For some, the end of the summer holidays is a time for making resolutions... To help those who may need some job searching tips, here are the top seven ways to get on recruitment consultants' nerves! Things to avoid to maintain the perfect partnership!

1-Responding to every single job advertisement

You can’t be the right person for every job. And you can’t want to do every job that’s out there. Of course, if you send in your CV for 75 different posts (it’s happened!), you’re going to attract our attention. However, what you’re actually telling us is that you don’t know what you want and, worse, that you haven’t thought about whether your skills are suitable for a particular post. The risk is that a recruitment consultant, having seen your profile for the hundredth time, will stop looking at it, end up forgetting about it, or even delete you from their memory for good!

2-Calling the recruitment consultant every day

There’s a line between checking in and pestering someone. It’s fine to call to find out how your application is progressing as this shows that you take your job search seriously. Having said that, calling too often when nothing has changed is really going to annoy your recruitment consultant, not to mention taking up time that they could have used to help you in your search, for example, by working on new opportunities. Remember that a good recruitment consultant will always contact you to let you know that your application has progressed – that’s their job.

3-Sending mass emails

There has to be a personal element to your relationship with your recruitment consultant if you want them to treat you as an individual. Send an email bcc’ing – or worse, cc’ing – 35 local recruitment consultants and you can be sure that you’ll end up in their Spam folder pretty quickly. It is up to you to research each of your contacts to find out how to best approach them.

4-Delegating your job search to a friend or family member

“Hello. I’m calling on behalf of my husband/father/daughter, who’s looking for a job,” is something we recruiters hear quite regularly on the phone. Imagine if it were the other way round – would a recruiter put his wife/mother/son’s number on a job advertisement? In all seriousness, this kind of call – regardless of the reason for delegating – shows that you have little interest in your job search and doesn’t bode well for the future…

5-Submitting an anonymous application

“I’m using an alias to write to you as my job search is strictly confidential”. This is the case of 90% of people who send in their CV. It’s our job to ensure that all of the information we handle remains confidential – whether on behalf of our clients or of the experts whom we work with every day. Having a trusting relationship with your recruitment consultant is about feeling confident handing your information over to them. Without that, nothing can happen. Hiding your identity suggests only negative things – a lack of trust, doubt and, in general, a high opinion of yourself. A bad start, whichever way you look at it!

Hiding your identity suggests only negative things

6-Turning up for an interview unprepared

There’s a wealth of information out there on the Internet – we don’t need to tell you that. Today, it is just unacceptable to meet potential employers without first having done some research on them. It shows that you aren’t taking your job search seriously, or that you have spammed so many companies that you’ve forgotten who does what, which is hardly better.

7-Calling a manager directly

Calling a manager directly, out of the blue, is perhaps the worst thing you can do. No one appreciates it – not the manager in question, who isn’t expecting to hear from you directly, or the recruitment consultant, who has trusted you by passing on this information. Such behaviour generally marks the end of any partnership on an application.

There’s no need to worry – all that you do need is a little common sense that can be summed up in three key points:
– Make sure that your relationship with recruitment consultants is personal.
– Take your job search seriously and approach it in an organised manner.
– Trust your recruitment consultants.
Although we always do our utmost to help you, we are not personal employment coaches. We will not accept payment or any other kind of remuneration from you (though some have offered!), as we are keen to remain independent to be able to support our clients in their decisions. Finally, we know how to keep your data confidential – remember that we wouldn’t be here if that weren’t the case!

A recruitment consultant who is happy with their relationship with you will be your perfect partner, both in your current job search and in the future. Now it’s down to you – what’s your strategy?