Another excellent article by a recruiter at Recruiting Blogs, titled 10 warning signals to drop a candidate.
FYI, a recruiter talks about a client and a candidate. Which are you?
A CLIENT is the company that has an opening, and hires the recruiter to find someone to fill it, and PAYS the recruiter.
A CANDIDATE is the job seeker (you). You are a candidate to fill the position.
It’s critical to understand that the candidate (you) is not the main focus of a recruiter’s day. Of course, they look for you, and hope you are the one, but at the end of the day, they are paid by their client.
I didn’t understand that very well when I started my job search, which led to unrealistic expectations of the recruiters I contacted.
Anyway, back to the list of warning signals. You need to read each of these and determine if you are violating any of them. Also, read the comments, where other recruiters emphasize the most important to understand.
When I read through the list of 10 warning signals I thought they were talking more about the employed candidate – that is, the candidate they are trying to steal away from their company to work for the Client – but I realized this list should provide guidelines for you, even if you are unemployed, so you can work well with the recruiter.
I love getting a recruiter’s perspective of the broken parts of this hiring system. Understand them and you’ll understand why you have successes and failures in your job search.
