Recruitment for a job can come in many different forms. Traditionally, job recruitment has been limited to job boards, classified ads, and recruitment firms. Nowadays, job recruitment, like many other industries, has sprawled out across the Internet and takes place in a myriad of unique and unconventional ways. Digital job boards like Monster.com, Indeed.com, Idealist.org, and CareerBuilder.com have replaced traditionally published classified ads, and have become the “go-to” platforms where job seekers search for open positions. However, recruitment (in which hiring managers and recruiting agents seek out potential job candidates, not the other way around) is now happening at several other levels. There are many strategies job seekers can utilize in order to get noticed by recruiters and be ready to jump on exciting opportunities that arise in the ever-constant job hunt. While recruitment is certainly not something that job seekers can consistently count on, it is certainly an exciting way to open yourself up to opportunities that you might not have otherwise encountered on your own. What follows are Resume Yeti’s Pro Tips on how to ready yourself to be recruited.
Pro Tip: Keep your resume up to date, up to the minute.
Keeping your resume current is the most important element of job hunting. It’s an easy thing to let go of when you’ve been employed for a while or when you haven’t had to send your resume out in a long time. But it is absolutely crucial that you tend to your resume each and every time there is something new that you could add to it. If a recruiting opportunity arises and your resume is not ready, you will become overwhelmed by the process of updating and perfecting your resume, and in the time it takes to do that, you may miss the deadline to apply, or the recruiter might think you lost interest because of the lag in your response time. So, right now, before you do anything, get your resume up to date!
Pro Tip: Develop your skills to stay relevant
Almost as crucial as keeping your resume up to date, is keeping yourself up to date. Your skills, that is. As we mentioned above, today’s job market is seamlessly intertwined with the digital realm. Digital technology upheaves, updates, and revitalizes itself seemingly in the blink of an eye. This means that, at any given moment, your digital skill set may become outdated or obsolete.
To keep your skills relevant, it’s important that you’re constantly searching through job listings and job descriptions to ensure that the skill set that you posses is in line with what hiring managers expect of job candidates in your industry. If you come across something in your skill set that you need to brush up on or learn for the first time, you can keep yourself relevant by signing up for a seminar, class, or workshop to develop that skill. Attending skill development classes in your industry will also put you in contact with others in that industry whom you may not have met otherwise. Who knows, recruitment opportunities could arise for you simply by keeping your skill set up to date.
Pro Tip: Go to networking events and keep your own network current
Another way to be recruited, outside of digital job boards and attending skills development workshops, is to network your heart out. This includes regularly attending networking events within your industry. A quick Google search of “[your industry]” + “networking events” + “[your location]” will yield tons of networking opportunities for you, ranging from formal meet and greet events to more informal networking cocktail hours. Don’t forget to bring your business cards!
Staying on top of your networking game doesn’t only apply to expanding your professional network. It also applies to keeping in touch with your current network. Your contacts will be much more likely to reach out to you with an opportunity or help you out if you maintain your relationship with them past the time that you actually worked together. Keep in touch with them. Invite them to coffee or happy hour to catch up, see what projects they’re working on, what their next career plans are. That way, your relationship with your contacts is not purely transactional. It’s pretty transparent when an old work contact emails or calls out of the blue and asks for a favor. People in your network are much more likely to reach out or respond to you if you show them that you genuinely care about them outside of asking them for a random employment favor.
Pro Tip: Make yourself visible
Make yourself easy to find. One of the easiest methods of screening applicants or recommended job candidates is to Google them, and hiring managers do it. If you’re hoping to be recruited, you need to find ways to make yourself come up in a list of search results. There are so many ways to improve your visibility. The easiest and most practical way is to open your own professional social media accounts. Number one on this list should be LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a pool of about 250 million people in the modern workforce. Participating in this community increases your odds of being noticed by some of them. Making a LinkedIn profile in your name will also make your name appear in the results when someone Googles you. For tips on how to increase your visibility on LinkedIn, check out their article, “It’s Your Career: How to Get Recruiters to Notice You on LinkedIn.” Another way to increase your visibility in search engines is to make a website, if it makes sense for your work and your industry. Even if the “site” is just a landing page with some information about you, the most important thing is that your name and site would be another item that surfaces in a Google search of your name.
Again, being recruited is not a given. But if you test out these Pro Tips, you may find opportunities rolling in that were not made available to you previously. At the very least, by constantly readying yourself for job opportunities, you open yourself to be capable of applying immediately and confidently for outstanding positions you come across in your job hunt.
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