A common experience every recruiter shares is their extended family and friends inevitably asking them to help with their CVs, cover letters, and interview prep. Job seeking is something we’ve all done and something I know I’ve always enjoyed, but let’s face it, job seeking can be stressful and often time-consuming.

To take off some of the load, this blog will provide many of my favourite tips and tricks on how you can get your name out there and most importantly, your resume in front of those important decision makers.

The Application Follow-Up

The application follow-up is often where most job applications start and unfortunately where many often come to an end. Every single person I’ve met in my career has a story about how they never heard back from that company or that recruiter regarding a job they really liked. Someone sees a job they like, click “easy apply”, and their resume/cover letter flies through the web into the hiring manager’s inbox.

The problem is plenty, if not most, applications never make it to the hiring manager. It’ll often get skimmed for buzzwords by third parties, left in someone’s mailbox or task list for a few days, or hit the plethora of roadblocks during the application process. Before you know it, two weeks go by, and your phone/email is still silent.

Instead of leaving the application to do all the work, do some research and find out who is most involved in the interview decision. Your recruiter is your best source of information here. They know the market inside out, and often know the hiring manager, giving you an easy way in! LinkedIn is also a great tool for this– once you have applied for the job, make sure you reach out to the relevant person with a connection request and a message; something brief, quick-to-read. Even if they don’t respond – and yes, that sadly will still happen – you will already have gone above and beyond what plenty of your interviewing competition will have done.

Using What’s at Your Disposal

There are thousands of “job-seeking tools” online, but how do you navigate these? Of course, depending on how you use them, there are tools, groups, and websites that can be priceless. Simply put, you should use online services, career coaching, job boards, etc. for one purpose: to get yourself in front of the people making the decision. Networking will never go away no matter how remote the working world may become– whether through LinkedIn, a job-seekers group or a college’s alumni network. Whatever it may be, if you can find a clear path to getting yourself in front of the hiring manager, you will have completely bypassed the painful application process.

This leads me onto working with recruiters. When starting your job search, you should research which recruitment agencies specialize in your area and location– and then you should reach out. By application and subsequent follow-up emails/calls, you can get to know the necessary recruiters within your preferred industry and they can give you resume advice, interview prep, job search strategy, and at the end of it all, a job! All of this without the painful on-line application process that often stops interviews before they happen.

Keep It Engaging

Job seeking isn’t easy, you can often run through a seemingly endless gauntlet of new jobs and new companies that it is easy to fall into a routine of submitting your application and moving on, and it can- often leave your feeling like you won’t get a response no matter what you do.

The number one goal of job hunting is to get your name, information, and, above all, yourself known by the person making the decision. It may take a bit of extra work, time, and research, but if you can keep yourself engaged, tap into your resources, and get your name out there, I guarantee you will come to find more success within the process.

There’s so much more to be said on this subject– and it’s one of my favourites. If you’d like to engage more, please feel free to contact me at james.dappert@oliverjames.com