Nowadays, many permanent or contract roles are handled by recruitment agencies like ours. I am happy to say that recruitment agencies play a strong part in the employment market. Therefore, as I discussed in one my previous blogs, registering with a couple of recruitment agencies needs to be part of your job search.

Keep in mind that working with a recruiter is different from dealing with a company directly. Let me give you some advice on how to best deal with recruiters and create a successful partnership.

1. Relationship

It is very important that you build a strong relationship with the recruiter. Pretty basic right?

What I mean by that is, you want them to know you well at an employment level: understand your background, your skills, your strengths, personality etc.….

Why? So we can find you a suitable job matching your skill set and also a cultural fit. As a recruiter we often have the advantage to know the “behind the scenes” of the company we are recruiting for. We will have been onsite to meet the client, the team, and have insightful information from candidates we placed in the past. How? Only one way: take the time to meet the recruiter face to face and giving them a good overview of your background. Ask for a meeting, if you haven’t already take the relationship to the next level.

    2.  Availability call

Yes we mean it when we say to you, keep in touch! Let us know about your availability on a regular basis.

Why? Each week a recruiter meets and talks to at least 100 candidates a week. After a while, if we don’t hear from you, you might not be the first person coming to mind when a job comes through.

How? Telephone or email on a regular basis, once a week or a fortnight, let us know about your availability, your interest in any role you have seen advertised and how you are finding the market. You are increasing your chance to be one of the first we call when jobs become available.

   3. Reliability

Personally this is a big one for me, don’t let us down as you will damage our reputation but also yours!

Why? Working with a recruitment agency is in my opinion, a partnership. A partnership should be based on trust. We are working closely with hiring managers and they have the same expectation. If reliability and transparency are not part of your vocabulary, you could hurt our relationship with our client and worst scenario we could lose them.

How? Do what you say you are going to do, be on time for an interview, show up at interview or at your first day at work, come back to us as agreed on time, return missed telephone calls promptly.

Reliability is also being transparent. Tell us about your concerns about the job, other roles you have in the pipeline, simply keep us in the loop.

This can apply to you when you work with a recruiter. If they never get back to you, do not give you updates on your interview, they are not reliable so why continue this partnership with them?

We both want the same outcome, securing you a role, so let’s work together towards it and create this strong partnership.

Click here and follow us on our Linkedin page

Want to know more?

• Contact one of our consultants who specialise per job industry at Quay Appointments