Recruitment Consultants

A large part of the hidden job market is handled by firms of recruitment consultants, who keep details of candidates on file, allowing interested employers to access them at short notice. Registering with a recruiter usually involves completing a registration form, attending an interview and possibly taking some kind of test. Once you have registered with a firm of consultants they will be in a position to to use their contacts in finding you the kind of job you seek.

General Points

Before you register with a recruiting consultancy, there are some basic concepts you need to be aware of:

• If you are out of work, your chances with a recruiter diminish rapidly. The client needs to feel that the consultancy is picking a candidate from a field of currently employed and highly successful people who meet their exact specifications.
• Recruiters will sometimes submit different sample candidates to find out what their client really wants, which may be completely different from the written job specification.
• When a recruiter tells you that you are a selected candidate, remember you are most likely one of at least three, and that the client may be only in the testing stage - just having a look to see what the market has to offer.
• Recruiters work for their clients - NOT for the candidates. A recruiter will often only submit you as a candidate if they feel that they can make a sale.

Finding a Suitable Consultancy

If you have decided to go ahead and register with a recruiting agency, there are a number of ways to find the right one for you:

1. Seek personal recommendations - for example, does anyone on your professional network have any recent experience of dealing with a firm of recruitment consultants? If so, what information can they pass on?
2. Make sure the consultants deal with the kind of jobs you are targeting. For example, if you're looking for a management position in the engineering industry, there's no use registering with a firm of consultants who deal mainly in general office staff. If in any doubt - ask. Call a number of consultancy firms, give them a brief rundown of the type of job you're looking for and ask if they can help.
3. It's worth scanning the job ads - recruitment consultants often run advertisements for vacancies that have been notified to them. From reading these advertisements over a period of time it is possible to tell which consultants are active in the areas of the job market you are targeting.
4. Check the business telephone directories - recruitment consultants often have display entries informing you about how they operate.

Working With a Recruitment Consultant

There are some basic concepts in working with recruiters:

• Make sure that they understand at the very beginning where you're coming from. You will need to explain your targeting, benchmarks - leave no room for doubt.
• Make sure that they know how to reach you. Recruitment consultants live in a fast moving world and candidates they find hard to contact won't appeal to them at all.
• Always advise consultants whenever any information they are holding on you changes, such as a new contact number or you decide to tweak your pay targeting benchmark down a notch or two.
• Contact consultants from time to time to find out how they are getting on. Not only will it remind them that you're still there but you might also pick up some interesting feedback (for example, the salary you're asking for is too high).
• Ditch any consultants who don't perform satisfactorily - especially consultants who waste your time by putting you forward for jobs that are completely wrong for you.