You are a jobseeker, and you are wondering how to get headhunted? You are not alone. Here’s a situation that happens a lot:
You are happily working in a senior or middle management position at a company, but the phone keeps ringing.
It’s a recruiters firm, and they see you as a perfect fit for a new role with one of their clients. You respectfully decline because you’re not looking for new opportunities at the moment.
The years go by, and it’s time to try something new. But the phone’s not ringing.
Sometimes it can feel like an executive search firm only contacts you when you are not looking for a new position. When you are looking, it can seem impossible to get their attention.
How to get headhunters to find you ?
This type of scenario, which plays out every year amongst senior and mid-tier executives in Quebec and across Canada, indicates two things. On the one hand, it shows that the job market and the hiring process move in mysterious, often unpredictable ways. You cannot be sure when a surge in open positions relevant to your skill set and experience will occur. On the other hand, the scenario underscores that you need to be proactive in your job search no matter what the job market indicators are.
In this article, we are going to address the question on everyone’s mind – “how to get headhunted?”. Here are five strategies that you can use to stand out in your efforts for finding a job.
These suggestions are based on an acknowledgement that there are several things headhunters are always looking for the ideal candidate. This, even when the opportunities are scarce and the competition intense. In fact, by incorporating these strategies into your profile, you will increase the chances of landing the best jobs on the market. No matter how fierce the competition.
5 tips to get headhunters to notice you
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Take your career development seriously
The best way to get headhunted is to know what you want out of your next job offer.
With job tenure by industry trending downwards pretty much across the board, you must think now about where you want to be in five to ten years. Take the time you need to reflect on what transition you would like to see next in your career.
When you’ve selected your ideal future role, sketch out a roadmap, one that sees you gather the skills, experiences, and credentials required to get you there.
Thinking clearly about your next career transition hinges on two factors. One is self-awareness around professional fulfillment. Ask yourself:
- How satisfied are you in your current role?
- Where can you see your current trajectory taking you?
- What steps will take you there?
Another factor in successfully transitioning to the next phase in your career is goal setting. Ask yourself:
- What professional aspirations do I still have for myself?
- Where can I see myself achieving my professional goals?
- How long will it take me to get there?
Indeed, career transitions are lengthy, multi-step processes. They involve reflection, goal setting, re-skilling, resume rewrites, interview preparation, and plenty more. But they are absolutely vital if you want to get the attention of recruiters and take the next step in your career.
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Understand what makes you unique – then present it
The secret for how to get headhunted is to know what recruiters are looking for. Headhunters sift through thousands of profiles a day looking for the good fit. What sets you apart? Your unique set of experiences, achievements, and skills.
The types of achievements you’ve been a part of matter a great deal. In other words, they show experience with accomplishing or exceeding business goals. They show that you know what it takes to work with people and get the best out of them, for instance. At the heart of it, listing your achievements shows that you are a reliable candidate to lead a new team or company.
Most importantly, the recruitment firm is going to notice a candidate that lists their core achievements in clear, simple language both on LinkedIn and resume. But be tactful about which accomplishments you list.
Here’s a list of helpful tips to following when refreshing your credentials:
- List as many metrics as you can
- Make sure your experiences are as up-to-date as possible
- Emphasize success managing teams, and be sure to list the size of the team
- Focus always on results, not on processes or duties
With a resume and profile that emphasizes material results and leadership experience, you will elevate your profile to the top 5% of candidates who have put similar thought into their profile. Recruiters – and their client companies – will notice. ‘
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Join the conversation in your industry
Furthermore, another excellent strategy for how to get headhunted is to join the conversation in your industry.You don’t need to become a thought leader that publishes articles every week to get the attention of recruiters in your industry. You can speak at conferences or other industry-related events, for instance. Or you can start engaging regularly on social media with posts and comments that others make, and see where it takes you.
While it might seem uncomfortable to engage with social media at first, the upside of sharing your opinion will not take long to reveal itself. If, by engaging in the conversation in your industry through speaking opportunities and social media commentary, you reference your experiences and show your expertise; recruiters are more likely to select you over a candidate that has not done so, for instance.
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LinkedIn is your friend
LinkedIn is your friend as you go about trying to attract the attention of headhunters. It is a social networking site that makes it easy to be proactive in your search, whether as an easy way to expand your professional connections or to even message recruiters directly. In fact, according to LinkedIn data, as many as 1.6 million “engaged talent professionals” already use the platform to source candidates. You may therefore increase your visibility with a perfect LinkedIn profile.
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Be successful in your work
Perhaps most importantly of all, do not forget to be as successful as you can in your current position. If you are able to lead teams, meet or exceed business objectives, and continue to expand your knowledge in your chosen field and industry, then you are in an excellent position to get noticed by headhunters. After all, recruiters are on the lookout for candidates that can show recent achievements, not achievements from 20 years ago!
Getting headhunted takes time
To sum up, there is no way to know how to get headhunted exactly. If there was a secret formula, everyone would use it. The realities of the job market are such that opportunities come and go in a cyclical way. However, that does not mean you should stop and start your efforts at self-promotion and career building.
Headhunters are always navigating the job market for potential candidates. While you may not be getting noticed as fast as you would like, be rest assured that if you follow these tips it will only be a matter of time before the right opportunity comes your way.