how to find a recruiter (solo show)

full transcript

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to guidance counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had guidance counselors in middle school. We had guidance counselors in high school, but we didn't really have guidance counselors in college and now as professionals. We don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vacovac.com is how to get and touch me old fashioned email social media at tdsintdesse. And then finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. So let's get started. So again, I get this question all the time. How do I find recruiters? How do I find a recruiter? What do I look for? What do I look for? So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen.

We'll go ahead and dive in. A little applicable. TikTok, if you are tuning in, you want to watch this live. Go to my LinkedIn page or I can just try to describe it virtually. But unfortunately, LinkedIn does not integrate or TikTok does not integrate easily with this stuff. All right. So let's see here. So I'm going to share my screen. Present. Share screen. Here we go. from tab. Hopefully this works. Here we go. Share. Are we live? Are we good? Nice. We are good. All right. Let's see here. So I'm going to zoom in a little bit so you can see what's going on. How's this looking?

How's this looking? Sweet. All right. Cool. So let's go over this here. Right. So what I would do. So if I was laid off, if I was laid off, the first thing I would do is first off, get my resume updated. Right. You use my template. They could not come back. So if I were to get free resources, I got my template. Update my template. Update my resume. Update my LinkedIn. And then what I would do, I truly mean it. So instead of spamming, instead of spamming your resume to jobs, you need to spam your resume. You need to spam recruiters with calls and connections.

So in my perspective, it's resume LinkedIn. Right. And other recruiters, I got some recruiters on this chat. I see y'all Nicole Vincent and Andy. Let me know if I'm off base here. Right. Because again, I want to know what y'all do. So we do. So resume LinkedIn, right? Well, first. And then I think what most people do is they immediately go to spamming. They immediately go to spamming their resume to jobs online. And that just never works. It just never works. If you go check out my conversation yesterday with the engine more VP of engineering here in Nashville, he talks about how basically if you don't get your resume within the first 20 to 25 applicants on a job post in a LinkedIn, he's not going to see you.

Right. So you need to think differently. So what I would do is I would edit that, edit that, get those updated to indeed dice.com whatever. Then what I would do is I would go to LinkedIn and I would do this. I would literally do this process and start messaging recruiters. And I would spam the recruiter connection, not the job connection. A few more people. Nicole chimed in goes if you are actively looking to talk to anyone who will talk to you from there and there down to a couple who treat you like a person. I love this. Nicole, you're jumping ahead, but I love it.

Chris, it's great to see you. I'm glad it works. Roman, it's great to see you as well. All right. So what I would do is let's say I'm in Nashville. I am in Nashville. Let's say I want to really get connected with tech recruiters in Nashville. Right. So what I would do, I would do, I would do tech recruiters. And then in the search bar, I'm trying to communicate this with TikTok people can like follow along without having to look at my screen. So in the search bar in LinkedIn, type in tech recruiters, then go to all filters. If you haven't played with the filters feature on LinkedIn incredibly powerful, then what I would do is I would go to Nashville.

Right. Nashville kind of see. Right. And then type press enter. Right. So all I did was tech recruiter and the Nashville filter. 631 results came up. Now, like Taylor 631, that is a crap time of people. I don't have time to stuff through those. Right. So what we're going to do is we're going to kind of go through these and and and and and I'm listen, there is no right or wrong answer here. I'm going to tell you this. There's no right or wrong answer here. But I'm going to show you how my brain thinks my brain. This doesn't this doesn't mean that your brain thinks this way.

This is just the way my brain thinks. Right. So all right. So I like Sarah's profile picture because it looks not stale. Right. It looks not stale. Right. So see here. So she's a technical recruiter at staff source. She also photographer my wife's photographer. All right. So here's what I look like first off. I'm going to go to her connections real quick. So she's got 500 plus connections. So she's got 1100 followers. Not bad. Would love to see more expressions of recruiter, but not bad. She's been the recruiting industry now. She's been the recruiting industry now for about two years. Right. So one year, two months and then 10 months.

