. Though these tips may not help you when the undead invade, there are a number of basic survival skills you can use to get through your job search without losing your brains.

Plenty of job seekers don’t realize that even seemingly small mistakes can have a huge impact on their success. In horror movies, the first person to realize there are killers on the loose is usually the one who lives, and staying ahead of other job seekers can help you from falling behind, too. Lack of research, neglecting to follow-up, grammatical errors in emails, or having an unenthusiastic attitude — all of these things can leave you struggling to keep up in the scary world of unemployment.

But you don’t have to lose your brains during your job search — proper preparation can help you to avoid making common mistakes. This infographic from Careerleaf, an all-in-one job search platform that cuts the time to apply in half, outlines the 10 scariest job seeker mistakes–and how to avoid them.

Heather R. Huhman

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert and founder & president of Come Recommended, a career and workplace education and consulting firm specializing in young professionals.

Filed Under: Infographic, Job Search Tagged With: blunder, halloween, jobseeker, mistakes, scary

How NOT to Contact Recruiters on LinkedIn

Lots of us in the recruiting world are very active on LinkedIn, doing what we can to be accessible to jobseekers. We love networking, meeting new people and finding great candidates to fill our openings. Many of us also like to give back to our networks, helping out in any way we can. While we may not be able to help with every jobsearch request that comes our way, many of us help jobseekers by passing along introduction requests, answering questions, sharing jobsearch tips, giving networking advice, volunteering our time to moderate networking groups, etc. LinkedIn is a great tool for helping others and I love to do my part.

That said, there are some requests that cross the line, in my opinion, and I think that jobseekers should be careful to leverage their network without taking advantage of it. Most have the purest intentions in mind and aren’t even aware that their request may not be received in the best light, so this list is written to help jobseekers make the best possible impression when networking with recruiters on LinkedIn. I hope it is helpful to you!

Here are ten of the mistakes I see most often:

1. Can you help me find a job?

This is the most common request in my LinkedIn inbox, but one where I’m least able to help. An agency recruiter or headhunter might be able to “shop” your resume around to a few of their clients, but at the end of the day, a recruiter is someone who finds candidates to fill jobs, not someone who finds jobs to employ candidates. This is a key mistake that many people make. Most recruiters are happy to share their advice for jobseekers, but a recruiter is not a professional “job finder”… Those really don’t exist!

2. Do you have any job openings that fit my profile?

Agency recruiters or headhunters might be a bit more open to this type of request, but before approaching an in-house / corporate recruiter with such an open-ended question, be sure to do a little legwork ahead of time. First off, remember that recruiters aren’t “job finders” (see #1 above). Secondly, companies often have dozens or even hundreds of openings at any given time. These openings are spread across a team of recruiters who only have real visibility to the openings they are personally handling. Thirdly, you are the best one to pinpoint positions that fit your interests, talents and career path. Be sure to first look online, find positions of interest, apply via the careers page and then approach a recruiter at that company with some specific positions of interest in mind. Most will do what they can to put you in touch with the appropriate decision-makers. Having done some homework on your end will not only speed up the process, it will also put less of a burden on the person you’re asking for help.

3. Can you review my resume and send me your edits / feedback / suggestions?

As much as we’d love to help, resume critiques would take up a full 40-hour workweek (or more!) if recruiters complied with every such request. Resume writing is a very time-intensive process that requires two-way discussion, in-depth knowledge of your past experience / career goals, extensive editing / rewriting, etc. Professional Resume Writers often charge big bucks for their services because it’s no easy task or quick process. Recruiters may be able to recommend a professional to you (or help you network to find a good one), but this type of request is something that recruiters simply don’t have the bandwidth to accommodate.

4. Can you please send me John Doe’s email address / phone number?

If a LinkedIn member wants their contact information to be public knowledge, they’ll be sure to post it on their profile (and many of them do, so be sure to check). If not, then it’s really not appropriate for their network contacts to give it out to others. (You wouldn’t want your network contacts giving out your email address and phone number, would you?) Instead, use the “Introduction Request” feature on LinkedIn. It’s a great feature that enables you to message your target contact without revealing either party’s email address. Most recruiters will gladly pass along introduction requests on your behalf and then your target contact can decide how he or she would like to follow up with you. (Or, if you prefer to go the direct route, you can do a little Google research, as explained in this previous blog post, and easily figure out that person’s email address.)

