I was just reading a blog post over on JibberJobber. My buddy Jason, in his post "My network fell apart" was talking about statistics for how executives find jobs and the top way wasn’t networking it was recruiters. Just wanted to post a couple of brief thoughts on the issue:
1) If you don’t have recruiters in your ‘network’ then you aren’t networking correctly. Recruiters can and do help lots of people, employed and unemployed. Even if you have a job, knowing a great recruiter might be a good opportunity for you to help others (as Kent Blumberg so astutely noted.)
2) Recruiters that find you, the ones that you don’t even know, probably found you by networking with folks that they know. It isn’t always cold calls that are the "key" to recruiters finding a great candidate. And great recruiters, well they only make one cold call to a person in their lifetime. After that, they should all be warm calls. 😉
So next time you are setting up networking goals and adding them to your JibberJobber tasks sheet, include finding some great recruiters and strengthening your relationships with them.
Carl, I totally agree – but I have a question – I had “relationships” with 30 recruiters… but in my job search I never got one introduction or connection through any of them (except one – Rob Merrill). I just wasn’t good stuff for them, and their job was to make money by placing people. How do you position yourself so that you can tap into your recruiter’s network, and take advantage of this relationship (“take advantage” in a good way)?
Okay, writing fast as I have a meeting I have to head to in about 2 minutes…
One of the things I have noticed about having recruiters in your network (and I talk more about this in the upcoming book) is that it works better to approach the recruiters in your network with your definition of the ideal opportunity (or even an opportunity itself) rather than just asking them for something.
For example, if I know that my calling and career path suggests that the next thing I should do is to run a software development team for a small-to-medium size company doing progressive and interesting work, I can approach the recruiters in my network looking for that.
And/or, having found an opportunity like that, approaching the recruiters I know to discover if they know anyone who they might be able to introduce me to at the opportunity.
Jason, not sure that you can tap into the recuriter’s network, as that is afterall, how they put food on the table. But you can sure make yourself of value to them.
First, try to work with recruiters who work your seciality.
Second, come to them when you hear about an opportunity that might be something that they could work on.
Third, offer up folks in your network when they present something that might not be right for you.
Mike, you hit the nail on the head. And if you have leads that pooint to companies that might have those opportunities whether inside info, network info, job posting or what have you, share that info with the recruiter.
If you can make it easy for the reruiter to do the hard part of his job (getting a client company to sign a fee agreement and accept candidates for interviews) then the recruiter will surely include you amongst the candidates that he submits – ESPECIALLY if you are a superstar.