“Is the recruiting season coming?” a friend asked me last Friday, “I noticed that all my HR friends are posting new positions. Also several recruitment consultants called me last week.”

“Well, are you planning to take another job?” I was curious.

“Maybe, it’s never late to go outside and see better opportunities,” he replied, “but I don’t know where to search information. Need I contact every HR I’m familiar with?”

“Recruitment consultants contacted you, didn’t they?”

“Recruitment consultants? Are they helpful?”

Dear friend, if you face the similar situation, where will you search information you need to accomplish your career goals?

1. Many consultants contacted me, who can I trust?

For most people, the first time they touch recruitment consultants is through a phone call. When you received a phone call from consultants, you needn’t feel bothered by those “cold calls” and hang up immediately. Give them a few minutes and see what they can offer you.

In this first conversation, you can get answers of these two questions:

1) Is this consultant recommending me opportunities based on my career background or not?

2) As a recruitment service provider, is this consultant equipped with professional knowledge and rich experience?

If the answers tend to be negative, hang up as without hesitation.

While if you think this consultant is qualified and the position he recommends you is suitable, you can consider to keep in touch with them in a long run.

2. Don’t contact consultants unless you intend to change your job. Stay in touch for a long time.

Many candidates think there’s no necessity to contact consultants unless they need change their jobs. However, the value of recruitment consultants is far beyond providing new opportunities. Besides this, recruitment consultants can be reliable partners for your future career. Why do we say that?

One of job responsibilities of recruitment consultants is to build good relationships with HR from various industries, understand their recruiting demands, company culture and current situation, and accordingly provide recruitment solutions. In other words, besides HR, nobody knows more about talent markets and job demands than recruitment consultants. Therefore, to build a long-term relationship with consultants can help you know accurate information about the talent trends in your related industry which is crucial for your next career turning point.

Meanwhile, because consultants’ daily work is inseparable from people, every senior consultant owns wide and solid network of relationships. So a qualified consultant will be a good partner for your career development and to expand your network.

3. Make consultants be your career development partner

TIP ONE: get the job details from your consultant

For most candidates, a simple paragraph of job description is not enough to evaluate whether this position is suitable or not. While from the clients’ aspect, every position open to the public has its own intention which can be a key factor for candidate’s consideration. To dig out those things behind a job order is exactly the specialization of recruitment consultants. From consultants, candidates can know as following:

·  Why this position is created

·  Who this position reports to

·  How other team members are like

·  Which part is difficult in this job

·  What’s the company culture

The information hidden behind job description can help candidates not only judge whether it’s suitable, but also prepare for interviews purposefully. Consultants can even share the previous interview experience with candidates.

Example: A Fortune 500 company in auto industry recently opened a position of “senior quality manager”. Consultants knew from HR that this position was for the company’s new-built factory and in other factories they had already set the same positions. Based on the above information, our consultant shared the interview experience as bellow:

· According to the job description of “senior quality manager” set previously, candidates could infer what this job required to do.

· Because this position was for new factory, the leader’s characteristics and specialization of this new factory would determine the specific job content.

· Candidates could do some preparation before interview and tell employers their own understandings and expectations of that position.

TIP TWO: Take command of feedbacks from HR through consultants

If you are a candidate, after every round of interviews you must be eager to know how HR comments on you, while you are not allowed to connect HR and get reply after interview. As a result, obtaining those information through recruitment consultants is the most effective way. Recruitment consultants as third party can effectively share the information with both employers and candidates which help to lead to a win-win result.

Example: A local famous FMCG company was in need of region sales manager. The candidate we recommended finished the interview with HR and entered the second-round interview with sales director. In the conversation with HR, our consultant was informed that this candidate polished his past experience badly. On the one hand, HR appreciated his professional experience; on the other hand, it also created a bad impression of this candidate for he unduly polishing work experience. Our consultants knew that the company culture was relatively practical and told the candidate immediately. The candidate changed his style in the following interviews and successfully gave the sales director a good impression.

TIP THREE: Avoid the embarrassment of negotiating with HR for salary

When there goes the stage of offer-negotiation, it’s quite embarrassing for candidates to talk with HR for the annual salary. On the one hand, candidates hope to get paid as highly as possible; on the other hand, they don’t like to leave “money-driven” impressions. So how can candidates save such dilemma?

Recruitment consultants can be a good coordinator between candidates and employers.

From the perspective of employer, recruitment consultants represent the image, ability and motives of candidates. They will evaluate fairly and professionally the salary of candidates and contribute to the win-win results for both employers and candidates. In that way candidates can avoid negotiating directly with HR and save the concerns of leaving “money-driven” impressions because the negotiations of salary are mainly led by consultants.

From the perspective of candidates, recruitment consultants can provide them accurate and credible salary reports in main industries and practical salary solutions that are more easily accepted by employers. They play an important role as career development partner of candidates. Take BRecruit 2017 Salary Watch as an example, our recruitment consultants provide comprehensive and updated salary information of hot jobs in eight main industries which are based on their work experience with 1,612 Chinese leading corporations and salary information they collected from nearly 30,000 candidates. In the period of salary negotiation, the rich experience and professional analysis will play an important role for candidates to acquire satisfactory salary.

Tip: BRecruit 2017 Salary Watch has been released on February 15th, 2017. You can get this report free by clicking http://www.brecruit.com.jxt1.com/brecruit-salary-watch

TIP FOUR: Know employer’s comments on you through consultants

Almost every candidate will feel unfit and a little depressed when they work in a new company. It’s a crucial time not only to learn new things but also to decide whether both will maintain the employment for a long run. For candidates, employer’s true comments on their ability and characteristics are very important. Besides the information collected by themselves, candidates can use client feedbacks from consultants they cooperate with as reference.

Therefore, even you are already on board successfully, recruitment consultants can be your good partner for your career development.

Career development is always a popular topic among employees. A successful career development requires abundant information, reasonable planning, excellent ability and proper timing. It’s not easy for employees alone to plan every step in their career comprehensively and smoothly.

But you are never alone.

As the core support in human resources industry, recruitment consultants are always loyal partners of candidates, so to keep a long-term relationship with recruitment consultants will save a lot of time for candidates to search information and plan career development.

Recruitment consultants are actually very helpful!