10 things to REALLY IRK a recruiter

Confessions of a legal head hunter

If you want to sabotage your career and miss out on good jobs because of ego, stupidity or sloth, then pay attention! I am going to give you some career-breaker tips – straight from the real world.

I am a career counselor for lawyers. People pay me for my advice and my 22+ years experience in helping clients find new positions. But sometimes I function as a recruiter, and am paid by the hiring company to find lawyers for job openings. I am on a recruiting assignment right now – I have jobs to fill, for free to the taker!

But now I understand why other recruiters tell me that finding good candidates is a struggle. Some job seekers act like they don’t want to find jobs.

In this two-part series, we are going to look at 10 Really Stupid Things job seekers do that frustrate the bejeepers out of recruiters.

Here are five of the dumb things I have seen job-seeking attorneys do in just the last few weeks of doing this search.

1. Don’t put your name on both pages of your resume –

Make it hard for recruiters to get your whole story by leaving your name and contact information off your resume’s second page. We may get hundreds of resumes within a few hours posting a job opening. We print them out in batches. The pages get mixed up. If we find a loose page 2 with education and admissions on it, but we can’t immediately match it to the page 1, guess what happens to the resume? Nothing. It is put in the garbage.

2. Make sure to leave your old cell phone number on your resume —

You apply to our job posting by sending in your resume. We like your background. We call you. We get a message that, “the number you have called is no longer in service.” People change cell phone carriers the way they change underwear. If you don’t want us to call you, leave your old cell number on your new resume. The same goes for your email address; if you were Syracuse Law ’06, you are probably not @syracuse.edu anymore, but no need to keep your resume updated.

3. Ask us to go to your LinkedIn page to get your contact info and resume —

Instead of making it easier for the recruiter to call you about a job opportunity by giving us your phone number, make it hard for us. Tell us to go to your LinkedIn page to get your information, because we have nothing better to do than to spend our time trying to find you so we can offer you jobs and money.

4. Deny that you sent in your resume –

This one happened to me today. We received a resume in email account that we reserve for replies to posted positions. We liked what we saw. The candidate didn’t remember sending the resume to us. That’s OK, because in an active job search, you can send out lots of resumes. But this candidate not only said he didn’t remember sending it, he categorically denied that he sent it. Well then, have a nice day. Click.

5. Don’t put your email address and phone on your resume –

I couldn’t make this one up. We received a resume with NO contact information. No email. No phone. No city. No state. No joke. If you really don’t want the posted job, then send in a resume that makes it impossible for us to find you!

End of Part One. NEXT TIME: 5 More Really Dumb Things you can do to sabotage your job search.