9 Ways To Make Your Recruiter's Life Easier And Increase Your Chances Of Being Hired

Job searching can be scary, and, sometimes, it can even wear at your self-confidence. Thankfully, recruiters and talent acquisition specialists are professionals who happen to be experts at finding people jobs. Having a recruiter on your side can make your job search that much easier because now, you have a staffing professional on a mission to find you a role.

There are two types of recruiters: corporate and agency. Corporate recruiters hire exclusively for the company they work for, while agency recruiters hire for multiple different companies and work at a recruitment agency. Agency recruiters specifically will literally be your agent and go to bat for you by presenting you to various roles and hiring managers.

Having worked in staffing for multiple different verticals, industries, and career-types, I've noticed that when a candidate is able to make their recruiter's life easier, it also tends to make it easier for their recruiter to find them a role.

While making these 9 changes will not guarantee you a job, they will allow you to provide your recruiter with a key set of information that will provide them with the best jumping-off point possible. This way, they can find you the best role possible.

Hope you enjoy these tips, and remember, you can do this!

1. If you have a phone number, please list it on your resume! And if you are actively looking for a role, be sure to check your email every day. This way, your recruiter can give you live updates on your job search!

Picture it, the recruiter for your dream job is browsing resumes, when they come across yours. Your skills and experience immediately catch their eye, and they know you would be a great fit for the role. But your phone number is not listed, and while they sent you an email, the client needs interviews scheduled for tomorrow. By the time you see the email in your inbox (or occasionally lost in the spam folder), the role could already be gone.

If you have a phone number, list it on your resume. You don't know who could be trying to reach you about your new dream job!

2. Please stop locking items and text boxes on your resumes in Microsoft Word. Sometimes, formatting adjustments are needed for submission, and it can take h0urs to figure out how to undo the hidden locks. Recruiters would rather spend that time finding you a role!

While recruiters are experienced resume reviewers and we are happy to help, the more time we have to spend reformatting a resume, the less amount of time we have to find you that next role. Your resume doesn't need to be perfect, but try to keep it both user and reader friendly.

3. When asked and if you are able, send along your resume in both Word and PDF format. Bonus points if you bring in a printed out copy with you to any interviews.

Most recruiters keep their records in an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software. The ATS is how they organize all of their information, but some ATS softwares only accept resumes uploaded in a particular format.

While your recruiter may specify or reach back out for a different format, this slows down the overall process due to the back-and-forth, especially if this is for a role that could have an offer out by the end of the week. Being proactive helps!

4. Organize your resume so that it's easy to read. Have any questions on how to better organize it? Ask away! Recruiters are highly skilled at resume reviewal.

When reviewing multiple resumes at once, the well organized ones tend to stand out the most. The attention to detail is an attractive quality in a potential hire, and an organized resume that is easy to read helps highlight your skillset.

Want to do a quick check? A well-organized resume tends to have an average 10 - 12 pt. font (excluding headings), headers, consistent punctuation and capitalization, no typos, and spacing between lines (average .5 - 1.5).

5. Multilingual? List it in the 'skills' or 'languages' section of your resume. Language skills are always a plus, and communication is always key.

Knowing multiple languages is always a positive! People often forget to list their additional fluencies, and this tends to come from a place of modesty. So if 'fluent' seems too strong a word, I recommend specifying your level of fluency. Feel free to use 'studied', 'light-fluency', 'beginner', 'intermediate', 'conversationally fluent', or 'advanced'. Whichever you feel most comfortable with.

6. Be open with your recruiter. Recruiters can be trusted with confidential information, and they can help you best when they have all of the information. They are not there to judge, but to help.

We are all human, and sometimes we make mistakes. If you have done something in your past that may influence your ability to be hired, let your recruiter know. Most of the time, if a recruiter understands the situation they can smoothe over the situation for you.

Honesty really is the best policy, and most hiring managers value honesty in the present over mistakes from the past.

7. If you can, provide recruiters with your interview availability for the week, or even next two weeks. This can speed up the scheduling process, and quicker scheduling means an earlier start date!

Providing your recruiter with your interview availability for the next week or two is a great way to help your recruiter schedule even more interviews for you, even as soon as that afternoon! Providing your schedule is a great way to be flexible to make the scheduling process easier on your talent acquisition professionals.

8. Decide what the three most important things to you are in regards to your ideal next role, and communicate these to your recruiter. Companies are interviewing you, but you are also interviewing them.

What matters most to you? Commute? Location of a role? Pay? Responsibilities? Job Title? Company size? Industry?

Figure out the three most important things you want out of your next role, communicate these to your recruiter, and prepare for success!

9. Write down all of the roles you are submitted to. This is true for all companies, but especially for the IT and tech industries, where being double-submitted to a role can be grounds for removal from consideration.

Making sure to write down the jobs you have applied or had your resume submitted to is the best way to ensure no double submissions. If companies see a candidate is submitted more than once for a role from different sources i.e. different recruiters, it doesn't shine a positive light on the candidacy.

Staying organized with a reference list is the best way to track all of your applications.

Good luck, and happy searching!