Want to get the most out of your relationship with your recruiter? Check out these 5 top tips!

If you are looking to venture onto the next step in your career and are considering working with a recruiter, we believe that there are a few fundamental characteristics of all strong candidate-recruiter relationships that can help get you the best offer possible and enjoy a silky smooth recruitment process!

So, what are the key characteristics of a strong working relationship with your recruiter?

Maintaining Positive Lines of Communication

Two-way communication is key in any candidate-recruiter relationship. In order for your recruiter to get you the best possible offer, they must know exactly what you want. You both need to be on the same page, so talking through your honest salary requirements, transport needs, notice period (…the list could go on!), will help ensure that you are happy with your offer and your recruiter knows exactly how to pitch you as a candidate.

Have realistic expectations

Recruitment is often reactive and clients are usually in a hurry to find employees to join their teams and contribute to their up and coming projects. It is a recruiter’s job to make sure that they manage the expectations of their client, in terms of the availability of what they’re looking for in the market and the speed at which it can be found. Similarly, recruiters must set realistic expectations of salary, time-frames, processes and communicate feedback from clients from the start. So if you are a candidate, make sure that your recruiter is communicating clearly with you exactly what is being offered by the employer.

Have an accurate, up-to-date and tailored CV

If companies create vague job descriptions, recruiters have to work extra hard to hone in on the specific criteria and qualifications they are looking for. So when your recruiter passes this information onto you, it’s important to work together to make sure your CV is as relevant to the role as possible.

Be honest and trust your recruiter

Your recruiter will be vouching for you throughout the process so it’s important to trust that they have your best interests at heart when it comes to having in-depth conversations about your requirements and expectations. It’s essential to be honest with them from start to finish and clearly outline what you’re looking for and share any changes in circumstance that occur throughout the recruitment process. This may include anything from changes in heart about an offer to changes in what you need from a salary and package. This is because it is far easier to try and adapt to these changes as an when they happen naturally, rather than once you’ve received an offer and then have to ask your recruiter to go back to the client to re-evaluate the offer for example.

Be available and agree on methods of communication

Recruiters should remain as available as possible should their candidate have any questions or concerns, for example, before an interview. Similarly, if you would rather your recruiter text you before they call you, say so. Agreeing on how you’re going to communicate from the start is an important part of any candidate-recruiter relationship, as is trusting that either party will be there to talk if you encounter any good news, problems or concerns.

Candidates should do their best to be available to chat with their recruiters, as their recruiter will often be proactive on your behalf and contact the client regularly. For this, they will need your feedback to move the process forward and hopefully get you an offer! It is a recruiter’s job to inform their candidate on the importance of prompt feedback when trying to receive an offer from a client. Without properly communicating the need for this, candidates may not prioritise their recruiter as their first port of call and the feedback may not be as raw after a period of hours following an interview than if it were immediately after. The idea here is to work with each other to move the process along as quickly as possible so that you can receive the best offer.

So there you have it, our top 5 tips for getting the most out of your candidate-recruiter relationship! Key to any solid working relationship is trust, honesty and communication and this is no different in recruitment. We as recruiters work hard to get the best for our candidates and the only way to do this is to know exactly what we’re rooting for so that we can agree the best possible option with your future employer!

If you are currently looking to secure a new role before we enter the festive season or you are open to new career opportunities for the new year, get in touch with us today for an informal chat around what it is you’re looking for and we can provide you with our up to date market information to help guide you in the right direction! We are a team of 25 specialist IT and Engineering recruitment consultants, each focusing on a UK region and technical field. 

This post was written by Amy at ISL Recruitment and originally appeared on our company blog. Keep up with all Amy's posts here.