A recruiter's typical day by J.T. O'Donnell

- Think about the last time you looked for a job. Or maybe you know somebody who's trying to look for work right now.

How's that going for them? If they're like many people, it's pretty challenging today.

You know why? Because in the last 10 years, job searches changed dramatically, and we've never been taught the right way to look for work. Well, that's what this course is all about. My name's J.T. O'Donnell, and for years, I've worked with both recruiters and job seekers, helping them understand one another and bringing them together. In this course, we want to show you what you can do to attract recruiters.

Wouldn't that be nice? Instead of you spending hours online applying and waiting to hear back. Instead, they could be contacting you. First of all, I'm going to show you a day in the lifeof a recruiter, and help you leverage that information to your advantage. I'm also going to show you how to improve upon your Linked In profile, your resume, your cover letter. And I'm even going to show you how to connect with recruiters after the interview, so that you can make a great impression. The truth is job search has changed so much that we really need this information so that we can work smarter, not harder.

There's a lot to cover, and I want to get started right away. So, let's get this thing going, and let's learn how to attract the recruiters you want and deserve.

A recruiter's typical day

- You know, I work with a lot of job seekers, and one of their biggest complaints is about working with recruiters, and I've got to tell you, I was a recruiter for a lot of years. And their job is not that easy. In fact, if I do my job right right now, you're going to have a little bit more compassion for recruiters and what they're going through. I want to take you through a typical day of a recruiter, so you can understand, well, they're not trying to be mean to you, they're not trying to make your life difficult, they've got a lot going on. And if you can understand that, guess what? You can market to it. You can work with it.

So let me bring you inside and show you what I'm talking about. Recruiters get, on average, over 200 applications for one job posting. And let me tell you how quickly they get an application: within 200 seconds. That's it, and all of a sudden the floodgates open. Try going through 200 applications. There's a reason why recruiters skim applications. In fact, they spend about six seconds on them, deciding whether or not they should read the whole thing.Because if they sat and read every single person's application, top to bottom, they wouldn't get their job done.

Now, on top of that, imagine the fact that while they can be the person to say you don't fit the job, they can't be the person to give you the job. What a tough spot to be in. They're what we call a technical buyer, and so the way they get graded on their job and how well they're doing it, is by whether or not they give candidates who meet requirements. They will get in trouble if they pass somebody along who doesn't meet all of the key requirements given to them by the hiring manager. Guess what? Out of those 200 applicants, did you know that more that 50% of them don't fit the job? Every time you apply to a job where you don't meet the requirements, you're being removed.

That brings us down to 100 candidates. And then guess what happens? That's still too many for a recruiter to physically go through. So they have to use something called keyword searching within their applicant tracking system. And this is where they look for the most important skill sets and key words that they were told to look for in order to meet the requirements that they were given. And out of that, 80% of the applicants are removed. Now you're down to 20. From those 20, the recruiter still has to go through the application and try to find somebody that fits on personality, aptitude, and experience.

All from an application? By the time they're done, they're down to around four to six candidates. And they deliver those to the hiring manager. So you can see why the chances are pretty slim that you're going to get pulled from the pile and handed to a hiring manager.Now we're going to show you how to improve upon that. That's what this course is going to be all about. But in the meantime, I want you to think seriously about how hard the recruiter's job is, and how you can feel more compassion for that recruiter as part of your strategy. Think of it this way.

It's like they're going through a huge haystack looking for a needle, with the hiring manager over their shoulder, hemming and hawing and rolling their eyes, but not offering any help.And they're under the gun to do it in a matter of minutes. That's a day in the life of a recruiter.It's exhausting, it's stressful, and on some days, if feels pretty unrewarding. If you can keep that in mind as you build out your strategy, you can really attract the right recruiters. And now I'm going to show you how.

How a recruiter searches for you on LinkedIn? 

