I’m a recruiter AMA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would you advise someone who is more than 6 months unemployed, 45+, about breaking through to get interviews and land a job?

And for others...
What would you advise someone who is just out of college about breaking through to get interviews and land a job?

In terms of resume review, when I see someone with a 20 year career, 6 months unemployed is a blip. I know it feels huge to you and your family. It's not a biggie to me. So don't think 'omg, this is a blemish on my resume.' - it's not! All I can say is target the resume for every role. And APPLY EARLY. Within 48 hours of posting a role, I'm sifting through 200 resumes and prioritizing/advancing them. If you're a great candidate but you sat on the posting on a Friday night and took the weekend off, you are now competing with 400 people and if I already have 15 candidates advanced in the funnel, I may never see your late application.

For a college student, if you're a great candidate well-matched for an opening that just got posted - apply and send a note to the recruiter or hiring manager on LinkedIn. Being early and being proactive helps but only if you are super well matched! Like if I post an R&D role in my manufacturing division, and you're a retail management major, you're wasting my time. Also make sure that the student's LinkedIn profile is COMPLETE - college, strong gpa if it's over 3.5, major, minor, work history, awards, volunteering, clubs, officer positions. There is nothing worse than seeing a shell of a profile when I click on a candidate's name. I need to profile to answer Is this candidate RESPONSIBLE, DEDICATED, can they Handle the Workload of corporate life.

Any tips for figuring this out? IME, it's rarely clear who a hiring manager is. I encourage DD to reach out to any alumni at the company to help refer her but would love to just message the recruiter/hiring manager.

[Anonymous]

Thank you.

-[normally resilient] person 45+ unemployed 9 mo.+ and crying into coffee every morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you.

-[normally resilient] person 45+ unemployed 9 mo.+ and crying into coffee every morning.

PP, there are a lot of us on here just like yourself!

[Anonymous]

I know. (Hug, even though I don't know you.) We will get through this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It sounds like age discrimination and devaluation of experience for you to disregard any work experience from more than 15 years ago.

No it doesn't. It sounds like OP gave us their honest opinion on how things work in the real world. Would you prefer she/he had given a well-scrubbed corporately correct answer (let me guess: "Age is just a number. All applicants are looked at equally, regardless of age, or font!") or that they, as they were asked to do, provided their honest assessment of the sausage-making process.

That was my post and the recruiter's response indicates to me that the menu of jobs for which the recruiter hires are targeted at highly mobile and younger-age skewing roles. If you are hiring for a senior expert or executive, you'd want to know how they built their career. I believe the advice given is specific to that recruiter's world. And maybe not for Gen-X DCUM mid-career wonks.

My company's ATS includes 7 job blocks. There are people who go shallow so could cover 7 blocks in 14 years. But with a 4-6 year product life cycle, in my industry, that would mean dangerously shallow experience. Having never stuck around to a project's completion.

One thing that is consistent is that readers don't read carefully or have patience at the resume stage. Heck, people don't even interview carefully. So shorter is usually always better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you.

-[normally resilient] person 45+ unemployed 9 mo.+ and crying into coffee every morning.

PP, there are a lot of us on here just like yourself!

You’re not alone! Here for the same reason. It’s hard, humbling and feels hopeless at times. It doesn’t help things are changing so fast and it feels impossible to keep up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t had to look for a job since 1996.

My son is a smart, hardworking college student.

Based on what his relatives do and what he’s like, he will probably end up with an offbeat career at a small or midsize organization.

I told my son, “To get past the LinkedIn/Indeed wall, try meeting interesting people from interesting, small companies in person, and just send in resumes outside of a formal hiring process for a specific position.”

My son told me that he has been informed that, if he tries to send in resumes outside a formal hiring process, employers will blacklist him.

Is my son right about the blacklisting situation? Would all employers blacklist him for “just sending in a resume”?

If not: How can he figure out when it’s OK to send in a resume outside a formal hiring process and when it’s clearly a bad idea?

If your son is lining up for an offbeat career, it's likely that his tribe is NOT on LinkedIn. Artists, Musicians, Creatives, DJ & Entertainment, Mid size and SMBs of any kind really aren't using the platform to find talent. My advice to your son is find the people, connect with them, and get introduced to others - Go to industry associations, groups, events, openings, speaker sessions.
I won't blacklist him for sending a resume in (but I likely won't respond either.) The whole 'Just send in a resume' is an awful approach anyway - that's like throwing pasta against the wall and hoping something sticks. There are better ways to land a job in the creative/technical/manual trades.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Not the OP or recruiter but someone who's both interviewed and hired at a F500, do have a few comments:

1. Can confirm it takes 2-3 months from job advert to onboarding. Everyone complains about how long it is but it's really due to having multiple interviews, multiple interviewers and getting the schedules down. Then sometimes the JD changes due to new priorities. Then getting the offer approvals. People are always on PTO or busy with other work.

2. The comment about TNR surprised me, I wouldn't have cared if I saw it on a resume but do agree Arial is the way to go. Clean and simple.

3. There are a lot of vagaries affecting how people are hired. Will say my two best hires were people who'd reached out to someone on the team on LinkedIn and they in turn alerted me and it made me take a second look at their resume. And it stood out in a way it didn't before. The unfortunate reality is when I'm busy, there's a stack of resumes from the recruiter, it's easy to gloss over them and nitpick. The people who reached out on LinkedIn were suddenly more real. They got prioritized. Note that their resumes did have all the qualifications we needed.