5. Do you know anyone at Acme Company?

Probably! A well-connected recruiter likely knows multiple contacts at your target company. Rather than asking that person to run a search of their network to find a list of all possible contacts at a company, you should instead run a LinkedIn search yourself and sort through the results. You can easily identify an appropriate target or two (recruiters, hiring managers, peers) and then send an introduction request. After all, no one knows better than you why you want to reach out, which departments fit your career goals and who the best contacts at that company might be.

6. I’m interested in a position at Acme Company and would like to apply for position #1234. Can we set up an interview?

Normally this type of direct contact is a great strategy after applying online, but be sure to read the recruiter’s profile carefully before reaching out. It’s shocking how many times I’m contacted about positions at my former employers! Oops! Always read the LinkedIn profile carefully before reaching out for help.

7. Can you endorse / recommend me?

Lots of recruiters are open networkers, open to meeting new contacts and connecting with them for mutual networking purposes. These recruiters are typically very active on LinkedIn and will often do what they can, but if they’ve never met you and have had zero interaction with you thus far, please don’t ask them to write a LinkedIn recommendation for you. I’d like to think that an endorsement means a little bit more than that! It’s always best to get a recommendation from actual coworkers, colleagues or clients who know you well and can provide feedback that is authentic, meaningful and specific.

8. Let’s chat on the phone, grab coffee sometime, meet up for lunch, etc.

While this suggestion sounds all well and good, email communication is generally preferred due to the volume of candidates a recruiter handles in a week. These options might make sense down the road, but it’s best not to jump the gun. Recruiters are usually booked back-to-back with phone screens, onsite interviews, interview feedback meetings, resume sourcing and gobs of administrative tasks (tracking, metrics, record-keeping, reporting, etc.). Not to mention all of the after-hours calls that recruiters make to accommodate working folks who can’t phone interview during the business day! So please don’t be offended if the recruiter can’t take you up on your offer… We would if we could!

9. Hi Tracy / Hi {FirstName} / Hi trusted friend / Hi James

When reaching out to contacts on LinkedIn, please be sure to get their name right. I’m not super picky about people misspelling my name “Stacey-with-an-e” (unless it’s a technical writing, quality assurance or similar detail-oriented profession), but “Tracy” is pretty far off, “{FirstName}” is clearly some mass email error, “Trusted Friend” is obviously an impersonal email spam blast and… “James”? Well, that’s just plain wrong! An incorrect name makes a poor first impression and is the quickest way to turn off your recipient since the mistake appears right at the top of your message. Be sure to personalize the note and get the recruiter’s name right!

10. Wow, love your picture / What a nice smile / Hello there, Beautiful…

Last but not least… remember that LinkedIn is a business networking site, not Match.com. Jobseeking or not, always be professional!

photo by: joshjanssen

Stacy Donovan Zapar

Stacy Donovan Zapar is a 15-year recruiting veteran and CEO of Tenfold Social Training, a training / consulting company for recruiters and hiring teams. She is also the Most Connected Woman on LinkedIn with more than 36,000 first-level connections. She served as Technical Editor for Wiley’s LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day and is a regularly-featured contributor on The Undercover Recruiter. Feel free to follow Stacy on Twitter @StacyZapar and connect with her on LinkedIn.

Filed Under: LinkedIn, Recruitment Tagged With: blunder, jobseeker, LinkedIn, mistake, mistakes, Recruiter, recruiters

Top 5 Job Search Blunders to Avoid

Most of us will know or have an understanding that when looking for a new job and new role, networking can be of huge value and importance. However, for many of us there maybe a difference in definition of what ‘networking’ really means.

I received a few emails on this recently which has spurred me onto thinking –hey I should really write something on this and job hunting online generally if it will help people with their job searches and especially if they are putting hours and hours of time and effort each day doing what is highly ineffective. So – here I will use examples from 2 people I have come across recently. One email from – let’s call her Sally (to save embarrassment) said:

‘About networking – it depends how you define “really networking”(see article: 5 Good Ways NOT to Network) I’m regularly sending out e-mails and adding people on LinkedIn. But this is often to very little avail, and I’ve never been on a course about “how to network effectively”. My progress over the years has been in a kind of “trial-and-error way”, which I’ve supplemented with the odd suggestions from friends, recruitment professionals, and university career advisers’

Unfortunately this does not seem to be hugely uncommon. He carries on after a few exchanges to say – ‘I was expecting you to say that I needed to be bolder in my communications with others, more persistent, less honest, and a lot more pushy (just like how a lot of head-hunters are with me, and the sales-people I’ve met are) – but it turns out I’m completely wrong!’. Right – so I can’t divulge everything in 1 blog but I can try to make a start – so here goes with some of the biggest online job hunting mistakes that I have been hearing about recently:

1. Sending out blanket emails to people you do not know

When people receive emails from those they do not know – it is ‘spam’. They do not know you and so why should they care – well they do not usually care about you or what you are after. If you are sending out masses of emails into the cyber abyss – people reading and receiving these can tell. It’s generic, impersonal and usually highly annoying to the reader. Why on earth should they help you – they do not know you – and you have not taken the time to get to know them!

