Description:
Sound advice from Herbie Henderson, author of ‘How to Handle Your Recruitment Consultant’
Being
made redundant stinks. Whether you anticipated it, semi-suspected it
or if it came completely out of the blue, for most people the
experience is a gut wrenching one that leaves them at a very
low ebb. And at this moment when for many people the only light at the
end of the tunnel seems to be the train coming the other way, the last
thing you feel like doing is immersing yourself in the horrors of
finding a new job. The endless streams of letters, phone calls, forms,
tests, interviews (if you’re lucky) and rejection (some rejection is
par for the course) are a highly unappealing prospect at the best of
times, but even less so when you’ve just lost your job and have been
thrown into emotional and quite possibly financial turmoil.
Nevertheless immerse yourself you must. So you have to adhere to all
those ghastly clichés and pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start
all over again... Firstly I’ll just explain why it’s worth you using
recruitment consultants (RCs) and secondly I’ll explain special
considerations when dealing with them when you have been made redundant.
So, Why Use Recruitment Consultants?
When
searching for a new role recruitment consultants are regarded by many
as a necessary evil, others regard them as a waste of space. Neither of
these opinions is helpful. Of course you can succeed in a job search
without using RCs, but if you deliberately embark on a search without
using them you’re missing a trick.
A really good RC is, in
essence, like a fabulous matchmaker with an enviable little black book.
And, without wishing to strangle the metaphor to death, doesn’t that
have its appeal when compared to just randomly responding to a lonely
hearts advert along with a gazillion other singletons gagging for a
date?
A good RC will:
1) Expand your
opportunities: a good RC will introduce you to a far wider range of job
opportunities than you could ever unearth by yourself, not because you
aren’t a determined grafter, but simply because RCs have access to
information and people that you don’t. (To put into perspective how
popular the RC route actually is, recent surveys estimate that 83% to
87% of companies use RCs to fill their positions.)
2) Utilise
their contacts and their database: there will be organisations with
whom they already have strong relationships (which is fabulous for
you), and there will be organisations they’re able to approach on your
behalf and carry weight simply because of who they are. Believe it or
not RCs and agencies with good reputations are respected and their
opinions are valued by clients.
3) Refine your search: they’ll
help prevent you wasting effort and valuable time going on wild goose
chases and chasing down blind alleys.
4) Provide access to
insider knowledge: they’ll be able to give you the inside track on new
jobs just in, or forthcoming opportunities that are not yet public
knowledge. Don’t forget that often RCs know about forthcoming openings
before employers. How and why? Because many of the very individuals who
come a register to search for new jobs, have not yet handed in their
notice to their existing employers, and RCs know they’ll need replacing.
5)
Provide even MORE insider knowledge so you have the inside track and
the edge over competitors at interview: when you’re invited to
interview with prospective employers RCs will give you the low down on
the organisation, the people, the team etc. They’ll work with you to
ensure you’re properly and thoroughly briefed before all your job
interviews. Thus you’ll know all you can about the company, its
culture, the teams and the dynamics relevant to the opportunities
you’re pursuing (and not just the comparatively tame and mundane
information that the prospective employer will have listed on their
website).
6) Be your only option: last but not least, and I
know some candidates resent it, a lot of organisations simply will not
accept direct applications. Such organisations elect to work only with
well respected agencies, thus outsourcing the early stages of their
recruitment process.
RCs are a fact of job hunting life, so you need to handle them intelligently.
Vital Things to Remember When Handling Your RCs After Being Made Redundant:
1)
This is business; keep it professional. Your RC is not a therapist.
Your RC is not a mate. The single biggest trap people fall into when
speaking with or meeting with RCs when they have recently been made
redundant is to end up giving chapter and verse on the ghastliness of
the whole thing/the unfairness of it/the shock of it/the appalling way
it was handled/the fact they never liked the darned job anyway etc etc
etc. You may understandably be feeling very raw and hurt; you may be
being terribly gung ho about it and want to impress everyone with how
pragmatic you are being. Indeed you are likely to have lots of valid
opinions on everything that happened but save those thoughts for
discussion with your pals, with your family, with the cat, with the
ceiling of your bedroom or the mirror in your bathroom, but never ever
with your RC.
Your RC may well ask about what happened, it is
after all the reason you are there (not to mention that some of them
enjoy ‘a bit of a gossip’), but give them the facts, don’t labour over
them. There is no need to be a cold fish, you need to be engaging, but
don’t concentrate on the redundancy, steer the conversation so you
concentrate on the positives of the job for example; why you enjoyed
the role, what you were good at, things you learned in the job about
yourself and your strengths, skills you developed whilst in the role.
2)
Do not bad mouth your ex boss or ex colleagues. There may be some bad
feeling following your redundancy, there may have been bad feeling
there for some time. A meeting with your RC is not the place to air
your displeasure(s).
3) Be the best version of yourself. At all
times during your contact with your RC remember that the person you
appear to be to your RC, is the person they are going to be selling to
their clients, so you need to make yourself a desirable commodity. Do
not appear to feel sorry for yourself, and don’t seek sympathy from
them. You don’t want their pity, you want them to be excited by you.
4)
Be realistic. You know your financial situation and thus you’ll know
how soon you need to find a job and how much you need to earn. You must
ascertain what is important to you, and what you want, but you must
also ascertain what’s important to the market and what the market
wants. You should not be relying on your RC to tell you what your value
is in the marketplace. This is more important than ever in the current
economic climate: as you will be (painfully) aware with every new round
of redundancies there are less jobs in existence and more and more
people out there fighting for them. If you have unrealistic goals in
your search for your new role you are wasting time and energy.
5)
Communication. One of the principle complaints from candidates is that
RCs don’t return their calls, and that their communication is lousy. Do
you know what one of RC’s principle complaints is about candidates...?
Yep, you’ve guessed it: lousy communication. Communicate with your RC
and let them know what’s going on at all times. Got to change an
interview time last minute? Make the call. Tell them as soon as you
know. Putting off making the call doesn’t make it any easier. Don’t
pussy foot or filibuster, just be professional, clear, concise and
consistent at all times. In short, maintain a standard of communication
with your RC that you would wish them to maintain with you, and you’ll
have a solid foundation upon which to handle them masterfully.
In
summary there are a great many things you can do to get the most out of
your recruitment consultants (and these are obviously discussed in
greater length in my book), but the tips above provide a good and solid
grounding.
Being made redundant is not your fault and is
something over which you have no control, but remember: missing
opportunities due to mishandling RCs is entirely your fault and is
entirely within your control.
Good luck and good RC handling!
About Herbie Henderson
With
a head packed full of insider knowledge (thanks to her experience as a
recruitment consultant), Herbie set about creating her book 'How to
Handle Your Recruitment Consultant'. It's packed full of excellent
insider tips and sensible advice and we think it's well worth the cover
price of £9.99 - we wouldn't have brought it to your attention
otherwise!
The book is published by Short Stack Publishing ISBN
978-1-906467-05-05 and is available from all online bookstores
including our own amazon selections 'Great books on career
management' .
Copyright © Herbie Henderson 2009 |
