Getting seen by recruiters and employers

I read an excellent piece a few days ago about how to improve the chances of getting seen by recruiters and prospective employers that I think is a great strategy for any job seeker. I will make an attempt to summarize the major steps of the program, and give you my analysis as to why I think it ought to work. Let's us get at least a little deeper into this.


First, the credit for this approach goes to Greig Wells, an executive recruiter from Boca Raton, Florida. He has a website you can visit at http://www.befoundjobs.com/ and he has a video there that runs about 4 minutes (just more than, I believe). This introductory screen gives a pretty good "come-on" to his real website, which you get to by giving Greig your name and email. Pretty standard opt-in tactics so far. But, when you give him this bit of information, which he probably is adding to his autoresponder list of contacts so he can email offers like any good Internet Marketer, you get the next screen, instantly. Most Internet Marketers require double opt-in, done by going to your email and clicking a link to prove you wanted to get the information. Grieg, however, is nicer than that as he just opens the next page and you have access. On this page is a super video of just over 25 minutes that is worth the listening to after the cost of first sharing a bit of personal information; really the value is that huge. We will get into this right now.

What Greig is suggesting is job seekers need to get themselves seen by Recruiters searching on Google and Linked In. Take note that Greig is pushing getting your resume seen as a page one result on Google, and as a page one listing on Linked In. He uses some pretty polished language talking about having a Web 2.0 strategy using all the search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to drive that Google result. This is all so techie sounding, eh? Well, the manner of doing this is not so techie. It is pretty simple. You want to accomplish a number of things, but these are paramount. Get your resume on a webpage as the content so it can be found by Google's webcrawler robots. You can do this using a website, a blog, or a file hosting service (like Geocities). You want to ensure your resume is titled using keywords. An example of a title that Greig might approve is, "Project Manager, Charlotte, North Carolina." Notice this title identifies a skill, and a location, which Greig identified as hugely important -- because that is what the Recruiter will use to conduct their search.

Now the resume must be packed with keywords (like process improvement, or project management). That is so when the webcrawler robot reads it it will find those keywords, and return your resume to the Recruiter. But there is more you need to do to ensure you get page one status. You need to get linkbacks to your resume's site, and it takes lots of them (think hundreds of them). You get linkbacks by going out and making them on other sites. If you read a newsletter, and it allows comments, you would make a good comment and at the end leave your URL, which is the address of your resume's location. So that is usually left as something like http://www.thepathvisualized.blogspot.com/ (that's my blog address here). You need to find hundreds of different places to make comments and leave your resume address. The webcrawler robots love linkbacks and rank a site higher the more it has. It thinks those linkbacks mean the site is popular. Next thing that needs attention is your Linked In profile.

On Linked In you need to get your profile really cranked up as we used to say. A complete profile as close to a resume as possible when you think of the summary and objective, employment, and education. In addition, at the top of your profile is a title area. Make sure it has your name, title of the position you seek, and location. It should say something like, "Kenneth Wallin, Project Manager, Charlotte, North Carolina." In that header area make sure you have achieved the maximum 500+ connections. If you have 100 connections you are not going to turn up on page one, so make the connections. Also, you want to have better than 10 recommendations, but in any case at least 10 of them. Go ahead and ask those friends to whom you are connected to write you a recommendation. I have done that and now have 15 recommendations, and I have a relationship off-Internet with 13 of those folks. So they do know me, and the other two are close now as we have exchanged email, and developed a friendship. At the bottom of the profile page is your contact information. Greig stresses that your phone contact number must be included. Recruiters need to get in touch right away, and email is not even fast enough. They just go to the next name on the list with a phone number if your is not listed.

The final piece in this puzzle is to get on Twitter. It is not a complicated program. Just get an account and start tweeting. You want to build a set of followers in the thousands. That is pretty easy, it just takes a little time. The fast way is to find popular folks, access their followers, and follow them. (This is not cheating, it is the way Twitter works.) The interesting thing about Twitter tactics is if you follow someone, they will normally follow you back. I attest the truth of this. I have just started, and already have about 150 followers. I will build more quickly, and I am thinking I can get to a thousand in a matter of days if I really try. If you think this is quick, however, just know that Greig does it for his clients in a day. In fact he does all this stuff in a day or two from initiation of the plan. If you go in with no Linked In connections, a poorly developed profile page, resume not published, and no followers on Twitter, then he and his team will just do it for you. He charges for the service, so if you can do these things yourself (not that hard) you can save money, and still make it happen.

So, go and do it.