4. Because there's so many vagaries in hiring, you need to keep applying and never assume anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would you advise someone who is more than 6 months unemployed, 45+, about breaking through to get interviews and land a job?

And for others...
What would you advise someone who is just out of college about breaking through to get interviews and land a job?

In terms of resume review, when I see someone with a 20 year career, 6 months unemployed is a blip. I know it feels huge to you and your family. It's not a biggie to me. So don't think 'omg, this is a blemish on my resume.' - it's not! All I can say is target the resume for every role. And APPLY EARLY. Within 48 hours of posting a role, I'm sifting through 200 resumes and prioritizing/advancing them. If you're a great candidate but you sat on the posting on a Friday night and took the weekend off, you are now competing with 400 people and if I already have 15 candidates advanced in the funnel, I may never see your late application.

For a college student, if you're a great candidate well-matched for an opening that just got posted - apply and send a note to the recruiter or hiring manager on LinkedIn. Being early and being proactive helps but only if you are super well matched! Like if I post an R&D role in my manufacturing division, and you're a retail management major, you're wasting my time. Also make sure that the student's LinkedIn profile is COMPLETE - college, strong gpa if it's over 3.5, major, minor, work history, awards, volunteering, clubs, officer positions. There is nothing worse than seeing a shell of a profile when I click on a candidate's name. I need to profile to answer Is this candidate RESPONSIBLE, DEDICATED, can they Handle the Workload of corporate life.

Any tips for figuring this out? IME, it's rarely clear who a hiring manager is. I encourage DD to reach out to any alumni at the company to help refer her but would love to just message the recruiter/hiring manager.

In LI if the recruiter chose to toggle “show my profile” then that makes it easy. Reach out to them.

If that is not avail, 100% reach out o an alumni. “Hi so and so, I’m reaching out to fellow Cardinals. I saw this posting at your company could you help me locate the recruiter or hiring manager for this role?” Worst that can happen is no response. Best that can happen - they let you know ‘it’s my buddy Jane and I’ll be happy to refer you!’ (bc they get the 3k referral bonus if you get hired). I get that no response feels like rejection. Tell them to just do it. Don’t overthink the process. It’s just a process.

[Anonymous]

How common is it to post a job when you already have a candidate in mind that will likely be hired?
What percentage of candidates make it all the way through the process and end up turning down an offer?

[Anonymous]

Unemployed people also often are a bit lazy in job hunting. For instance I got up every day at 6 am and scanned for new postings and apply. I also do that at lunch time, end of day, and at bedtime and had multilple auto alerts to my inbox. Getting in first is important. Also right after applying I would do a LinkedIn search of people at company (not in hiring process) who looked important and then try to connect.

I also be ready 24/7 on phone or email if I got contacted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do I answer the salary questions? What is my current salary and what salary am I looking for. Please share thoughts if salary range is or is not stated in job description. Thanks!

First more and more states are requiring the salary range to be posted for pay transparency. Many companies are just defaulting to the new standard nationwide and posting the ranges even in say Texas. This is a good thing for candidates. You now have information that you did not have 6 years ago.

Also It is illegal in a several states for the recruiter to ask "What are you making now? / Where are you at now?" so again, most of us have defaulted to not asking it. If you offer the information though, that's on you.

Couple things:
If the salary range is wide - say 136K - 285K - the company has chosen to post the entire pay range for the role.
Know that it is highly unlikely that we will hire at the top end of the range! We're really aiming for the midpoint (or just below or just above depending on comp philosophy)

If the salary range is narrow - say 150K-175K - the company has condensed the range to the midpoints. We WILL hire anywhere in this condensed range.

If we are short of your base salary expectations simply don't apply for the role. We're not stretching our salary ranges in this market. As awesome as you may be, there are 3 other candidates just as qualified.

If the role does not have a salary range, you can get intelligence on the salary question - it's pretty easy to triangulate to a market range. Between payscale glassdoor (no they are not 100% accurate that's why you're triangulating) and posted salary ranges, you should be able to come up with a range to answer the question that 1) is inside the market range 2) meets your needs and engages you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unemployed people also often are a bit lazy in job hunting. For instance I got up every day at 6 am and scanned for new postings and apply. I also do that at lunch time, end of day, and at bedtime and had multilple auto alerts to my inbox. Getting in first is important. Also right after applying I would do a LinkedIn search of people at company (not in hiring process) who looked important and then try to connect.

I also be ready 24/7 on phone or email if I got contacted.

So this is not helpful nor true, particularly during this unique economic environment/administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unemployed people also often are a bit lazy in job hunting. For instance I got up every day at 6 am and scanned for new postings and apply. I also do that at lunch time, end of day, and at bedtime and had multilple auto alerts to my inbox. Getting in first is important. Also right after applying I would do a LinkedIn search of people at company (not in hiring process) who looked important and then try to connect.

I also be ready 24/7 on phone or email if I got contacted.

So this is not helpful nor true, particularly during this unique economic environment/administration.

You be surprised some jobs auto close after a certain amount of application. There are 3,890,000 jobs posted on LinkedIN as of today.

[Anonymous]

They meant the comment about many unemployed people being lazy not being helpful, I think.