Recruiters can help– but they aren’t magic.
Headhunters and recruiters can seem a little like fairy god-job-finders: someone who will match you to a role you want? Heck yeah!
But, of course, that’s not the whole story. If you’re in a very in-demand field with highly specialized skills, recruiters really can make things easy for you. They’ll likely find you a few things to apply for, give you some tips, and maybe even introduce you to someone on the team. For hard-to-fill roles, they get a nice little bonus for placing someone, so naturally those are the areas they’re going to spend a bit more time and effort.
If, however, you’re like most of us and have some good skills but you aren’t a top-tier anti-trust lawyer or a surgical nurse with 9 years of experience in oncology wards, you’re probably just a bit less exciting to recruiters. (I know, but try not to take it personally.) They’re enormously overworked, and they’re really looking to fill those more challenging roles, so your shiny new project management certificate is less compelling to them than it is to you.
That doesn’t mean not to use their services, though. Think of the recruiters as a single tool in your toolbox. As a somewhat silly comparison, I was once given an asparagus-peeler, which is really only good for peeling fatter spears of asparagus. When I have those, it’s brilliant, but mostly it just sits in the back of my kitchen drawer. Recruiters are much the same: they will sometimes find you an interesting role or two, but also they may miss the mark a few times, or perhaps not be as responsive as you’d like. Remember, though, that they’re only one of the tools you have access to. Join multiple placement agencies (look for things that are specific to your area of interest of geographic location), but don’t rely on them too heavily. After all, it’s your career and your path, so you get to choose which tools to use when.
