Job Hunting Advice!
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Yeah, but not for your current position. For that, maybe just put a brief description of the company.
Copa – I also have a different education background to what I work in. It definitely does bring up questions but I see that as a positive because then I can uniquely position myself and have a distinct advantage. As for your LinkedIn, you should definitely have a more accomplishment focused set of achievements under each job. However, it’s really important to have a cover letter type summary that attracts the right type of people. Start working on a good summary and use key words for the job you are looking for so recruiter filters will get to you.
First apply online and then try to find out who the recruiter is through linkedin…get a premium linkedin account …its like $30 a month or sumthing…that allows you to see most recruiters for the job postings. it is possible to find out recruiters through linked in in most cases. connect with them and send them your resume directly over email if their email is listed. Or if you know someone at these companies email them your resume and ask them for anyone in HR’s email addresse OR ask them to fwd your resume to the recruiter. Directly reaching out to HR is much more impactful than just applying online.
I agree with most of that but I’d say if you’re going to find out who the recruiter is, do that *first.* and go through them. A recruiter doesn’t want you applying on your own. They wouldn’t get their fee that way.
Does anyone know if there is a way to use LinkedIn Premium withOUT having that banner on your homepage that basically announces to everyone that you’re using Premium? I’ve considered this before at the recommendation of a former co-worker who swears by contacting recruiters on LinkedIn, but she has had bad luck with layoffs and super crappy jobs (that she’s quit) in the past few years. I’d like to be discreet about it, and hate that LinkedIn displays when people have paid memberships.
Sorry, I don’t.
I’m definitely seeing that the jobs recruiters are reaching out about are not advertised online. Probably because 1) they have the recruiter handling the search so they don’t need to post, and 2) the recruiter doesn’t want some great candidate getting into the funnel if they didn’t put them through.
One of the companies is west-coast-based but looking to build an office in my city on the east coast and need someone to build a team, but there’s no indication of that anywhere as I’m researching them online.
I think for more junior roles or people right out of school, casting a wide net by applying online is more what you do as part of your search, but the more experience you have, the more it makes sense to just use recruiters and network, or focus a much greater percentage of your time there than on online applications.
So I have an interview scheduled for next Wednesday. It’s not quite the type of position I’m targeting, but I applied knowing I’d be a strong candidate and that it’s a stepping stone toward what I want. So I’m open to it if things go well.
What do all of you tell your current jobs when you need to duck out to interview? I lucked out when I interviewed at this company — both days I had to be here in person, I already had off work. The recent interviews I’ve been on were flexible with their timing, so I was only 30 minutes late to work (not an issue where I am).
This company wants to meet me midday. The main office is in another city and it sounds like the director of the department will be at the office near me for the day to interview candidates. I’m planning to ask if they have any flexibility (like meeting me toward the end of the work day), but I have a feeling they won’t have a ton of flexibility and that I’ll need to find a reason to be out. (I hate lying for these things because it’s never a sure thing until you have received and accepted an offer.)
Lunch with your mom? Or some family member who is in town?
My mom went through a phase a few years ago where she was “retired” but didn’t have enough to do, and she decided we’d go to lunch every 2 weeks. She’d drive to my office. People can’t really question it when it’s your mom.
We’ll see how things shake out with what time we can agree on. Because lunch breaks are such a rarity around here I worry even THAT will look suspicious. I work in a meeting-heavy environment and it may be easier to think of a reason to be out for half of a day so that it doesn’t look like I’m bailing on meetings to eat lunch.
Maybe you can say something like your heat broke and you have to wait for repair guy. Anything that needs fixing or delivering, they generally give you a few-hour window so it ends up being a half-day thing. It seems normal in the workplace because it happens a lot.
That’s a good idea, actually. I live in a cold city, haha. I’m sure everyone lies when they’re interviewing but I truly hate doing it.
So I’m in in-house recruiter so I have experience with this! First off, there is a difference between an in-house and agency recruiter. In-works for the company. An agency recruiter is fee based and will present you to multiple opportunities. Agency recruiters are great, but you typically needs to be more experienced or in a niche or in demand field to get companies to pay a fee for you. Depending on the size of the company, reaching out to an in-house recruiter or hr person is a waste of time. I work on 100-200 job openings so I don’t have time to respond to individual inquiries about specific jobs. If you call, I will not call you back. But, if you find out my email address and send a resume along with the position or job number, i’ll quickly review and if qualified i’ll forward to the correct hiring manager, basically putting it to the top of their pile. I also never read cover letters and most hiring managers don’t either. We’re always going to interview the best candidates the most experience. If you don’t have experience in the area you’re applying for, you need to leverage your network and contacts to get an interview. No amount of a beautiful perfect cover letter is gonna get you in the door if you don’t have someone vouching for you. Now, this is for a established companies is decent sized cities. We get hundreds of applicants for each opening. At smaller companies or in smaller cities with less competition a good cover letter could probably work wonders. And, maybe calling HR would get you in the door. But always, your best bet is to get directly to the person hiring. If you use linkedin reach out directly to the hiring manager, or someone you think might be the hiring manager and/or ask them to point you in the right direction of who to talk to.
As for what to tell your current company, lie lie lie. Everyone does it, you need to. Tell them you have a doctor or dentist appointment. It’s great because if you need to go back for another in person interview or follow up call, it’s super common to have a second appointment soon after for both the doctor and dentist (getting blood work after your routine physical, getting a filling after tooth cleaning, etc.). And, keep doing what you’re doing with trying to get first interviews early in the morning or late at the day, then lie about the longer panel interviews that are less flexible with scheduling.
