The Benefits Of Working With A Recruiter To Find Your First Job

Growing up, people around you always stress the importance of going to school and getting good grades so you can get a good job. As you progress through school (college or even graduate school) and get closer to the “real world,” the anxiety surrounding the job search slowly starts to creep in. Finding that coveted first job doesn’t need to be such an arduous process! Thanks to the efforts of recruiters, finding a job, whether it is your first or just a change of scenery, can be made easier.

Working with a recruiter can be intimidating for both rookie and job veteran job seekers alike. Although there are a variety of resources available, there remains a lot of unknowns about the process. At NexGoal, we specialize in placing former athletes and job seekers with the athlete mindset in new careers nationwide. Our recruiting team works tirelessly to take the stress out of the job search and help you find your first or next job.

We asked our recruiting team for some advice they would give to job seekers of all experience levels and how they can aid your job search. Here are some of their responses:

“One misconception I come across is candidates think they have to pay to work with a recruiter. That is not the case with NexGoal.”

“Recruiters take the stress of job searches off recent grads by matching them up with interested clients and making sure we help them through the steps of the interview process.”

“Some companies only use recruiters for filling open positions, which means candidates wouldn’t even know the position exists without working with the recruiter.”

“We help them [job seekers] gain confidence in interviewing and make them fully aware of employer expectations.”

“Recruiters can provide valuable information about the company including interview prep, company background, etc.”

“We are another resource to get job seekers the best chance at receiving a job offer as soon as possible.”

Our recruiting team is not alone in recognizing the benefits of working with a recruiter. In an article for TheMuse, Erin Doyon, a Talent Acquisition Consultant at Philips, shared some ways to leverage a relationship with a recruiter when trying to land your first job.

Optimize Your Resume And Cover Letter

Your first impression to employers comes in the form of your resume, so it is crucial to make sure that it stands out in a positive way. Many employers use an applicant tracking system to weed out job seekers that fit their mold. An ATS identifies candidates whose resumes fall into certain parameters, often using keywords that they are looking for. A recruiter can help you tailor your resume to best stand out to employers. If you want a head start on this process, Doyon recommends using a tool like Jobscan to optimize your resume and cover letter with the right keywords based on the job description you’re applying for. When tailoring your resume, make sure you include these five essentials but eliminate these overused phrases!

Communicate Your Interests And Goals

What is it that you want to accomplish in your career? What kind of jobs are you looking for in order to meet that expectation? It is important to ask yourself these questions prior to not only applying to jobs but also working with a recruiter. If you can’t figure out what you want to do, chances are a recruiter won’t be able to help you.

One way you can get an idea of what you want to do is through informational interviews. Not only can these help you figure out your career goals, but informational interviews are also a great way to build your network. In doing so, a recruiter can essentially play “matchmaker” for you and connect you to people in your industry of choice.

Make It Easy For Recruiters To Advocate For You

A recruiter’s job is to essentially sell the best, most qualified candidates to various hiring managers. To help them do their job correctly, help them help you. In your discussions with a recruiter, be forthcoming and honest with information. If you aren’t interested in a certain job, tell them as such. Ghosting is becoming more and more popular in the hiring process and is one of the top frustrations for recruiters and human resources professionals alike.

The more information you give a recruiter, the easier it is for them to advocate for you throughout the hiring process. Doyon recommends “humble assertiveness,” and says, “Be willing to do anything, especially because the stereotype of the millennial is that they’re too good for some entry-level jobs. This dream job you want comes from dedication and enthusiasm. If you really want a job, express that to a recruiter. On the other end of the coin, if you aren’t interested in the opportunity, you should express that as well. This is information the recruiter needs to know in order to best portray you to the employer.

One of the easiest ways to stand out to both employers and recruiters is to be diligent in your follow-ups after a conversation. Chances are most people don’t think to follow up with a recruiter, but are more focused on impressing the employer with a follow up. In doing so with a recruiter, you are continuing to make it easier for them to advocate on your behalf.

Wrap Up

Recruiters can take a lot of the stress and anxiety out of your job search, but it all starts with being open and accepting of their help. There are things you can do to make their job easier, which in turn, will also improve your chances of landing a job. If you’re a recent college grad looking for your first job and haven’t considered enlisting a recruiter’s help, now you know some things to consider when creating a relationship with one!

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Three Must Read Tips for Your Resume to Stand Out in 2016

Remember the days when a hiring manager would read over your entire resume in order to decide whether or not you were a good candidate for a job? Yeah, I cannot remember those days either—and as time goes on, they are spending less and less time looking at candidate resumes, if they even see them at all.