Imagine you are a top manager somewhere going about your day job… – then – you get hundreds and hundreds of emails from people asking for a job. So – unsurprisingly this approach is a big waste of time. Targeted emails/letters – which have been thought through and worked through – is a different story and probably best left for a separate blog.

2. Adding anyone you can find to your Linkedin

I receive several invitations from people who I do not know, to connect and ‘join their professional network’ on linkedin. Do I accept these invitations – nope! I usually send a message back asking how I can help. There is also a polite ‘Have we met!?’ note as well to hint at the fact that adding randoms is not a good idea! Getting a reply at all is very lucky. What will usually happen is:

They will hit the ‘I don’t know this user’ button, which means you will never be able to contact that person again. If it is done several times – linkedin will stop you from being able to openly contact people – until you start being ‘good’ and sensible again.

Read this article to learn how to use social networks and social media in your job search: How to use social media to job hunt

3. Sending your CV to anyone you can get your hands on

I did not know Sally yet the minute she got the chance to – she sent me her CV. So what am I supposed to do with it? Ok – so there might be a chance that I have a job or know someone but am I inclined to help if I’ve just had a random CV pushed in my face? No – so don’t do it. Make sure your cover letter sounds professional but also with a human touch, and you may want to add some business cards into the envelope for a personal and professional touch.

Here’s some food for thought on CVs: Top 10 Features for your CV

4. Applying to all the ads you can find

The other day I was talking on the phone to Tom. He was down in the dumps and has been trying to many months to get a job. After asking what he’s been doing – he explains how he’s ‘you know, the usual – I sit for hours at a day going through jobsites and applying for all the roles I can find’. When asked if there’s something specific he’s after – the reply is a no. He also ‘sits by the phone waiting for the recruitment agencies to ring, but they don’t. They aren’t really taking any notice of me’. Sad but true..

Spending hours of your time applying for everything under the sun without any focus or way to distinguish yourself from the crowd – will get you no-where. It will make you tired and frustrated perhaps but the likelihood of getting any of those millions of jobs you applied for is low.

You may want to check out How to Get on the Radar of Recuiters by the way.

5. Relying on recruitment agencies or headhunters

Following on from Tom’s comment on this – you cannot rely on the agencies of headhunters to magic up a job for you. It does not work like that. They are sitting on literally hundreds of thousands of CVs at any one time. Their CV database is huge. You are a number to them and they will only contact you if you happen to fit one of their roles. Given there are thousands of candidates for them to choose from – you cannot leave this as your only or main route to finding a job.

There is a general theme to the techniques used above. They are all impersonal, mass and volume orientated, time consuming – and they just do not work! There is a great book ‘What Color is your parachute?’ which tells you that:

Using the internet as a way to look for a job is at the very most 10% effective
Mailing out resumes to employers at random is usually 7% effective
Answering job ads you see in the press, trade journals etc are also around 7% to 24% effective at most
Using search firms, recruitment agencies is 5-28% effective

So the way that does actually work is to do what they call a ‘Life changing job hunt’ where you look at what, where and how. What we specialize in is actually an extension of this idea where we look at: what your skills are, what makes you, what you can do. Then we look at where you want to use those skills – so the options available to you. Then finally it’s the how – and from our experience you get there most effectively via connections or what is more commonly referred to as networking. This method is around 90% effective.

Be smart about how you use your time. Get out there, talk to people, meet and get to know them properly. Be curious about them. Ask questions. Seth Godin has a cute note which sums up the need to being curious well in: Why ask why?

Nisa Chitakasem is the founder of Position Ignition – a careers company dedicated to taking you to the next step in your career. Nisa is passionate about helping individuals find the right career path for them whether it involves finding a more rewarding career, making a career change, figuring out the right career plan or being creative about career directions.

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Filed Under: Job Search Tagged With: blunder, Job Hunting, mistake, mistakes