- So recruiters have it pretty tough today. They're getting inundated with applications, they're overwhelmed, and that traditional process of posting a job is just really ineffective for them, so much so that most recruiters today have resorted to what's called a Proactive Candidate Search. This is where they go out and create a list of candidates that meet their needs. That's why all of them are now on LinkedIn, because they're able to do that. They pay for a premium service that allows them to customize searches. So how do they do that? Well, it's something called Keywords. They take those skill sets, you know, those ones that you put in your endorsement section on your LinkedIn profile, and they use those key skill sets, plus some other things like geography, and technologies, and they put them in to the LinkedIn Search, and out comes a beautiful list of candidates that meet their qualifications.

You can see why this would be a much more effective way for a recruiter to find the right talent. You can also see why optimizing your profile and using the right keywords can statistically increase the chances that you'll get in a recruiter's list. And that's the real secret.Because if you know how to optimize your profile, you can show up in the list. Better still, we can optimize it further and help you move up the list and be an even stronger match for those recruiters. And the result is you being contacted by a recruiter about an opportunity you probably wouldn't have known about otherwise, which is pretty exciting.

In essence, you're building what's called an inbound marketing strategy for your business of one. Instead of you having to go out and knock on the doors and put in lots of time and energy into applications, which result into nothing and hearing nothing and feeling frustrated,all of a sudden, you're building a tool online, on LinkedIn, that's making those wonderful companies, that you've always wanted to work for, come to you. And that's really the secret,because we want the recruiters to find you, and this is how we're going to do it.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile for recruiters:

- So your LinkedIn profile is probably the single-most important tool you can use to attract recruiters today. That's because recruiters are on there, looking for you proactively. So if you have the right profile, optimized with the right keywords, you're going to show up in more searches. Now, I'm going to take you, top to bottom, through your LinkedIn profile, and show you exactly what you can do in each section to optimize it. And we're going to start at the top,because you know what? The top fold is the single most important part of your LinkedIn profile. That's where I, the recruiter, I'm going to spend six seconds taking a look and seeing if you're somebody that I want to read more about.

So there are three things in your top fold that are pretty darn important. The first thing is your photograph, and here's the good news. It doesn't have to be professionally done. You just need good lighting, a neutral backdrop, but the single most important thing you need in that picture is to be approachable. You need to look like somebody that I would want to reach out to, that I would want to work with, that I would want to present to the hiring manager. So, don't be serious, have a smile on your face, be yourself, be approachable. Now, your headline: this is a piece of prime real estate.

I cannot stress that enough, and let me explain why. When recruiters are searching for youinside that platform, and they're putting in keywords, the system is very much like the Internet.It's going through and looking at everyone's profiles and determining who has those keywords, how many times they have those keywords, and whether or not those keywords are in the headline. And guess what happens if you have the keywords in the headline? You improve the chances of moving up in the search results of that recruiter. So what should you do? Well, do your homework, for starters.

What kind of job are you looking for? What are the typical skill sets that everyone is looking for when it comes to your particular expertise? You can find those usually in the endorsement section at the bottom of your LinkedIn profile. You want to find the top five or six key skill setsthat you most want to leverage in your next career, the ones that you know are in demandand that provide a lot of value, and you want to put them in your headline with a vertical line divider. That way, when I land on your profile and I see that smiling, engaging headshot, and I see that Headline, and I can quickly go check, check, check, check, check; hey, this person has all the skills I'm looking for, I'm going to click and I'm going to check you out.

I'm going to learn a lot more about you, and that's what we're trying to make happen there.Now, moving on to your Summary. Summary, by definition, means short. What I don't want to see is an epic, long novel. As a recruiter, I don't have time for that. I'm not going to read it. If you really know who you are as a business of one, then you should be able to explain to mein just a few sentences what value you bring. Roll up your experience and explain it to me.Give me the numbers, the facts and the figures, that really validate who you are. Entice me to want to keep reading.