In this week’s “Three for Thursday” article, the staff here at NexGoal examines the increasingly flooded world of resumes for hiring managers. As a candidate, your resume has become just “part of the field” thanks to online applications and applicant tracking systems.

This has led to hiring managers spending even less time reading resumes than ever before, in fact according to a recent study conducted by The Ladders, hiring managers and recruiters are spending just six seconds reviewing resumes. Yes you read that correctly, six seconds.

In an era of hiring managers being flooded with applicants, the time spent on a resume to determine if a candidate was qualified or not for the job fell from a self-reported number of four to five minutes (according to the study) to just six seconds. This was an incredible difference, but it makes a lot of sense when you look at the heat maps in the study on the resume.

Right about now you are probably wondering, how can I make my resume stand out if they are only spending six seconds reviewing it? Well don’t worry, because that is exactly what this article and “Three for Thursday” are for. We polled our team here at NexGoal, and these are their three suggestions.

Take Your Contact Game to the Next Level

Contact information is ingrained in our brains when it comes to a resume. Candidates were taught to put their name, address, phone number and email address at the top of the page so a hiring manager or recruiter can easily find the information. But today, that is simply not enough.

Contact Section

Job seekers need to make their contact section more appealing.

For starters, you need to make that email address a hyperlink so the person doing the hiring can simply click it to send you an email if they are interested. You may think this is a laziness factor on the side of the hiring manager and that they should be able to copy and paste, but remember you are the one applying—so anything you can do to stand out can only help your chances. When they see the blue link, they know it is clickable. And the best thing? When you type your email address into word and hit space, it automatically does it for you!

Aside from making it easier to click that email address, you should include a link to your LinkedIn profile at the top that is clickable as well. While reading a resume may seem daunting to some hiring managers, many of them have been trained to know where everything is on your LinkedIn account—so put that link on the page.

“Three for Thursday” The Perfect New Job Challenges to Start Your Weekend
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Align Your Resume with the Job Posting

A common mistake made by job seekers is mass applying for jobs with the same resume. In the day and age of computer software systems reviewing your resume before a hiring manager does, technology may be holding you back. For example, if the job posting says a company is looking for three years of B2B sales and you have that experience at a previous job, make sure it says B2B sales on your resume. You may have it written out as Business to Business on your resume, but if the hiring manager put it in as “B2B” for the software to scan, you could be getting shut out.

Primarily, this means you need to analyze your entire resume for each job you apply for. Sure, it means more work on your end—but if you really want the job, you need to take your resume game to the next level to stand out in 2016.

Objectives are Out…Summaries are In

Remember when you needed to tailor your resume with an objective statement that made you “stand out” from the crowd? Well, hiring managers aren’t reading it anymore. Which makes sense since they are scanning the resume for six seconds before deciding if you are qualified or not.

Instead, many job seekers are replacing that objective statement with a short summary. The summary includes current or most recent job title, job history, career achievements, years of experience and more. One example found in our research was, “Director of Inventory Planning & Management. Branch Manager 9 years in Progressive Roles with Large Regional Chains. Financial Responsibility to $35M.”

When you read that example, it should be easy to see what belongs in a summary. If you think about the way a job posting is created, many of them put an emphasis on years of experience, ability to handle accounts of “X” size and size of companies dealt with. This person’s summary has all of this, so a hiring manager knows right away that this particular candidate meets the initial requirements he or she is looking for.

Final Word

Standing out in today’s online application world is not the easiest task for job seekers. With systems that make it easy to apply for many jobs at once with the click of a button, it seems that the job seekers who take the time to tailor their resumes to a specific job instead of mass jobs are the ones who are getting to the hiring manager.

What does this mean for you? Simply put, you need to put in the time and effort if you want to land the job or career of your dreams. As former athletes, this is nothing new to you—if you want to win, you need to prepare. So start preparing your application the 2016 way if you want to land the job!

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3 Reasons Why NexGoal is Your Choice for Recruiting

The word “recruiter” has earned a negative connotation as the years have gone in the hiring community. Job seekers seem to be turned off when they find out the job they want to apply for is through a recruiter, and hiring professionals hit delete on emails when recruiters reach out to them with a potential candidate for their jobs.

Just like in any business, there are good and bad sides of those who are in it. However when it comes to recruiting, it seems like you only hear the negative experiences. What you may not know, is that there are recruiting companies out there who actually care about aligning their candidates with a job or career that is a good fit for them—and not just earning their next commission check.

