Brad Attig wrote an excellent post on how recruiters fit into your job search.
Brad is a professional recruiters helping fill retail positions. In his post he talks about how we want to help recruiters understand how we are the best match for their role, even if we haven’t done it before. Brad says:
A recruiter finds qualified individuals for specific clients who have requested assistance. Companies pay the recruiter. So if the recruiter want’s to eat, they need to find exactly what the company is looking for. Not a great person with an excellent background that “could” do the job.
It is critical that job seekers understand what a recruiter does because, too often, we lean too heavily on recruiters, thinking their role is to help us.
IT IS NOT.
He talks about all our transferable skills, but then drops the bomb with this profound statement:
Here’s the rub; my clients, 99% of the time, want someone who “is presently doing the job” they are looking to fill.
It’s no secret companies like to hire people who are already employed. Somehow they must think unemployed people are broken, or at the very least, unemployed for a reason. This is unfair, but even today Brad is saying his clients (the companies that hire him, as a recruiter) want to hire someone who is currently employed in the same role they are looking to fill.
All is not lost – Brad says he’ll share his ideas in his next two posts… check out his blog and subscribe to it via email… I do 🙂
