Job Search Tips: How to Find Out if Hiring Managers Are Checking You Out
Henry Hirschel, a laid-off IT director, knows when hiring managers and recruiters check out his blog, LinkedIn profile and website. That helps him gauge the effectiveness of his resume and job search activities, and gives him confidence during follow-up calls and job interviews.
CIO — Whoooooosh!
That's the sound of your résumé entering the black hole known as the recruiter's inbox. When job seekers don't hear back from a recruiter or hiring manager, they figure their résumé has fallen into an abyss of disinterest.
Yet recruiters and hiring managers might be secretly checking you out."Recruiters and hiring managers pre-screen you using Google and LinkedIn before they bring you in [for an interview]," says David Perry, author of Guerilla Marketing for Job Seekers 2.0.
This is no secret to Henry Hirschel, an IT director on the hunt for a new job, who has found a way around the black hole: Using Google Analytics and triangulation techniques, he can tell if a hiring manager or recruiter has read his Wordpress blog, checked out his website or looked at his LinkedIn profile. He monitors these three web properties every day as part of his job search activities.
[ Want more job search tips? See CIO.com's Job Search Bible. ]
By studying his site traffic, Hirschel learns who's visiting his websites and whether any of the visitors arrived in response to a résumé he's sent. The traffic analysis also gives him an indication of the effectiveness of his job search techniques--not to mention a boost to his confidence.
The Importance of a Professional Web Presence
Hirschel, has been searching for a new job since he was laid off from Club One, a chain of fitness centers in the San Francisco Bay area, late last year. In this economy, an eight month job search isn't long. Joe Goodwin, president of Atlanta-based executive search firm The Goodwin Group, says that because the job market is so bad, IT leaders can expect to be unemployed for a year.
During long job hunts, the primary frustration job seekers report is not hearing back from hiring managers and recruiters after they've submitted a résumé. One of the reasons recruiters take so long to respond to a résumé is that they're doing background checks online. Hiring managers and recruiters are increasingly proceeding directly to Google and LinkedIn after finding a résumé that intrigues them, says Guerilla Job Hunting's Perry.
With LinkedIn, recruiters look for people they know who also know the candidate, says Perry, and then ask them for their opinions. That's why Hirschel spends time tuning his LinkedIn profile and writing smart blog entries—his web presence, he figures, can make or break a potential job interview.
[ For advice on improving your web presence, see Managing Your Reputation Online, How to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile: Stand Out to Employers, Recruiters and LinkedIn Profiles: Avoid the Six Most Common Mistakes. ]
