How Do You Demand A Recruiter's Attention

How Do You Demand A Recruiter's Attention

HOW TO LOOK FOR A NEW JOB


When a candidate is job hunting, often times, one is not quite strategic about it and is not aware of this importance. In order for you to draw a recruiter’s attention, you need to be the ‘solution’ that they are looking for. Recruiters can’t afford to spend time regretting candidates individually, going through hundreds of random generic CVs that are not targeted toward their recruitment need.

A recruiter has a very specific task, and that is to fill the job/jobs they have been given by clients, timeously with the best and most suitable candidate for the job. A recruiter is not primarily an administrator that has endless time to read cover notes, go through random applications and have a chit chat with candidates. One task – Find the best candidates potentially suitable. One goal – find the right candidate amongst those potentially suitable. Everything else in the business comes secondary.

So what am I saying?

Don’t present a generic application. Don’t use undefined subject lines when applying by email.

What does this mean?

Do not say ‘Application for job’ or ‘Applying to the advertised job’ or ‘CV attached’ etc.

For a recruiter who is under pressure and has deadlines, you are not helping yourself or the recruiter. Be specific and to the point. Do not leave the body of the email blank simply with your CV attachment. Be professional, targeted and again, to the point. Go to the recruiter’s website and have a look at what they are advertising. If there is a specific position relevant to your experience that you would like to apply to, put that job spec’s title in the subject line of your application for e.g.:

If you are a mechanical engineer and there is a relevant position for a Mechanical Engineer being advertised and you have plenty experience, put ‘Experienced Mechanical Engineer’s CV’ in the subject line.

In the body of your email, write maybe a 3 liner as to your relevance and interest in the position. Guaranteed, the recruiter will open your CV as opposed to you simply attaching your CV and putting ‘Application for job’ in the subject line.

I personally forward on every ‘generic’ or undefined application to our administrator/s to go through for me and should they identify someone potentially suitable, they will send the application back to me to review. Administrators have multiple tasks to fulfil and their primary function is not necessarily CV searching.

If you want to save yourself and the recruiter time, be professional, brief and thorough targeting your application towards something specific with the required approach. Unless you would eventually just simply like to have your CV stored on the recruiter’s company database for future reference when your CV is finally gotten to, I would suggest putting more thought into your application.

Do not use undefined subject lines when applying by email. Do not say ‘Application for job’ or ‘Applying to the advertised job’ or ‘CV attached’ etc.

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