Part of that last sentence is the key to this article. “There are recruiting companies out there who actually care about aligning their candidates with a job or career that is a good fit for them.”

We have all dealt with the recruiting companies who seemingly leave message after message on the phones of job seekers, or send unqualified candidates to companies and waste the hiring manager’s time. That is the opposite of the approach here at NexGoal—and one of the reasons why I left the B2B medical realm to embark on my endeavor with the team here.

No, I am not a recruiter. In fact, I am the person who sends you the fantastic emails, schedules those informative social posts and writes the majority of the content for the NexGoal website. However, NexGoal’s senior management team was very thorough with me throughout the interview process—which is one of the many reasons why I joined the team here.

In fact, in an interview with NexGoal COO Brad Mullins, he outlined three very important reasons why hiring professionals should be using recruiters like NexGoal.

Dedication to Finding the Right Candidates

One of the first questions I asked Mullins was, “Why should a company work with a recruiting company to fill their open positions.” I felt this was a good place to start, because like many job seekers I usually went around the recruiters and directly to the company—it just seemed easier. However, his response made me think I could have been doing it all wrong.

Mullins stated, “NexGoal dedicates resources and time to finding the right candidates. Our unique model of working with former college and professional athletes brings ‘A’ talent candidates to fill a variety of positions. Our staff consists of former athletes that have been highly trained in identifying the right candidates. Our thorough screening process associated with the attributes of a former athletes identifies outstanding candidates.”

There is a lot of information about the NexGoal process in that quote, but the main thing that stood out to me was that the good recruiters take the time to vet a candidate before even sending them to a hiring manager they are working with. If I owned a business and was focusing on growing it and expanding my reach in whatever market I was in, I would not want to waste my time sifting through resumes and cover letters—I would want someone to know my culture and present me with the top candidates to fit that culture—and that is exactly what NexGoal does for their clients.

Need More Information on NexGoal? Here’s Some Testimonials From Our Clients!

How to Identify These Candidates

Most people think recruiting is just a game of sending out open jobs to major job boards, getting people to fill out applications and forwarding them over to clients. But that could not be further from the truth—I have witnessed this first-hand. So it made me ask Mullins, “How does NexGoal identify candidates for open positions?”

“We ultimately seek passive candidates,” said Mullins. “This means they are already employed and have expressed an interest in speaking with the recruiter. We don’t just rely on job boards to fill positions. Our unique database and network of former college and professional athletes allows us to reach the hard to find candidates.”

The NexGoal approach makes sense because it is exactly how they attracted me. So when you are wondering if a company uses the same model they preach to potential clients, I can answer that question with a firm yes.

Candidate Recruiting

Recruiting is all about finding that candidate that stands out from the crowd.

What Happens if a Candidate Does Not Work Out

This is one of the biggest questions you see out there in terms of concerns from companies who use recruiters. So I acted as the client and asked Mullins, “What happens if the candidate NexGoal places with my company does not work out?”

Mullins responded, “NexGoal recognizes the cost associated with making a ‘bad hire.’ We are very confident in identifying and sourcing the right talent in our unique niche in recruiting. Our contract states that NexGoal will replace the candidate at ‘no cost” to the employer. The guarantee is based on contract terms and can range from 60 to 180 days from the start date based on fees.”

First off, kudos to Mullins for calling out the cost associated with making a bad hire. It was something our content team really focused on a few weeks ago, because the numbers were staggering. If you did not receive that email, or maybe it got lost in the 100s of emails you get per day, let me break it down for you really quick.

• 50% of hiring professionals have felt a negative impact on their company from poor fits
• 27% of those hiring professionals reported the cost of ONE bad hire being more than $50,000

As you can see, bad hires cost your company valuable time and money—but NexGoal is guaranteeing their work during the time period that was mentioned above. To me, that is a game-changer when it comes to making a hire, because if something goes wrong with the candidate that is placed, NexGoal will do the work to make sure the position is again filled with a highly-qualified candidate.

At the end of the day, NexGoal’s model and approach to recruiting stands out from all of the recruiters I have dealt with in my professional life. If you are a company that values not wasting your precious time on hiring the wrong candidates, wants to attract highly-qualified candidates into your organization and understands the value former athletes can add to your team—then you need to set up a meeting with Brad Mullins and the NexGoal team to see what they offer for yourself.

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Three for Thursday: 3 St. Patrick’s Day Job Search Tips

Today is the day folks. Time to break out your green clothing, head down to your local parade and start drinking green beer before 10 a.m. in the morning, because it is St. Patrick’s Day.

