Career resources
Managing your recruitment consultant
Identifying the right opportunity for you is not simply a case of playing ‘snap’ with CVs and job descriptions. Changing jobs has a significant impact on the direction of your career and recruitment consultants want to ensure that it is taking the direction you want to go.
Your consultant is involved in helping people find jobs every day of the week and will have seen the career paths of many professionals before you, creating an exceptional pool of information at your disposal.
Our starting point
Many professionals have issues with editing their CV to illustrate the key aspects of their career and experience. Your consultant will therefore work with you at the first meeting to produce an edited and effective CV.
The process involves assessing your skills and personality, as well as identifying your career aspirations. Since your consultant’s first objective is to get you an interview with the organisations of your choice, it's in his or her interest to produce the most effective CV in any given market condition. A profile of your skills and qualifications will also be prepared for our website, hays.co.uk.
The first objective is be to forward your details to current vacancies that you're interested in. Your consultant will discuss with you the opportunities presented by each vacancy and provide you with an insight into the recruiting organisation's culture.
Should you be succeed in getting an interview, your consultant will ensure you have all the available information about the organisation beforehand. This doesn’t just include corporate literature but also Hays’ own insight gleaned from regular visits and briefings, as well as from candidates for previous jobs and often temps who’ve worked there previously.
Where you come in
It’s imperative that you provide your consultant with feedback as soon as possible after an interview at a client. If this is positive and you’re interested in the position, your consultant will ensure that your enthusiasm is relayed back.
Many clients call their consultant within an hour of conducting a first interview and can be disappointed to discover that the consultant has not yet received feedback from the candidate. Questions may also arise from the interview, or even a misunderstanding of statements at the meeting. It’s your consultant’s responsibility to resolve all these for you.
Following initial meetings or interviews, your consultant will contact you if there is any positive news from a client regarding interviews or seek more information. You should both agree a suitable framework for ongoing contact relevant to your circumstances.
Other avenues of attack
One line of attack is often to draw up a list of companies that you're interested in and may be interested in you, but where there are no current advised vacancies. These an be approached on a speculative basis, either with full disclosure and a CV or on a no-name basis.
In addition to interviewing, preparing CVs and marketing exercises, consultants spend a lot of their time liaising with their clients to market their service. They’ll also be networking with other experienced professionals in your field to keep abreast of issues from an employee's perspective.
The goal is always to secure the right job for you.
