My CollegeRecruiter.com | Employers & Advertisers
Five Guaranteed Ways to
Annoy a Recruiter: How to
Minimize Your Chances of
Getting the Job You Want
By Therese O'Brien
As a college student, you begin to work with recruiters for the first time
in your career. Always remember that the recruiter is the gatekeeper for
the hiring manager. Your first impression on a recruiter determines
whether or not receive a phone call or invitation to a screening interview.
Want to stay unemployed after graduation for awhile and live with Mom and
Dad? Here are five easy ways to screw up that first impression and ensure
that you never make it to the hiring manager's desk:
- Send Your Resume From a Lascivious Email Address like "SexyEyes4U" or
"I'mGood69@hotmail.com." Your resume will get a quick "delete" key. Is this
fair? Yes...failing to think through how you're presenting yourself raises
a huge red flag about your aptitude for professional judgement.
- Send a Resume With No Cover Letter, No Job Code. We have dozens of ads
running simultaneously and we have no idea what you are applying for if you
just email your resume to an address. Some sites tag your resume with a
code, but don't leave it up to chance. This buckshot resume approach is
especially annoying if you live in another state. I need to know what your
relocation status is. Are you considering my city only if I pay relocation
expenses? Moving here on your own and already have living arrangements
lined up? I spent a lot of time crafting an ad to give you key information
about my company and opportunities and I expect a couple of minutes of your
time in return. Anticipating my questions will save us both time and speed
you happily into the interview process.
- Send an Email Saying "Tell Me More." You just read a page about our
company and the position and you expect me to spend one-on-one email time
expounding on the information before I know that you are a viable candidate?
Whew...red flag for an employee who is likely to be dense about protocol and
insensitive to others' work flows. Instead, send a resume with a cover
letter explaining why my ad caught your attention, why your skills are a
good fit, and politely expressing your desire to learn more about the
position. Your resume is ALWAYS the first step so that the recruiter has
some baseline information about your academic and work experience.
- Send Me Your Resume Attachment Titled "Resume." We get hundreds of Word
documents a day all entitled "resume." This is a minor annoyance, but a
very easy one for you to fix. Just name your resume file with your name so
that we don't have to re-title it in order to retrieve it easily.
- No Show For An Interview. It takes approximately 3 minutes to phone or
email a recruiter to cancel your appointment. When you no-show, you show a
level of immaturity and disrespect for others' time that is unforgivable in
a professional environment. We've learned that people who are unprofessional
in the recruiting process tend to be bad hires. Many companies and
recruiting firms red-flag the name of a no-show and leave it in the database
so that you will never be considered by that firm in the future. What goes
around, comes around.
-- Therese O'Brien is a veteran recruiter currently putting together sales teams in Denver for Rocky Mountain Alliance. For more information, she can be reached by email at TrekSales@aol.com
