There’s no doubt that an experienced executive recruiter can not only help you to find a premium employment opportunity, but they can also help you land that great job and grow your career.
However, some candidates do not treat the relationship they have with a recruiter in the proper fashion, and that can have a negative impact on their job search.
Remember: a recruiter wants to fill their client’s job opening with the best candidate in the shortest amount of time possible. Notice that the emphasis is on the words “best candidate.” A good recruiter is not going to try to fill an opening with just any candidate. They want the best because their client wants the best.
If you are one of the best candidates available for the position, the recruiter will make sure that you’re considered for the position.
But there are certain things that a candidate should NOT do during the hiring process. In fact, there are two main things that candidates should not do, because these things turn off a recruiter.
Those two things are as follows:
#1—Asking the recruiter to reveal confidential information to you before they are ready or at liberty to do so.
Confidentiality is one of the cornerstones of a recruiter’s working relationship with their clients, and asking them to breach that confidentiality will not put you in the recruiter’s good graces. For example, being persistent about finding out the identity of the company before they are able to reveal it will not help you win points.
If you’re working with a recruiter, you need to trust them. Trying to circumvent their role in the process will not further your efforts. Chances are good that it will only impede them. The recruiter will reveal information when they are able to do so, all in good timing. There are many valid reasons for needing to keep information confidential until a certain point.
#2—Not following through
The best way to brand yourself as a trustworthy individual is to do what you say you’re going to do. If you say you’re going to send your resume, send your resume. If you say you’re going to follow up after an interview, follow up. If you say you’re going to submit your two weeks’ notice at your current employer, submit it. When you don’t follow through, you brand yourself as unreliable and untrustworthy. Do you really think a recruiter is going to present somebody who brands themselves in that fashion to their client?
If you’re working with a recruiter, and you avoid these two mistakes, you will greatly increase your standing in the eyes of that recruiter. By extension, you will also greatly increase your standing in the eyes of the company officials who hired the recruiter to find the best candidates for their job opening.
Invest in your relationship with a recruiter the correct way . . . and that relationship might very well help you move to the next stage of your career.
We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of organizations. If this is something you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.