Get a Career & Not Just a Job!

Good recruiters can get you a good job, but the best recruiters can get you a great career.?

They know how to match not just your role and salary expectations, but they can help you see potential hidden aspects of what it will be really like to work for a new company.

They can do this because they understand client in depth, they understand the clients culture, and most likely they’ve already introduced several people to these clients. One of the questions you should be asking the recruiter is “have you placed anyone here before?”

That’s not to say they may have a new client and you may be one of the first candidates they’re introducing, that’s great and it is what it is. However they will have done their homework before introducing you, they will have dug deeply into what it takes to be successful in that organization.

Make sure you get your recruiter to help you understand the following things:

The Work Environment, Required Behaviors, Work Style (Remote/Hybrid etc), Career growth opportunities, Training and development opportunities, potential future Career Paths and of course the Corporate Values & Cultural aspects of your potential new employer.

Work Environment - you need to understand the environment that will allow for your best performance, based on who you are and what kind of people do you need to work with??

The environment?could also be?also based on the industry. If you move from the finance industry to retail for example, you'll?go from suit and ties to jeans and t-shirts.?

Look back over your career, where have you been most happy and why? You need to feel comfortable and not constrained by this new environment in order to be at your best!?

Required Behaviors - We all have our own unique style, and trying to completely change ourselves to match a new company is most likely going to fail. If you value work life balance and join a firm where people work all hours, no matter how good the job or even the pay, you will not last long.?

Dig deep in the interview to determine their work style, ask the recruiter to get you a meeting with more people during the interview process if you still aren't convinced this is the right company for you, look on Glassdoor and other sources to gather market feedback too. Another trick is to look at ex-employees on LinkedIn and look for tenure and turnover, do people stay long there? If possible connect with them, ask questions of what their experience was (I know many of us try to keep the fact that changing jobs is a secret, but this is your life, your career and it deserves your attention and respect).

Career development- you should be able to do two things in your new role, one leveraging your experiences you have gained up to this point in your career and second be able to learn and grow.?I have interviewed thousands of people over many years as part of their Exit Interview upon leaving the company and one of the number one reasons folks say they are leaving has been lack of growth and development. Think also about the size of the new company, smaller firms with less people and often less budget will potentially have less career growth opportunities than a large corporation. But it maybe the technology, the product or services they provide that is exciting and you personally value more than simple career growth and development opportunities.

Determine the opportunities for both professional skills enhancement and managerial growth. Seeking real examples can help you see what is possible during the interview. If the recruiter has placed people there before ask them how those candidates careers turned out, how long they’ve worked in that organization and how they are doing in general. "A good recruiter will provide you with facts and not feelings", the key point here is getting as many data points as possible to make a thorough assessment if this is the right company for you, good recruiters can provide this information. (WARNING: Some recruiters will say What you Want to hear, you are a commodity to them, Data & Facts do not lie)

Corporate Values - what do you believe in? What is important at this stage in your life, both in your personal and work life??You need to find some aspects of the company's values that you can align to and believe in. Values are like two ends of a magnet, you can't force two opposites together, they either naturally connect or they repel each other...

Write down your values if you have never done so before, what are the top 3 most important things in life and career? What are the company values? Which of these values connect with your own and why? Finding some connectivity is crucial.

Don't just believe the corporate values written on the walls in their office, ask questions that extract a deeper understanding of how they actually "live those values", many company values are used more as a marketing tool towards their clients, than as something that they actually live and breath in their work each day!

I was once having an interview with a manager in a major firm in the recruitment industry in Japan, and we were in their executive meeting room, sitting around a very posh executive roundtable, and directly behind the manager, in a lovely picture frame were the company values and mission. The manager had his back to these and I asked what are your company values. He had been with the company several years, I assumed I would get a good answer, maybe even talk about the history of these values and why they had them etc? He looked puzzled and paused and said he didn't remember them exactly, and made some excuse, looking over his shoulder he read them to me...

My new boss? I don't think so!

Work with your recruiter to get a better understanding of all these key points above. Talk to them about what is important in your career and why. It will never be a perfect match, don't expect perfection. But do try to get as close as possible to your career needs...

It is?in the recruiters best interests as well, that once you have joined a new company you'll stay there for a long time, if they’ve introduce people who leave within the first 3 to 6, they will most likely have to pay back at least half of the recruitment fee they made from placing you there. But also they lose the respect of the client as well. Too many recruiters are focused on their monthly and quarterly billings and that can make sense because the client pays their fees, not you the candidate. But this is a people business and if they want to have a long term, stable career in recruitment then they need to know how to match the right people with the right jobs!

For more tips and tricks on having a successful career connect with me, I am always happy to share thoughts and ideas with you ??

You can also listen to some of the podcasts I have done with John which go into depth around these topics above too.

Listen on Apple Podcasts:?https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/simon-and-john-careers/id1588619077