On top of the usual parade and celebratory festivities many of you are going to partake in, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament “March Madness” officially begins the field of 64 today. Put simply, today is probably going to be the most non-productive day of work of the year.

For those of you like myself who are working today and missing all of the fun, I feel your pain—adulting, as the kids are calling it these days, is not always fun. However, someone has to keep the masses informed about how they can get ahead in their job search. Today, that someone is me!

With this in mind and in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, our “Three for Thursday” this week will focus on three job search tips to help keep you motivated on the holiday. Sure, many of you are drinking this morning after taking the day off work—but you can still take advantage of these three tips once you get home from celebrating your Irish (or fake Irish) heritage today.

Keep the St. Patrick’s Day Social Media Pictures to a Minimumsocial post

For those of you who have been reading for a while, you are probably realizing a theme—I tend to harp on social media usage a lot. I am a social media power user, especially when it comes to the world of sports. If you head over to my Twitter handle at any point of the day, you will probably find an engaging interaction with another spirited Cleveland sports fan going on. This is what we call healthy social media use, because at the end of the day the only thing a potential hiring manager can see is that I am passionate about sports and love to engage with my followers.

On days like today though, social media can play a major role in your future job searches—or even whether or not you keep your current job. Think about it for a second, if you called off work today for that “doctor’s appointment” or woke up with a “24-hour flu bug,” you probably should not be posting pictures of yourself with your buddies taking a shot of Jameson or holding a green beer. Just because you think your boss is a dinosaur who does not use social media, does not mean someone in the company is not monitoring it.

When it comes to your job search, my favorite phrase in the world applies. “Something is never really deleted on the Internet.”

So, those tweets and Facebook posts you put up today with you drinking, wearing outlandish clothing and doing who knows what out and about—just because you delete them when you sober up, does not mean someone out there is not going to find them. We live in a day and age of quick screenshots and Google Indexing, so do yourself a favor today and avoid hitting send when you create that drunken post.

Take Advantage of the Day Off by Signing Up for Career eNewsletters

Chances are if you are like me, you receive 100-plus emails a day on your personal account. These emails range from stores sending you offers to articles from your favorite websites, basically we are an on-the-go society so being able to get things delivered right to our phones is perfect to stay informed.

Between all of the online shopping and the articles, I am sure you get other types of emails sent to you—so why not add a Career eNewsletter to the mix? In fact, NexGoal just launched their first ever “Career Essentials” eNewsletter this week, so if you could go sign-up for that one today we would greatly appreciate it!

Sign-up for NexGoal’s Career Essentials Newsletter Here

Are You a Company Looking to Hire Candidates? We Have an eNewsletter for That Too!

Alright, shameless Career Essentials plug aside (but seriously, you should sign-up for it) Career eNewsletters offer a lot of value. Many provide job search tips, success stories and potential job opportunities right in the palm of your hand. Basically, these become a one-stop shop of sorts to jump start your job search. No more procrastinating and putting off your new career efforts—because these eNewsletters have it all.

Network and Talk Shop While You Are Out

I know what you are thinking, who talks work while they are out celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and the beginning of March Madness? Well, more people than you think to be honest.

Last year, yours truly spent St. Patrick’s Day just like many of you are today. In between the adult beverages and the great conversation, somehow I left downtown Cleveland with three business cards for potential business opportunities in the future. There was no forcing of conversation, work just came up naturally in conversation and we exchanged business cards to talk at a later time. Out of those three business cards, one of them turned into an opportunity for some freelance work—a 33.3 percent conversion rate is not bad for a day off work.

Listen, I’m not telling you to spend your entire day networking instead of celebrating. What I am saying is throw a couple business cards in your wallet or back pocket because you never know who you may run into or what kind of conversation may spark up. If nothing comes of it, at least you were prepared for the opportunity and still got to enjoy your holiday.

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Three for Thursday: 3 Lessons You Can Learn from NFL Free Agency

As former athletes, we are all in tune to current events going on in the world of professional sports. Wednesday—for some of us—was a form of Christmas, as the NFL officially began its new league year at 4 p.m. With the beginning of that league year came a frenzy of new players looking to take their careers to the next level in free agency.

Now, unlike the NFL and other professional sports, your personal job search doesn’t include anything like the free agency period. A line of potential suitors usually isn’t waiting outside your door at 3:59 p.m. to deliver an offer for you to join their organization. Let’s face it, in comparison to NFL free agency, job searches in the “real world” are pretty boring.

Despite the fact that our personal job searches contain less of the dramatic than the NFL, there are important lessons to be learned this time of year by paying attention to what goes on in free agency.

