How to Stand Out as a Career Seeker
By Recruiter - Ginger Terrell - helping students, veterans, & employers find each other
by Katherine Gramann
You’re low on experience and high on inspiration. With degree in hand, you’re ready to conquer the next chapter, but you’re battling what feels like thousands more people just like you for the same careers. Even if you feel as though you know what you “should” be doing to stand out to employers, you can’t seem to get the interviews you know you’ll need to get a role that will launch that career you’ve been working so hard for.
It’s time to put yourself in the recruiters’ shoes. Those recruiters are really putting their miles in when it comes to looking through resumes or online profiles – some seeing up to dozens a day, hundreds a week. After the first couple each day, doesn’t everything start to blur together? Yes, yes it does. So what can you do to make sure that you end up in the right stack, or maybe on the top of the stack? Better yet, how about meeting the hiring manager instead?
Choose your words wisely
For starters, know keyword research for your industry. Not only should your resume and online profiles have these keywords worked throughout to make you discoverable, but many resume reading tools utilized by recruiters will screen you out before a pair of human eyes even read your potentially relevant experience. It wasn’t because you weren’t qualified, but because you didn’t use the terms that the software was seeking. Not ideal.
Be smart about being social
Yes, it’s great to be an expert, real-life social butterfly, but your physical network can only take you so far if you’re looking to expand outside of your local network. Social channels allow you to make connections with people and companies well outside of who you know. The Undercover Recruiter emphasizes that “your first move should be to get on LinkedIn and start expanding your network by joining groups and working through your existing contacts. It’s a good idea to either set your Facebook and other social sites to private or at the very least ensure nothing potentially discouraging to potential employers is visible.”
Keep it simple
Use the tools that enable you to focus less on steps 1 & 2. While they’re both still important, 1stGig.com takes away much of the pain and annoyance of the struggle to “stand out” among your competition. The site allows you to define a set of criteria that you want in your career, while outlining your experiences to date. Employers essentially do the same by outlining who they’d like to connect with. These profiles normally take anywhere from 5-45 minutes to complete, and then the matching happens automatically. When 100% matches take place, you’re notified and it’s up to you to follow the employer’s next steps to be in touch. When they hear from you, they already know you’re what they’re looking for. You still need to wow them in the interview, but isn’t it a breath of fresh air knowing you don’t have to carefully answer every question when it comes to requirements and other preferences because you’ve already told them, and they’re already sold?
To see other relevant blog posts, visit http://blog.1stgig.com
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