If you’re looking to break into a new job and want technical recruiters to talk to you, you better have a LinkedIn account. But, just creating a username and password, and adding a picture of your pretty face won’t cut it.

LinkedIn has become a very powerful tool for finding jobs. But, that only means you’re competing with millions of people in the same platform. So, you need to work on your profile to call the attention of the right people at the right time.

Technical recruiters are a middle man between companies looking for technically savvy personnel and you (although sometimes they might be employed directly by the hiring company).

They scout the web and leverage their network to put together a list of qualified candidates. Basically what they do is use their best judgment to put together a list of qualified people so that HR executives can onboard the best of the best as their new hires.

They have a tough job. Often, they only get paid once their candidates are hired. So they’re always on the hunt. People know this and so they reach out to them. But, many do it the wrong way and/or at the wrong time.

Among some of the main mistakes people make when reaching out to technical recruiters are:

• Not realizing that not all recruiters are technical recruiters. If you reach out to someone who has recruiter in their title but has nothing to do with technical roles. You’re wasting your time. As obvious as this sounds, it is a common mistake people make.
• Reaching out to recruiters asking for interviews. If you’re a soon to be graduate it’s good to be proactive. However, make sure you’re reaching out to recruiters who actually look to fill in internship roles. Otherwise, you won’t accomplish much.
• Not specifying what role you are looking for. People often reach out to recruiters asking if they have any openings or if they can help them out. But, they forget to tell them valuable information such as desired title and location.

With technology constantly changing, companies are hard-pressed to find the right talent to sustain growth. Recruiting has become an industry of its own so in order to avoid wasting time and effort doing something they aren’t experts at, companies (large and small) turn to technical recruiters for help. This allows them to stay focused on their operations rather than blindly looking for candidates all over the place, like they used to.

The skills IT recruiters look for depend on the list of job requirements that companies give them. But with that said, every company wants to hire people who are motivated, passionate, and who can portray themselves professionally.

Hence, technical recruiters not only look for people with a pretty list of skills and a couple fancy titles, they look for people who can also fit in well within the company’s culture.

Here’s what you can do to get technical recruiters to talk to you:

Ok first of all, there’s no magic formula that will land you a bunch of interviews in a couple of days. You still need to have a well-written resume that includes your educational background, major accomplishments and relevant experience.

If you don’t, I’d suggest you focus on building the bulk of your resume before pretending to speak to IT recruiters. Not doing this will likely translate into wasting their time and yours. Just in case, here are some of the best and easiest ways to gain hands-on experience.

1. Portray yourself as a results-oriented person:

The number one advice out there for landing a job is to try to position yourself as an achiever rather than a doer. Technical recruiters know that companies ultimately want results. Yes, they want people with motivation, passion and professionalism. But, once they check these boxes they will be expecting you to perform well and add value to the organization. After all, businesses need to keep growing.

To do this, make sure you write detailed descriptions of whatever you put down in your profile’s experience section. Here’s where you should make sure you’re communicating the importance of any projects you’ve worked on.

But, you want to make sure you sound like you achieved something quantifiable. Rather than saying “at job Y I helped improve wireless connectivity” and moving on to the next item, make sure you add something that gives technical recruiters an idea of the impact of your contribution.

For example, say you helped improve wireless connectivity and as a result, speed is X times faster than it used to be or that you fixed an issue with a phone system that is now saving the company X hours and money each month.

2. Write a soft skills-oriented headline and summary

Note: Make sure your headline and/or the first two lines of your summary specify the kind of person you are and the role you’re after.

Example: Motivated and driven individual who thrives in fast-paced environments looking for a position as a network engineer.

If you go to someone’s profile you’ll notice that under their picture there is often a headline and a “subheadline”. Usually, people use the headline area to write their current title. However, if you currently don’t have any title, or your title doesn’t relate to the IT field, use this space for a catchy intro of your soft skills that positions yourself as a benefit to any company.

The “subheadline” is reserved for the first two lines of your LinkedIn profile “summary.” People misuse this feature a lot. For example, using it to brag about their accomplishments and how great they are (no one cares).

Rather than talking about your accomplishments, which should already be listed in your experience section anyway, take some time to write a few lines that describe you as the ideal person to join a company.

Fine, I’ll give you a hint: write something that makes you sound as someone who is easy to get along with, knows how to work in teams, appreciates work ethic, and who is constantly looking to learn new skills and grow as a professional (needless to say, make sure it’s true or that you’re working to become the person you describe on your headline).

Like I said before, technical recruiters look for people with certain skills and with “culture-fit” (your ability to fit well within a company’s corporate culture).

However, learning about the latter is usually a challenge for technical recruiters because they don’t have access to anything else but what you put on your profile (before they call you, of course).

So, adding a well-written summary, one that highlights your soft skills, can give technical recruiters the last bit of information they need to decide to ask you to jump on a call with them or offer you an in-person interview.

3. Get experienced and relevant people to recommend you:

LinkedIn has this really cool feature to get anyone to write a few short sentences about you recommending you to the world. This is a great way of building authority fast. Technical recruiters are looking for specific things to learn about you before they email you asking to jump on the phone with them.

Having a recommendation from your current and/or former bosses, an experienced friend in the field, co-worker, etc. would likely help technical recruiters get interested in talking to you. You’d ideally want to have a recommendation, from someone you worked with on whatever you’re listing, for every item on your experience section.

4. Prioritize your skills and rack up endorsements  

If you’re looking to land a job as a writer, no one needs to know that you can use Microsoft Word –it’s obvious (at least nowadays). So instead of packing your LinkedIn profile with a bunch of irrelevant skills, pick your top 5-8 and ask your network to endorse you for them.

Start by reaching out to your closest friends and family and asking them to endorse you for your skills. Once you do this, a good way to get more endorsements is to endorse other people. Do them a favor and they will likely return it (yes, that simple).

It’s funny how many people will endorse you back without you even asking for it. Shoot for getting at least 10 endorsements on your top 3 skills. Technical recruiters will look at your skills. So make sure you have plenty of endorsements that can serve as validation; and that your skills are properly prioritized depending on the kind of job you’re looking for.

5. Just reach out to technical recruiters!

You know they are looking for candidates and you know they are always in a hurry. After all, many of them only get paid once their candidates are hired. Thus, technical recruiters spend a significant portion of their workdays on LinkedIn.

This means that if you shoot them a message they’ll likely open it. Reach out to technical recruiters and let them know how motivated you are and how much you’re looking to grow as a professional, and then ask them for whatever you need.

The bottom line

LinkedIn can make it very easy for you to land job interviews if your profile is on point. Once it is, reach out to technical recruiters asking them to take a quick look at it.

You’ll be surprised how many of them will check you out. After all, they are hired by companies to get qualified candidates in interviews and, as I said, many times they don’t get paid until one of their candidates is hired so the more options they have the better, right?

Companies are always eager to hire the best possible candidate, which are those who fit in well within their culture and have enough knowledge and experience to add value to the organization as soon as possible.

Imagine if you portray yourself exactly like this, you’d be able to increase your chances of being offered interviews and landing well-paying jobs. Of course, I don’t expect you to be an expert writer. After all, if you’re reading this, I’d guess that your strong suit is tech, not writing pretty.

Ultimately, our career services team at NexGenT is driven to help you position yourself in the most competitive way possible both online and in-person. Students enrolled in our Zero To Engineer programs receive access to this talented team for direct assistance. For additional information about our Zero To Engineer programs, click here to apply.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us