So that's that's about two years. Right. That is my bare minimum. That's my bare minimum. And then what I would see is I would see what she works on. Right. So Sarah, Sarah, if you watch this, let me profile pick. So entry level IT support roles to executive. So what I would do is I would I would mess her and then. So and then I look to see her activity. Right. How much is she posted? So she last posted three weeks ago. She may get back to you, but I would still mess it to her. Why? Again, she's been the industry for at least two years or so.

Remember my role two and two, right? Two and two. You need to at least be in the industry for at least two years. And you need to at least be working at the same company for two years. Why? Most recruiters bounce around around that two year mark because agency recruiters like myself, we get very, very low base salaries. And the only way to make a bump on base salary is to move jobs. Now my concern was Sarah and then again, Sarah, if you ever watched this, no offense to you, I'm just telling you how my brain thinks. Sarah's at axiom for a year, two months and then jumps to staff source.

Right. There's a little ambiguity here. But again, at the end of the day, I'm going to mess it to her. I'm going to mess it to her because her profile picture looks inviting. She's been in the industry for two years. I'm going to give it a shot. Right. So let me know if you have any questions. Um, TikTok, I see you on the chat. If you have any questions, let me know as well as here at Nicole. If you talk to a recruiter in your air and they don't have something for you, ask for referrals to other recruiters. Sometimes it's just timing. We need to, I love this so much.

Nicole is spot on here. I have my favorites. The recruiters who are really actively involved have their favorites. We will always refer, um, or we should always refer other people to other people if that makes sense. Um, so let's go back. So I mess it to Sarah, right? All right. So I like Lizzie. Love, love Lizzie's headshot. Um, very personable. Love the color. All right. So let's see here, right? So 12, so she got 1200 followers, right? Not a ton. Would love a little bit more. Probably like Taylor, you keep saying that. What would you like to see? I did least like to see two or three thousand.

The amount of people that recruiters meet every single day is tremendous. So we should have a lot. However, not a lot of people are usually in the way I use it and I understand that. Right. I'm very aware of that. So, um, so let's see here. So she, uh, so 1200 followers, not bad. I like as she's, she was active six days ago, right? But again, she's not active a ton. If you see somebody who's posting multiple times a day, you're probably going to get a better response rate from them, then the latter. Um, and then so I now I look through here, right? She was so she again seven months.

So she, she'll eight months, seven months, nine months. I'm still going to mess is Lizzie because I like what I see, but that is just my concern with her as well. Fredsen is great to see you. Two morning Ricardo, it is a two morning. Uh, so let's just go through another one, right? So again, uh, Jeff real, right? Nine hundred, five followers. Um, I, you know, I'm going to click it. I'm going to click it. Let's see, nine or five six followers. It looks like he's very active. He's very active. And let's see here. Again, right? On your 10 months, four months, honestly, I'm probably not going to mess his Jeff real, right?

He's been in the industry for under two years. It's just, it just again with just my experience, the recruits that need to be in there for a bit. Um, they, they got to spend some time right now. Andrew, right? So here's the obviously Andrew is an internal recruiter, right? So a Tane is a agency like mine, but then Sarah Coors internal, Amazon's internal and I probably tell her, well, how do you know Sarah Coors internal? That's just a local company. You may have to Google it, right? Now agency recruiters are definitely then corporate recruiters. So what I would do is Andrew is I'd message, I would message Andrew, right?

He's an 1800 followers. He hasn't really posted that much, but he's at Amazon. He's been there for almost two years. He helps with IT, you know, ops and awesome markets, right? So what I would do is I'd message Andrew. What I'd message Andrew is like, hey, Andrew, listen, just want to connect. I'm all my job. I'm all the job search. We'll love to chat with you. Let me know how I can help, right? Again, two and two role have conversations, but I would start with recruiters first. Now you probably like Taylor like again, this is a lot of information, right? This is I'm going to stop sharing my screen.

