The posting of resumes on-line, the impact of recruiters searching for qualified candidates on-line, and the rise of LinkedIn as a business social networking site has had a dramatic effect on the job search process.
 

Recruiters have earned a bad rap for their behavior. They rarely call you back, but they have been helping people get hired at a much higher ratio than ever before by using the internet to find good candidates for open job requisitions.  

The old rule of thumb was that a recruiter would place one or maybe two people a month, but that is old school. Today’s recruiters are using tools like Data Frenzy to search the internet to try and fill jobs within in 24 hours of receiving the job requisition.

 

The modern “new school” recruiters may not be tier 1 vendors for a large corporation like General Electric, for example. Large companies often have 3 to 15 recruitment agencies vying to fill their recruitment needs. A tier 1 recruiter will often try to have 3 qualified applicants on the hiring manager’s desk within 24 hours of receiving the open requisition. If the candidates are not acceptable, the client escalates the process and will send the job opening to tier 2 and tier 3 recruiters on a set time schedule. Tier 2 and Tier 3 recruiters may not have a relationship with the hiring manager or the HR department. They may receive the open requisition through the Vendor Management System (VMS) used to buy supplies, capital equipment and hire new employees. Everyone wants that coveted relationship with the hiring manager, but in large organizations the recruiters have to accept their ranking, the VMS systems and work hard to move up the ladder. 

 

These “new school” recruiters sometimes called “eRecruiters” are internet savvy. All new resume postings on job boards like Craigslist pop up on their computers every day, and they quickly match resumes with open job requisitions on their hit list. Be ready to move fast when one of these eRecruiters contacts you. Ask the key questions. Are they working directly with the hiring manager? Are they willing to tell you the hiring company and the job position? If it is a large company, are they a tier 1 vendor or are they working with a purchase requisition from the VMS system.

 

You have to go with your instinct in many cases. Can you establish some rapport with the eRecuiter? Are they willing to meet you in person, face to face? They may ask for permission to modify your resume and you might want them to. Think of it this way. You are trying to sell your home and your real estate agent tells you to move some of your furniture to storage and paint your living room. They may even have painters and movers ready to move the furniture and paint your house, because buyers will be coming the next day. Well, this eRecruiter is trying to sell you to a potential hiring manager and he needs you to give him permission to move quickly. 

 

It can be emotionally draining for you, if you have been out of work for a few months and you get a call from one of these fast paced, internet savvy, eRecruiters. You need to toughen yourself up emotionally to deal with these recruiters, because they are having quite an impact in placing people into jobs. They are making a living by finding you on the internet and placing you into a job position that you are unlikely to find without their help.

 

Often these recruiters are actively monitoring 6 to 15 job boards. Some of the major job boards include Monster, Dice, Careerbuilder, ClearanceJobs, Hotjobs, and LinkedIn. Now LinkedIn deserves special attention, because you can control your profile on LinkedIn. It is “the” social networking site for business people. Not only do you post your profile on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn connects you to others that you have worked with or gone to school with who are also on LinkedIn. It is a great networking tool. You can reconnect with your past colleagues even if you have lost their phone numbers or email addresses. You get to choose what information that you allow others to see, so LinkedIn is where you target the job position and position your profile to be easy to find by your target organizations.

 

LinkedIn is a very important tool for you because organizations searching for top candidates can search LinkedIn for qualified candidates without resorting to recruiting firms. Everyone trying to fill open job positions is keenly aware that LinkedIn can save them time and money to find good employees. When a hiring company researches your background, they often will “Google” you and check you out on LinkedIn. They may even check your references, and your references’ LinkedIn profiles. Make it easy for hiring companies and recruiters to find you by being accurate in the job position that you are targeting. If you are looking for a CFO position, label yourself as a CFO. If you are looking for an Assistant Controller position, then label yourself that way. If you really are a Staff Accountant, say so. The people searching for you will appreciate your accuracy. 

 

The whole subject of having a strategy for our LinkedIn profile is really another article. For the sake of this writing, it is enough for you to recognize that you position yourself for your next job by managing how people view you on the internet and the major tool is www.linkedin.com. 

 

Recruiters of all kinds, eRecruiters, internal recruiters and old school recruiters, are using the internet daily to find candidates for open job positions. The impact may be as high as 35% of the jobs are being filled by this process. You have to become internet savvy and pay close attention to how you are perceived on internet job boards and especially on LinkedIn.   I hope you agree with me that the internet and the new school recruiters are having a dramatic effect on the job search process. Embrace it, because it is not going   away. If anything, it is going to get more sophisticated.