While a good recruiter is an important part of preparing you for your interview, the real interview starts well before that. That is, the process begins the moment you start your initial conversation with a Recruiter. Some of you are thinking that these hard economic times must be effecting my brain because what does a Recruiter have to do with your interview with your potential future employer.

A good Recruiter is more than just a channel to get a job. Your Recruiter is an advocate for you and therefore what they know about you is absolutely critical in helping put you in the best light. That doesn’t just mean all of the things you want people to know about you, but also the things you may not want people to know about you (more about that in a second).

You’re Recruiter is a salesperson (that I don’t have to convince you about). They promote you, your background, and your skills to potential employers. Making a good impression with a Recruiter is an important step in the process. When companies and Recruiters have a good relationship, companies take into account a Recruiter's thoughts and opinions regarding candidates. A good Recruiter is tightly integrated in to the process.

As for overcoming concerns about employment gaps, background/credit check issues, and reasons for frequent job changes can typically be done up front, but when they arise later in the process they become deal killers. Share with your Recruiter (if you don’t trust them then find one you do) these piecesof information, because the one person to make sure you have on your side in the process is your Recruiter.

I’m an optimist so I look at things with a slant towards the positive, but I’ll give you the straight story and let you know that things are looking tight all over. As a recruiter who has been through three recessions in my career I know there are only a few things to do to get more business (make more placements) and that’s making more calls to earn the business of old and new clients alike and continue to get better at our jobs (through automation, training, better industry knowledge, etc.). However, I also look at the downturn as the long term opportunity that it is.

In good times my Dad said to “make hay while the sun shines” implying that you better make every sale and work hard to keep your clients happy because you never know when the good times will end, but this is also the time to make hay…next years hay. Think of it this way; every new client contact that you make now (whether they buy now or not now) is a potential new client next year. What better way for you to showcase to a company who you truly are and how you work then by talking with them when you have nothing to gain other than building a relationship with them and hoping that it provides you with the opportunity to earn their business during better times.

As more and more people are hunting for jobs a lot of their interview experiences feel a lot like they are chasing their own tails. Unfortunately working with the wrong recruiter can do this to you and may cost you your next job.

In the mindset of the unemployed there is no job that they can’t do, but unfortunately there are lots of jobs for which our clients won’t hire them. However, if you’re working with a highly skilled recruiter they can tell you quickly if your skills are even in the ballpark for the job much less really on target. Understanding that why then do I frequently talk with people being presented to jobs by recruiters whose skills are WAY OFF TARGET for the companies needs? Because in contingency search the recruiters don’t get penalized for throwing resumes against the wall and hoping that something sticks.

So understand that you (like the recruiter) only have so much time to pursue jobs and that if you spend time pursuing the wrong ones you may in fact miss out on the right one. To correct this flaw in the systems be critical of your skills and the match they create (or don’t) with the company, get the details from the recruiter not just any overview and just like a good Doctor or Lawyer you better feel comfortable that the recruiter is looking out for you and your career.

We all understand gambling (i.e. the house wins) and its high risks and long shot rewards, but what many people don’t understand is that most recruiters do it everyday and lose.

Contingency search is the bread and butter of our industry allowing companies to view prospective candidates and only incur a fee if they hire the candidate and on the surface it looks like a win-win. However, with the state of the economy many companies are unintentionally using this search model against recruiters by first engaging there services, and then sometime into the search (when energies and efforts have already been expended) they pull the job requisition, put the search on hold or worse yet decide that after interviewing your candidates they really just can’t pay a fee.

Now every recruiter should be schooled in qualifying a job order, but the best and fastest way that we’ve found to qualify one in this market is to ask the company to share in the risks by moving it to a retained search (or some form of up front engagement fee). This instantaneously crystallizes a companies thinking and sincerity to fill this job while also putting the recruiter into a search were they have very little if no competition, and let's face it who among us can argue with that in a market with fewer jobs.