How To Work With A Recruiter

I began working as a recruiter in 2000 around the time that the dot com bubble started bursting and shortly after companies had exceeded their Y2K budgets and had no money to hire new staff.

It wasn't the best time to be looking for a new job (especially if you were an IT professional) and it was even worse to be someone who tried to get paid to get people hired.

Working with a recruiter can be a great way to supplement your job search. Obviously I'm biased but the fact is that good recruiters add value and help people get jobs.

If you are going to work with a recruiter, you simply need to adhere to a few common sense rules in order to get the benefits associated with working with one. Here are the most common mistakes that people make when working with a recruiter that you should avoid doing:

1. Don't plaster your resume on every Internet job board you come across. Recruiters get paid when they introduce a suitable job candidate to a company and that person gets hired by the company. Recruiters find it difficult to help you find a job if your resume is already public domain and is easily found on the Internet by employers. Employers often use Internet job boards and generally won't pay us for a candidate who they could have found themselves so if you are planning on placing your resume online, expect that some recruiters will not work with you.

2. Don't lie. Specifically, don't lie about how much money you are currently earning, don't lie about why you left your last job, don't lie about your job title or responsibilities, don't lie about what companies you've already applied to, don't lie about the degree that you don't actually have because you are two credits short, etc. If you expect a recruiter to be honest with you, you need to be honest with them. The first time I find a job searcher lying is the last time I work with them.

3. Don't rely on a recruiter to get you a job. A recruiter gets paid by the employer not by you and most work on contingency which means they only get paid when their client hires one of their candidates. Their job isn't to get you a job, it's to get the job filled regardless of whether it's you or someone else. If you use a recruiter(s), ensure you are using them to supplement your job search not to lead it.

4. Don't work with recruiters who are incompetent. Some recruiters aren't that good. Learn to tell the difference between a good one and a bad one. Signs that your recruiter is not very good: