Job Search Panel at Right Management

As a recruiter for Pinnacol Assurance I get to occasionally attend sessions geared toward providing tips and insights to job seekers. It's one of my favorite things to do, and this afternoon the folks at Right Management (a special tip of the hat to Nicole for coordinating this event) were nice enough to include me on one of their panels. Every one of these sessions is unique, but the tips shared really apply to anyone in the market for a new opportunity.

Quite candidly, I usually end up learning as much as I share at these sessions both from the audience as well as from my fellow panel members. Today's panel was very diverse. Joining me today were Benji from Great West, David from TW Telecom, Jill from Centura, and Josh from Baxa. While Pinnacol has been recognized as a great place to work these folks really did a nice job at presenting their companies in a very positive light.

One thing was similar to other panels I've sat on - ask 5 recruiters the same question and you'll get five different answers. That's not all bad and I hope part of what today's audience took away is that there is no one right way, no magic bullet if you will, when it comes to searching for a job. Some of the things shared that we all had in common -

• Your resume remains a critical weapon in your arsenal of job searching tools. There was the inevitable debate about what format is best, with no consensus reached, but we all agreed that it should highlight some of your accomplishments as well as give us information on what you've been doing and where you've been working. One great tip I picked up from Benji and Jill was their suggestion to put your acomplishments not necessarily at the top of the resume but tie them chronologically to where you were working. That way the recruiter doesn't have to guess about where or when your accomplishments took place. All of the panel was in agreement that typo's and grammatical errors on a resume are one of the quickest ways to get it into the "Do Not Consider" pile.  
• Make yourself easily accessible. There was some discussion about whether it was better to just list one phone number  or several. There was agreement that if we, as recruiters, try to contact you its best to have your phone on as if you are expecting the call, and if our call has to go to voice mail to make sure to check your messages regularly and respond quickly. Jill mentioned she's seeing  a trend where candidates don't put their full contact information on their resume, presumably on the belief that things like address and area codes might make us aware that you are not a local candidate.  I've started to see a few of these myself and its not something I would recommend. Keep the physical address and phone on the resume along with the e-mail address. Again, make yourself easily accessible and don't make us guess or search for information we need about you.
• Follow-up after the interview! As a panel we were pretty unanimous on this one. While recruiters need to explain the process of what happens after your interview (if they don't, ask!) the reality is that recruiters are dealing with large numbers of candidates and may not be able to touch base as frequently as you might like. Send a Thank You to everyone you interviewed with; if you didn't get the e-mail addresses of all those you met, send the Thank You to the recruiter and ask them to pass it along to the other interview participants. Follow up by phone or e-mail with the recruiter several days aftwards to check on your status.
• LinkedIn was a hot topic at today's session. As Josh from Baxa said, if you are not on LinkedIn then shame on you. I would add that its not enough to simply put your profile up and then forget about it. The value of LinkedIn is in its ability to connect you to people you know, and introduce yourself to people you don't. Reach out to your connections and try to develop a relationship where you can be of some assistance to them, and they in turn can help you (if there is a better definition of "networking" I don't know what it is).
• Soft skills (such as the ability to provide outstanding customer service to interact effectively with all sorts of people) are important. Several of the companies today mentioned that these interpersonal skills may actually supercede technical knowledge in many hiring decisions.

Some of the panel member's organizations have tens of thousands of employees. Jill, from Centura, pointed out that they are the State's 3rd largest employer behind King Soopers and Walmart. Some of the other company's represented on the panel, including Pinnacol, have fewer than a thousand employees. Some of my counterparts have hundreds of positions open at any given time whereas in a normal year Pinnacol may only hire 50-100 new employees. The way each of us approach trying to actually hire all those people may vary, but one thing is certain - we are all looking for the best possible candidates we can find for every position we fill.

Thank you to Nicole and all my fellow panel members as well as to the attendees at today's session. I hope they got as much out of the session as I did!