Rita Ashley, Career Coach. Field tested advice for executives.

Executives must avoid being part of the herd

Would you use the lottery as your investment strategy?  Are the odds appealing?  Do you feel lucky, well, do you?

That’s exactly what you do career-wise when you submit your resume to random recruiters and recruiter groups; play the job-search lottery.

Recruiters post appeals for resumes everywhere from LinkedIn groups to Craigslist. They frequent sites trolling for resumes to add to their stash.  Do you have any idea how they use them? Do you know what happens to your contact information?

Chances are the job you want is local. Chances are the recruiter representing the company you want to work for is also local.  Why then, would you seek representation of random recruiters in distant locations, perhaps even distant countries? And why would you seek representation along with a herd of others from across the country?

Doesn’t it make more sense to stand out from the crowd with personal contact?  As a hiring authority yourself, were you not always more interested in people to whom you were introduced rather than a faceless resume that found its way to your desk?  Who would you invite for an interview?  Someone who made the effort to find you, learn about your company and the opportunity or someone who simply sent in a resume through a random recruiter?

Hiring authorities tend to spurn unsolicited resumes submitted by recruiters; and that is what most of the cattle-call recruiters do.  They collect resumes and submit them anywhere they know there are openings.  They don’t necessarily have the job search, they are playing the placement lottery with your resume.

While that seems appealing at first blush, it is actually quite damaging to your search.  Once a resume lands in a company through a recruiter, whether the company invited submission or not, no other recruiter and certainly not the individual, can submit credentials.  You are effectively locked out of any jobs from that company because they chose not to deal with that recruiter.  And there is no way for you to stand out from the crowd; in fact you rarely know where they have sent your resume.

Once a recruiter has your resume they retain the right to earn money if you are placed where they present your credentials.  That is why some recruiters submit your resume to various job boards with their own contact information instead of yours.  You have lost control over your resume and wound up in the hands of someone who knows neither how to represent you nor how to represent the job opportunity.

If you are a sales executive, the effects of bad representation are doubly damning.  You are expected to get to the right people with the right message.  What message do you send when a recruiter unknown to the company slings your resume about?

Why run the risk of being shut out, ignored or scammed when there are recruiters who actually have searches for jobs for which you qualify?   Don’t take the line of least resistance, you are not a lazy executive, so don’t be a take-the easy-way-out candidate.

The good news is, there are many reputable recruiters who do not engage in such opportunistic activities.  Learn to connect with the right recruiters.  There are many types of recruiters and the ones you want are established, respected by their clients and typically, looking for you through their network.  Learn how to be found.  No matter how compelling your resume, without an introduction, the best recruiters will ignore you.

Executives: Retain control over your resume; send it not to cattle-calls or any public forum. Participate, network but don’t expose your resume.  Use your LinkedIn profile to attract attention. Learn to vet recruiters and connect with the one that will place you. Get busy with personal branding.

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