Like this is a lot of information. You're telling me that I've got to edit my resume, edit my LinkedIn. And you're telling me to not mass apply to not mass apply, right? And then you're saying to mass message recruiters. Yes. And again, here is why, right? Recruiters know the market better than any hiring manager, any tech labor report, any survey that you find online, glass door indeed, recruiters know the no are market better than almost anything you're going to read in the news. So what happens is if you can lean into recruiters, right? Even if it's like a 10 minute conversation with them, you can get a tip on your resume in your LinkedIn, right?

I would always ask for a career. Hey, real quick, I know you can't help me. Can you help me on my LinkedIn? Hey, I know you can't help me. Can you help me on my resume? Just one piece of advice, right? You get a piece of advice. Because listen, if you talk to 10 to 15 recruiters, after 15 pieces of advice, I mean, that could catapult you from like no one's looking at your shit to like everyone's looking at your shit, right? So again, always ask for feedback. All that that's the one piece. I would ask the recruiter to, hey, where should I interview? Where should I go work?

Where places I should stay away from? I'd ask that Amazon recruiter, hey, listen, you probably can't help me. But what's the best way to navigate Amazon, right? Because Andrew that recruiter from Amazon is going to be able to tell you that. Use of comes in. If you have any questions, please let me know. I'm going to wrap up here soon. Which one is better to apply directly through company website or through third party indeed or LinkedIn jobs? Use of, I would say, none of them. I would say, if you, so, so again, recruiting strategy 101, make friends with your recruiters in the area. If you see a job posting on a company website or in deed or LinkedIn, that's in the area, messes the recruiters that you met and go, hey, I found this job.

Do you know somebody who works here or can you refer somebody or are you actively working at this job? What happens is that way they can bypass everything. Recruiters first, always recruiters first. And then no, I sound like a broken record, but no one talk about this all the time. But if you can literally lean on recruiters and kind of flip your mindset of, I'm going to message recruiters for everything, right? I tell this story all the time, what am I dear friends? His name is Ben. Ben is in Nashville. I was working on a Ruby role years ago. And I didn't even think about calling Ben, why?

Because recruiters have to do with so many people at one time. So I message, so I didn't think about Ben. Ben emailed me, then goes, hey, man, are you working on this Ruby role? I got a call from another recruiting company. And I said, shoot, I am. Thank you for hitting me up. I submitted him to the job, right? So again, start with recruiters first. But to answer your question, here's a better to apply through the company website or through third party, I would probably say company website. That's just my two cents. Recruiters on here. There's any recruiters still watching. Please let me know. I think a company website, and here's the reason for that.

The reason for that is indeed, and LinkedIn jobs get spammed like crazy. The company website is going to be linked probably directly to their internal HR systems, which will allow you to get a better chance for the internal recruiter to actually review your resume. If you submitted through a third party like indeed or LinkedIn jobs, that's just another thing that that internal recruiters going to look at. the internal recruiters probably going to look at company website first, but that is just my two cents. So all right, cool. Hopefully you all learned something today. That was it. That was it. Just short simple to the point.

TikTok, if you want to watch a long kind of real time, connect me on LinkedIn. I would love to have you on my LinkedIn platform for everybody else who tuned in and say, thank you so much. Hopefully you learned something today. Again, my solar shows I just want to be short to the point. One or two things you can like take with you with the rest of your day. If you have any other questions or there's any other topics you want me to cover on these shows when it's just me, please DM me. I would I'm going to create a list and start going over those and start doing those whenever I need a solar show.

So tomorrow, unicorn finders, where you're going live with the travel. I'm saying it's a travel loss of the travel loss of betting sports betting. So check that out. And then Friday, I will be back live with who's Friday again. Oh, yes. Sydney, she's amazing. She's out of Oakland doing amazing things for individuals out in the Oakland area around tech. The Colcums and company website of her LinkedIn because how likely looked at. Yes, great. Thank you so much. Erica, thank you, Matt, Roman. Thank you so much. You all have a great day. See you all tomorrow. Peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful because you know why.

There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finish an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please like right now, unless you're driving it, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T-Dasting on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.