The Best Time to Look for a Job is Before you Need One, and Other Wisdom from a Top Recruiter

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Executive recruiters are a job seeker’s secret weapon, but I’ve learned that many of us weren’t taught how to leverage their services. 

To learn more, I spoke with Bev Wiesen, Managing Director of Apex Executive Search. Bev has had a 30-year career in recruiting, placing C and VP-level candidates at companies ranging from startups to the Fortune 50. 

Here’s what I learned from Bev about working with recruiters: 

1. They know about the best opportunities. Companies retain recruiters because they’re looking to fill key roles with top talent. “We’re going to hear about the roles you really want to be looking at,” Bev said. 
   
   The company may be simultaneously posting the role, but Bev said that submitting your resume that way will likely get it “into a very large pile that looks like a black hole that they don’t have time to go through.” Recruiters can help you learn about opportunities and get your resume to the hiring manager.
   

2. They can help you negotiate for things you didn’t even know you wanted. The primary reason to work with a recruiter, Bev said, is that they can be a buffer between you and the company. “We can ask all of the hard questions that if you ask, you might seem needy or pushy,” Bev said.
   
   Once you’re in salary negotiations, recruiters can also help you ask for things you may not have thought of, like a sign on bonus, a more advantageous stock grant, or extra money to cover your COBRA healthcare benefits. 
   
   “Once we start getting to know candidates, we can coach them on the things that they should be asking for,” said Bev. “But if they don't know, they're not going to ask.”
   

3. Recruiters can be a resource in any stage of your career. Often, Bev and her team recruit for roles that would be stretch assignments or promotions for mid-career candidates.
   
   “Until they get to the VP or C level, people often don't understand the value of developing relationships with recruiters,” Bev said.  “They would be well-served to start thinking about that earlier in their career so that people give them that leg up, because that's how people advance.”
   
   The best strategy to nurture relationships with recruiters is to simply take their calls, Bev said. “We're not really looking for people to go out of their way to help us. But if I call you about an opportunity and you have a peer group and you can give me a name or two, they're going to appreciate it, and I'm going to appreciate it,” she continued. 
   
   If you haven’t been contacted by a recruiter yet, you can always initiate contact. Bev suggests googling “contingency recruiters” in your field and asking to get your resume in their database for future opportunities. 
   

4. The best time to look for a job is when you don’t need one. “When people are desperate, they're much more likely to interview for the wrong things and potentially take the wrong opportunity,” Bev said. 

   “But when they have a job and they're more comfortable, they're going to feel like they're coming from a position of strength. Then, they can take the right job versus just some job so that they can pay their rent. You definitely want to make sure that you're the one in the driver's seat.”
   

5. Want to get noticed by recruiters? Fix these common mistakes on your LinkedIn profile:

   1. Put as much information as possible in your headline - not just your current official job title.  “It's the first thing I look at,” Bev said. “I want to know where they worked and what they've done. But really, I want to know how they identify.”

   2. Figure out what you’re best at and use those keywords everywhere you can. For example, in your profile headline, your “About” section, and your work experience. “I think that people think that they're self promoting too much if they do that, and they're not,” Bev said. “We recruiters don't take it that way.”

   3. Include your email address in the “About” section so recruiters can contact you directly.

   4. Don’t limit yourself based on geography. If you’re open to relocating or hybrid work, you can change your geographic area to a different city than where you live, or to your larger region such as Southern California.

   5. On your LinkedIn preferences, mark the setting that allows recruiters to contact you for free. “We take that as a signal that people are open to looking at something new,” Bev said. 

Developing relationships with recruiters in your field can give you a huge advantage in the job market - whether you’re actively looking or not. Don’t overlook this resource for your career growth. 

If you’re considering your own career relaunch, don’t do it alone! Book a free 30-minute consult to see if private coaching with me can give you a strategic advantage.