September 2, 2022

Recruiting 101: DM’ing 101

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Camille Knapik Balch and Kierra Kohlbeck are both recruiters on the OnDemand team at Hirewell. They are kicking off their Recruiting 101 video series with some tips on how to reach out to a recruiter on Linkedin. They include tips for reaching out to corporate and agency recruiters, what to say, when to follow up, and much more.

Episode Transcript

Hey, thanks for joining me. How are you? Hi, Camille. Thanks for having me. I’m good, how are you? Good. Well I know this is our first video, so go ahead and introduce yourself. Yeah, so I’m Kierra Kohlbeck and I am on the Managed and OnDemand team. Yay. And how long have you been here now at Hirewell? A few months, right?

I’m going on month three right now. Wow. It feels like you just started, but it also- I know. Yeah, it’s like flown by. Yeah. Time flies when you’re having fun. Yeah. Well, I’m glad we’re chatting today. I know we both get a lot of messages on LinkedIn from candidates either looking for like job help, resume, just kind of anything.

So I think this video is important and will hopefully help some candidates how to message recruiters, whether that’s corporate or agency, what to say, how to follow up, all of those things. So I can start off talking about the corporate recruiter side since that’s what most of my background is in before Hirewell. So I think what’s worked best for myself and then also candidates that I’ve talked to is when you reach out to someone at the company after you’ve already applied, and that just makes it a lot easier so they can look up your name and the ATS, and then they can send it on to the correct recruiter if it’s not them.

So I recommend reaching out after, unless you’re looking for like a referral or something- then reach out before. But if you don’t have any connections there, after we’ll be fine. So how to find them on LinkedIn, you can search for someone with a job title like Recruiter, Talent Acquisition Partner, Manager of Recruiting, Director of Recruiting, Manager Talent Acquisition, really anything with those key words in.

And then what to do next, just make sure to include your resume, include your name, the job title, which location, if there’s multiple locations. And then usually just like one to two sentences, why you think you’d be a good fit for the role, just expressing your interest, how excited you are, you wanting to learn more. And then just making sure that you tell them what you want to get out of that conversation.

So if you could connect with the recruiter, if they’d be open to like an informational interview, if you’re looking to hear about next steps, things like that. Just make sure you tell them what you’re looking for. I know we talked about this before. It’s just a lot easier to answer messages when people tell you exactly what they need from you at that time.

And then maybe they’ll say like, “Hey, I’m not the recruiter.” Maybe they’ll give you the recruiter’s name. Maybe they won’t. You can always just follow up and say, “Hey, would it be possible that you send along my resume to the correct recruiter? I would really appreciate it.” Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can’t maybe for like confidentiality reasons.

And then if that doesn’t work out for reaching out to a corporate recruiter, you can also try to find someone in that department that you’re applying to in like a leadership or management position. So if you’re applying for like a sales development or business development role, maybe try to find a sales manager or someone in a sales leadership position.

Reach out, tell them that you applied to the role, you’re really excited about it. Maybe one to two sentences about why you think you’d be a good fit and ask them if they’d be able to get on the phone with you, have a phone conversation, tell you a little bit about the company, about the role. Anything like that is always helpful

and you’re putting yourself out there. The worst people can say is no or not respond. But by building your network and those connections and reaching out, like it will get you somewhere. Even if it doesn’t happen at that exact moment, like it will happen somewhere down the line. Yeah. Yeah. And agency recruiters are a little bit different than corporate recruiters.

Agency recruiters work for multiple different companies and not just one, whereas a corporate recruiter is the internal recruiter for that company. So let’s say you don’t necessarily know what company you want to work for, but you just want to get some ideas or some guidance, an agency recruiter would be the perfect person to reach out to.

They can kind of tell you the different clients they’re working with. So as far as reaching out to an agency recruiter, make sure that you are detailed in your first message to them because that’s going to allow them to help you the best they can. A lot of us have a niche in what we recruit for.

So if you tell us specifically what area you’re looking at getting into, what kind of jobs, location, whether it’s remote or full time, contract, all of those details are going to be really important in us helping you further. So if you include that with your resume, I know that I would be able to either send you to the sales team or the tech team or someone that has specialty in that area that can help you and jump on a call with you.

Even if we don’t have an area that we hire for, we are still willing to get on a call with you and kind of steer you in the right direction. I know I’ve gotten on calls with people and just kind of helped them through the job search process whether I have positions that are available for them or not.

And I know Camille, you can probably say the same. Definitely, yeah. And a lot of people I’ve worked with like at past companies or have friends with in the HR field or recruiting like I’m always willing to share resume with them. Or if I know that they’re hiring, always happy to send a resume over. So even if the person you’re reaching out for doesn’t have anything for you at the time, that’s not a dead end.

Like you will build your network and create those connections and it will get you somewhere. So don’t get discouraged if there’s not something available for you right now. Just keep having those conversations, keep reaching out to people. Something will work out, so just don’t get discouraged.

Yeah. And making those connections on LinkedIn are super important and you never know what a connection could bring you or lead you to. So I think it’s always just a good idea to reach out and see if they can help in any way. Also, another good thing to keep in mind is that if you do message us, we do keep our LinkedIns open most of the day.

So if we don’t get back to you right away, it may say that we’ve seen the message but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve physically seen it. So just give the recruiter some time to get back to you. We have busy days and we’re on the phone quite a bit, so we will eventually get back to you.

It just depends on what we’re doing at that moment or that day. So I would say, give it a little bit of time. Yeah. I usually recommend like four to five days if you don’t hear back from a recruiter or like a hiring manager, just send a follow up email thanking them for their time, for reading your message, just reiterating what you’re looking for, being like “Hey, I’m still on the search for a new role.

Would you have a chance to talk this week?” And just being straightforward and giving as many details as possible is really helpful. Yeah, I definitely don’t think it ever hurts to follow up in any, any case. Yeah. And I think just having all the details, letting them know what job titles you’re interested in, anything you’d be open to, the more details the better. And really just reach out to as many people as possible, make those connections, and something will work out for sure.

Yeah. And then if you have any further questions that we weren’t able to answer in this video, you can comment them and we will get back to you. You can also reach out to Camille or I, and we can see what we can do for you. All right. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you.

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