So, keep that Summary short and engaging. Keep those keywords in mind as well, right? We want to think about something called density. It's probably a good point right now to explainthe idea of keyword density to you, that concept of a keyword showing up multiple times throughout your profile, and the more you have them the better. If you've got them in the Headline and you've got them in the Summary, you're creating density. And we want to do that throughout your entire profile. Now, let's move on to your work history. It's very important that your work history and your resume mimic each other. Make sure that these always are the same, because recruiters are going to look at both documents, and if they see any discrepancies, they could get confused.

You want to keep your titles accurate, and at all costs, whenever you can, make sure that the company that you worked for, you're actually pulling that company in and getting the actual company logo next to your name in your work history. Why is that? Because recruiters are able to roll their mouse over that company and learn everything they need to know about that organization, which means you don't have to explain that in the work history. You can keep your bullet points about what you accomplished, and that's really important and I need you to understand that. Recruiters need you to be objective.

They need you to give them just the facts. They need to be able to read through and see what you've done. So think about the numbers, the stats, the percentages, the goals that you reached, those are the things that should be in your work history. Keep it clean and always tie it back to those key skill sets. If you were amazing in project management, how many projects have you managed? What size were those projects? How many people worked on those projects? Those are the kinds of things that I, as a recruiter, want to know about you. All right, moving past work history, we're going to get into all those additional great sections that LinkedIn has available to you, like Certifications, Education, Volunteering.

Should you fill these out? Of course you should, but don't go crazy. Stick to the facts, think about your keywords, and show me how you can continue to tie your value, that area of specialty of yours, to each of those segments, so that I'm continuing to read down and seeing continuity and consistency in who you are as a professional. So, moving on down the profile,let's talk about the Endorsement section, which actually happens to be one of my favorite sections. This is where you're able to emphasize the skill sets that you most want to be known for, the skills that you want to be found on by recruiters.

The first thing you should do is think about the 10 skill sets that are most important to you in your profession. These are the skill sets that you want to get the most amount of endorsements for, and here's why. As I mentioned earlier, LinkedIn works very similar to an Internet search, and so if you have 60 endorsements for project management, then that means 60 different people within your network endorsed you. That says something to a recruiter. It shows them just how active you are within your network. And so, by having those endorsements for those 10 key skill sets, you're going to statistically improve the chances that you show up in the search, but you're also going to validate to that recruiter that you have the skills that you say you have, because you're getting third-party credibility.

So make sure you take the time to edit the Endorsements section, and put the most important skill sets at the very top. Now, we're not done yet, because there's still some really valuable sections at the bottom of your LinkedIn profile. Of course, there's Influencers. Who are you following? We want to know what experts you're reading up on. Second, with Groups, what are you participating in? What industry organizations? What organizations involved in a particular skill set? I want to understand how you're learning and what you're doing. And then, lastly, and probably the most important, what companies are you following? This is where you actually create something called your Interview Bucket List, and this is all the companies that you would love to partner with someday.

And you should be following them and paying attention to them and seeing what they put into their feeds so that you can better understand them. I can tell you right now, a recruiter is going to see if you're following their company. They want to know just how serious you areabout wanting to work for them. And if I'm a recruiter, and you show up in my search, and you have a great picture, a super headline, an incredible summary, very on-point work history,you're following great Influencers, you're part of great Groups, and you're following my company? I think the chances are pretty good that I might check you out.

Delight a recruiter with your resume: 

- All right, so you optimized your LinkedIn profile, and you got a recruiter to look at you. Guess what. Now they're going to want your resume. I know you're wondering, "Why? "They saw my LinkedIn profile. "Isn't that enough?" but it's not enough. They're going to need the resume not only to validate you, but they're going to have to be able to pass that on to the hiring manager, so we have to think about how to build a resume that's going to give that recruiter just what they need to keep you in the hiring process. So let's start at the very top. When we think about a resume, it should mimic as much of your LinkedIn profile as possible, so please don't put a really long-winded objective statement or a summary, something like that.

