Breaking Down the Recruiter Bill of Rights (Part 5)
We¡¯ve reached the half-way point of our Recruiter Bill of Rights, and we¡¯ve come to a topic that some candidates shy away from: Salesmanship. A top recruiter knows that a candidate can have a great background and huge plans for the future, but never even get close to landing the job they want because they simply can¡¯t or aren¡¯t willing to sell themselves.Now, we¡¯re firm believers in hiring qualified people for the job, but if you have the skills a company needs, you have to show them that or you can quickly get overlooked for somone with less experience and less ability. Companies want to know how you can help them, and recruiters want you to demonstrate that you fit that company¡¯s needs. Not everybody is fond of throwing out the sales pitch, but it will help recruiters help you, and it will help you get closer to the job you want. The folks at Guerilla Job Hunting summed it up rather perfectly, so we once again go back to their quote for inspiration:
¡±Employers don¡¯t care about what you want to do or even who you are until after they¡¯ve hired you. So stop telling them about your dreams and start selling to their needs.¡±
We¡¯ve often talked about the need for urgency on the part of hiring managers. Urgency can play a part for candidates, as well. This doesn¡¯t mean that we want people to take the first job that comes along or to engage in suspect search practices with sub-par search tools just to land a job quickly. However, it¡¯s important to stay focused on the present and to give hiring managers and recruiters a sense of what you have to offer right now:
¡±It¡¯s not about your past or what you used to do for someone else. It¡¯s about how you come across right now, in the present moment. That means you have to sell yourself so people get a powerful snapshot of you . . . one that makes them sit up and pay attention to you!¡± (From Job Search Secrets)
We don¡¯t want you to pull cheap tricks like coming in dressed as a clown or singing a song in your interview in order to ¡°get noticed.¡± We just want candidates to give recruiters and hiring managers the best possible chance to match them to the right job. This means candidates have to know what they have to offer and what a company is looking for. We¡¯ll provide the tools to make that happen, but candidates will have to take it from there.