S_David said:
Hello,
Who are the right people to connect with to improve my chances in landing a job? It was suggested to connect with recruiters, but aren't recruiters HR people? My background isn't directly related to the field I am interested in, and I am afraid that the HR has a strict guidelines to follow in filtering applicants, and won't see how I can fit.
Thanks in advance for any feedback
First, I want to confirm what you mean by the term "recruiter", in particular whether the Canadian usage is different from the US usage. In the US, a professional recruiter typically works for a recruitment agency or firm. Some companies with job openings will engage a recruitment agency to seek out and screen candidates. A recruiter gets paid by a company if the company hires a candidate referred by the recruiter. As I wrote in a previous response, companies generally don't pay recruiters to fill positions for newbies.
Then there are direct employees of a company who serve a recruitment function. They include both HR personnel and technical staff. They formally adopt a "recruiter" designation under particular circumstances: for example, as a company representative at a job fair in conjunction with a professional conference, trade show, or on-campus recruiting. Many large companies have technical staff that serve as recruiters to targetted major universities; a recruiter to a particular target university is typically an alumnus who keeps in touch with the professors to be on the lookout for promising talent (typically grad students about to complete their PhDs).
So, in your case, a recruiter who works for a recruitment agency or a company's HR department won't be of much value. But if companies send technical staff as recruiters to your previous universities, it would be worthwhile seeking them out.
But the best connections are to the hiring managers; or to connections who eventually can get your resume to, or can get you an introduction to, hiring managers. I see a disturbing trend in which people simply send out shotgun invitations to connect to others on LinkedIn, and an even more disturbing trend in which people accept such invitations ... as if there's some status in having a large number of random connections
per se.
But the most valuable connections are through a chain of people with actual personal connections. I'll give you two examples.
I serve as a volunteer mentor. One grad student (about to finish school) had sent out mucho resumes, had gotten no responses, and was really frustrated. I asked her to send me a copy of her resume to critique. The file she sent me also had an attached cover letter. Serendipitously, the cover letter was addressed to a colleague of mine ... a classmate from grad school. I called up my former classmate to catch up ... and by the way inquired about the grad student. He told me that he had been busy, and had a stack of resumes somewhere. Anyway, at my nudging, he did eventually interview the grad student, and ending up giving her a job offer. I also revised her resume, sent them out to former colleagues, and called them up. That resulted in three other interviews, each with a subsequent job offer. It was the grad student's own educational background and competencies that landed her the job offers, but it was my personal intervention that got her foot in the door.
One of my biggest career shifts was clearing out of R&D (in the aftermath of the InterNet Bubble Burst in the early 2000's) and becoming a patent agent. I first got in touch with 'Alice', a retired patent attorney who used to work at my company and who had been part of my lunch group. Alice told me to get in touch with 'Bob', was was a current patent attorney at my company. So I called Bob: "I'm a friend of Alice, and she recommended that I speak to you to get advice on transitioning to a career as a patent agent." Bob: "Hey, how's ol' Alice doing? Why don't you drop by my office, and I'll see what I can do." So Bob tells me of a patent attorney 'Charlie' who used to work at the company, but left to start his own firm. I then call Charlie: "I just spoke to Bob, and he recommended that I speak to you to get advice on transitioning to a career as a patent agent." Charlie: "Hey, how's ol' Bob doing? ..." That call eventually led to an interview, a job offer, and the launch of (yet another) new career. It was my own educational and professional background, experience, competencies, and skills that landed me the job, but the personal connections that got my foot in the door.