It's not going to get read. Also, be really careful with your language. People tend to get really subjective and flowery and overconfident when they're writing their resume. I don't know where this come from, but it's very old school. When you do that, it's sort of like nails on a chalkboard to a recruiter. When you say things like "I'm an innovative self-starter," you're really talking about yourself in a way that the recruiter doesn't appreciate. They want to be able to judge if you're those things. It's their job to evaluate you, so just stick to the facts. A great tip here is for you to take those 10 key skill sets in the endorsement section of your LinkedIn profile, and let's turn it into two columns that you could put right at the top of your resume.

The eye is going to be drawn immediately in, and the recruiter's going to be able to validateyour experience. Now, keeping with that idea of validating the experience, let's move into the work history of your resume. It should absolutely mirror what you've done on your LinkedIn profile. Please don't have different titles, different explanations of the work that you did. That's very confusing. A recruiter's going to be handing that resume off to a hiring manager, and they've probably already described you in some detail to that hiring manager, so they're going to want that consistency there. Now, lastly, let's talk about the design of the resumebecause that's equally important.

If I'm a recruiter and I'm skimming your resume for about six seconds, my eye is actually going to work in a Z pattern down that resume, and so we need to think about the formatting in terms of the font and the spacing and even the margins in order to create the right effect.When it comes to your margin, you should never be smaller than .8 inches in a margin. What we're trying to do here is create a white space effect so that the eye is drawn in to the key points that you're putting on this resume. As far as the font goes, never go smaller than an 11 point font.

You shouldn't make it hard for me to read. I shouldn't have to squint to learn about you and your work history. There's one important design element that I want to share with you, and it has to do with the amount of content that you put in your resume. A lot of people think that they should put everything that they've ever done and that they should really try to make themselves sound bigger and more important. We call that yelling and selling, and it does not work. First of all, it overwhelms the recruiter. They can't possibly take in all that information.Secondly, if there's something on there that's missing, a recruiter might assume that you don't have a particular skill set because, gosh, you've put everything else on the resume.

If it's not there, you probably don't have it. You could actually screen yourself out by having too much information on that resume. The goal is to have just enough. Stick to the facts, create a lot of white space, entice me to want to pick up the phone and contact you and find out more about you. In fact, I tell job seekers this all the time. If a recruiter calls you and says,"Hi, I found you on LinkedIn and I checked out your resume, "but I need more information,"you know you've done this right. You gave them just enough to want to connect with you.Then this is going to be your opportunity to share your personality, share your experience,really get them excited about the idea of putting you in front of the hiring manager, so remember less is more when it comes to your resume.

Hook a recruiter with your cover letter: 

- Okay, so it's time to create a cover letter. Now, many of you have probably heard that recruiters don't read cover letters. That's not technically true. Recruiters do open the cover letter when you send it to them, but nine times out of 10, when they read the first sentence or two, they cringe, they close it, and they don't finish. Why is that? Well, people make the common mistake of repurposing the content in their resume and putting it into the cover letter. They say, "As stated in my resume, "you'll find that I have this experience, "that experience," and you talk all about yourself. That's not what the cover letter is for.

If you want to build a fantastic cover letter that gets a recruiter's attention, you don't talk about you. You talk about them. What do I mean? Well, a company wants to hire a business of one,an employee, who really understands them, who gets them, who they can see as part of their tribe. So, how do you do that? How do you convey that to the recruiter? Well, you do it by telling a story. But I'm sure you're wondering, "Well, what story should I tell?" Well, you have a lot of stories that you can tell. These stories should be around how you feel connected to the company and what it does. You know, they have a unique product and service.

They approach their business differently. You know that because you've done your homework on them. Your job is to explain to them how you've come to understand that, how you appreciate what they do and why it's different, better, faster, cheaper, whatever it is that draws you to the organization. By doing that, you're going to show them that you get them, that you should be part of their tribe, and this is going to inspire them to want to go over and check out your resume. Again, the most important thing in the cover letter is for you to build a bond between you. It's a bridge between you and the organization. They need to see you in the role, and to do that, they have to trust you and have confidence that you really understand them.