Anyone who pays attention can see negotiations, leverage, salary discussions and many more components that are part of your job search. While I could go on with a list of 10 lessons you could learn from free agency after day one alone, keeping with tradition of “Three for Thursday,” below are our three lessons from this week.

Know Your Worth

You would think this is something simple that many people heading into a new job search would know, but many do not. In fact, I have seen extremes on both sides—people undervaluing themselves when looking for a new job (my mom is the biggest culprit on this side), and others overvaluing themselves because they have been passed over for raises at their current job.

When approaching a potential new job, you have to spend some time doing research on what the going rate is for the position you are applying for before you go on any interviews. There are plenty of resources out there for you, including BLS.gov and salary.com, just to name a few. Potential employers will be impressed you researched the going market rate for the position they are hiring for.

“Three for Thursday” Featured Jobs From Our Clients to Start Your Weekend
Chief Financial Officer – Westerville, OH – Click to Find Out More
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Entry Level Mechanical Engineer – Cleveland, OH – Learn More Here

Now, does this mean you are going to get the high end of that $75,000 to $130,000 range for the job you are applying for when you have the bare minimum experience they are asking for? Probably not, but it gives you a point of negotiation with potential employers—just like Travis Benjamin formerly of the Cleveland Browns took advantage of yesterday.

Heading into free agency, Benjamin was coming off his best season in the NFL by far in the final year of a rookie contract that paid him $779,250. Now, to normal job seekers this is a lot of money. But by NFL standards based on his production last year, Benjamin was grossly underpaid.

Benjamin and his agent did research of the market, and knew their worth heading into free agency. Combining his age and production in comparison to recent contracts, Benjamin landed a four-year deal worth $24 million to leave Cleveland and head to San Diego to play with the Chargers.

It is Okay to Leave

As former athletes, one of the most important traits you likely possess is loyalty. You develop bonds with your teammates and take pride in the desire to grow at your current job and achieve great things that you hope will get recognized and lead to promotions and more money one day—and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Thinking about leaving your job? Get your search started here

However, sometimes you reach a plateau of sorts with an employer. Advancement opportunities, salary growth and the additional responsibilities/personal growth you are looking for are just not there. This ultimately prompts you to talk to your manager or human resources about your options or path for growth in the company.

Now for some people, this conversation will end positively with a plan drawn up to meet your needs as a professional. For others, things are less clear and your find yourself back at square one wondering what more you can do to achieve your goals at your company.

For those of us here in Cleveland, we saw a similar situation play out in NFL free agency on Wednesday—as four free agents decided to leave the Browns to put themselves in a better position to achieve their career goals. Three of the four (Alex Mack, Mitchell Schwartz and the aforementioned Benjamin) were drafted by the team, while Tashaun Gipson was brought in as an undrafted free agent. All four players have spent their entire careers in Cleveland, leaving them with a major decision to make in terms of loyalty versus opportunity.

The ultimate goal of winning is usually No. 1 for all athletes, and none of the four experienced one winning season during their careers in Cleveland. Combine that with constant turnover in system, coaching staff and front office, and it was easy to see their personal goals were not being achieved with the organization. And at the end of the day, all four left for teams in a better position to win now.

What does this mean for you? Well it is quite simple, being loyal is an amazing trait to have—but if you are not accomplishing your career goals, it is time to take a step back and evaluate your situation. At the end of the day, the bonds created and success you have achieved are great, but ultimately you must put yourself in the best situation to further your career. Often, that means you have to leave your job to do just that.

Do Not Burn Bridges

If you feel like you have read this from me before, you did in an article written around the NBA trade deadline. However, in the age of instant-reaction on social media I feel the need to drill this message home as often as possible.

A great example of how to leave one place and go to another came from tight end Coby Fleener yesterday. Fleener spent his entire career with the Indianapolis Colts, however, the writing was on the wall for him to leave after the Colts paid big money to another tight end on their roster. Because of this, Fleener accepted an offer to leave the Colts for the New Orleans Saints.

At this point, he could have gone one of two directions. He could have taken to social media and blasted the Colts for not having faith in him and paying the other guy. Instead, he went the other direction—thanking the fans for their support and memories in Indianapolis, as you can see below. After that, he delivered a message to his new team and fans—telling them he was excited to join them and wanted to work toward bringing a Championship there.

It is simple people. Everything on the internet is saved somewhere. Do not be that person who destroys their employer on social media, because potential employers are going to find your social media accounts—and nobody wants to hire the person who is going to throw them under the bus one day.

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