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Job Seekers: Reverse Recruiting – You are your own recruiter!

Michael Paradise Hire IT

The unemployment rate has fallen back to pre-crash levels, the economy continues to grow, and nearly every forward-looking “best jobs” list includes technology careers as a growth area. All good news for job-seekers, right?

Yes…but. It’s no surprise that the old ways of looking for employment — searching want ads or expecting you’ll be rolled over into a new position if changes occur at your company — are long gone. Candidates today need to master “reverse recruiting.”

Basically, reverse recruiting means taking on the task of being your own recruiter. It’s the concept that a recruiter probably isn’t going to find you so you need to find them, stay in front of them, and seek out the positions they’re trying to fill. You need to become your own sales team and engage in a campaign for the job you’ve found that the recruiter or HR director is trying to fill. The process goes from using the internet, LinkedIn and job boards to find opportunities to phone campaigning, snail mail and in-person “drop-bys” to prospective employer offices (yes, unannounced — can you believe it?) It also means managing your online presence — your website, blog, social media networks, professional affiliations all must support and feed into your overall strategy.

Another way to look at reverse recruiting is that in a traditional job search, the strategy is to just search and find a job. In reverse recruiting, the strategies are to create and foster an identity, engage with those in decision making positions, and make yourself be found. But if you are spending 80% of your time online and in databases you are WASTING your time. A better strategy is to spend 20% of your time online and in databases and 80% connecting with human beings — and not just recruiters, but the people who will actually want to hire you:  managers, executives, supervisors, and the like. Yes, it’s “old school” but it works.

A big difference between reverse recruiting and “old-fashioned” networking is that networking has a more social aspect to it — meeting for drinks or lunch, or heading to organized networking events with others in the same position. Reverse recruiting, on the other hand, is focused on building rapport around the goal of providing VALUE to a prospective employer. It’s about strategically identifying the resources that will connect you with the job and those who are involved in the hiring process, highlighting your strongest assets, and continually getting in front of them to sell yourself. In sales it takes 7 to 20 “touches” before a person will respond, and job hunting works exactly the same way. Because it’s not scattershot like networking, reverse recruiting is more time- and labor-intensive, yet should yield a better result. I have a had job seekers cut their job search by half by following this plan.

Your job search should be keeping pace with the latest approaches, particularly if you’re looking for a tech position. It’s too easy to get left behind if you don’t.

Author

Sysazzle Marketing

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