How To Work With Overseas Recruiters – A ‘No-Fail” Approach

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Recruiters are going to form a small, but important part of your job search as an immigrant and I have many people asking how to work with overseas recruiters.

So, in this article, I will give you a few tips, to make working with recruiters easier, and more effective if you are looking for work overseas.

What Are Recruiters and What Do They Do?

For those who do not know what recruiters are and what they do, let me explain this first.

Recruiters are the middlemen/women between companies looking for new talent or employees and the candidates who are looking for work.

In some countries they are called personnel brokers, or labour agents.

In the countries I work in, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, UK and the USA, they are mostly called recruiters or recruitment agents/consultants.

Companies who are looking for people list a job with a recruiter.

A recruiter goes to the job market, advertise the job, or look in their pool of known candidates, find the suitable applicant and present them to their client.

They get paid by their client, when their client chooses a suitable candidate successfully from a recruiter. Recruiters take anything from a set amount to 30% of the candidates first year’s salary.

You Are Their Product Not Their Client

So you, as the candidate, are their product, you are not their client.

And to work with overseas recruiters as an immigrant job seeker, you need to understand this very clearly you are a product, not their client. You do not pay them.

In fact, in most of the countries which I work in, they are not allowed by law, to receive any money from candidates.

The biggest problem recruiters have, is not being able to find suitable candidates and being overwhelmed by unsuitable, nonsense CVs from people who are not suitable for a particular job.

Recruiters who recruit immigrants for companies who are actively looking for immigrants, will most likely be found in the skills shortage or visa sponsored jobs industries.

Understanding this position that you are in, in relation to a recruiter, makes it easier to understand how to work with them, and get the most out of what they can offer you in the job market.

How To Work With Overseas Recruiters As An Immigrant Job Seeker

Here are 5 tips for working with overseas recruiters.

1. Give them what they want:

If you want to effectively work with overseas recruiters as an immigrant job seeker, you need to give them the correct CV.

This means that you need to do your research very, very well, before you create a CV, or have one created for you. Your CV is what they are going to see and know about you, within the first few seconds. So give them what they want.

As an immigrant job seeker, you should always create a Strategic Immigrant’s CV.

You should upload your Strategic Immigrant’s CV to their online application, or their pool or send it to them with a properly written recruiter’s cover letter.

What do they want in a CV?

A CV that is written, targeted to the jobs you are looking for. That means, your research needed to uncover the skills that are in demand in that market and that niche, for those particular jobs, and you need to address that on the CV. The CV is almost like the answer sheet to the questionnaire of a job description.

2. Be job ready:

They also want you to be “job ready”.

What does this mean?

If you needed to do occupational registrations, you needed to have done those already, before you get to a recruiter. For example, electricians, plumbers and other trades. This also includes teachers, psychologists, medical professions and so on.

This is especially true for visa sponsored jobs, where time is of the essence and employers find it hard to fill vacancies with suitable candidates.

To work with recruiters as an immigrant job seeker, you need to know your eligibility for a visa in your destination country.

You need to state it clearly on your documents.

You need to have your documents ready to apply for that visa, once a job offer is secured.

There is nothing more annoying as a recruiter going out of their way to recruit people from overseas, interacting with them, interviewing them, presenting them to a client, getting them a job offer, and that candidate does not have documents ready to get a work visa as soon as possible, when a job offer is presented.

3. Be professional:

There are several points that are important here:

– Prepare for Skype interviews. As an immigrant, if you want to work with overseas recruiters as an immigrant job seeker, you will need to know how to conduct Skype interview. Research it – your settings (audio, visual, light), your behaviour, your preparation, etc.

– Prepare for interviews with employers. A recruiter will do an informal interview with you to check your interview-ability, but you need to prepare properly for a formal interview. If you do not know how to do that, research the “STAR interview method” on Google.

– Keep the recruiter up to date with any changes/progress. If you found a job, tell them, if you have updated your CV, tell them.

– Connect with them on LinkedIn, using your Unique Immigrant’s LinkedIn profile (which is different to just a usual profile).

– Your Strategic Immigrant’s CV, Unique Immigrant’s LinkedIn Profile and all your cover letters and presentation to them, should be congruent. In other words, it should contain the matching and consistent information and not be full of inconsistencies and clashing information.

4. Keep them updated, but don’t nag…:

Remember what I said… you are a recruiter’s product, and they will place you, and be interested in you, only if they have an opening for which you may be suitable.

Nagging them day after day about jobs, will just get your name tagged to be at the bottom of the pile. Keep in touch by regular updates every fortnight or so, but don’t nag…

5. Pick recruiters you are approaching, carefully:

If you are going to work with overseas recruiters as an immigrant job seeker, pick them very carefully. Make sure they are aware and know the immigration processes which are going to affect your position when a job offer is presented.

Most recruiters recruit for their local market, and they are not conversant with immigration requirements and do not know how to deal with immigrants.

They won’t want to deal with you, because your visa status is a big obstacle for them.

That is where your research about the market, which particular employers and recruiters to work with, is essential.

For the same token, you should only deal with potential employers who can (by law), and will work with immigrants, and also with recruiters who know the immigration processes. Working with anyone else, and applying for jobs with them, is mostly a waste of time.

If you don’t know how to do this, ask us, we will be able to help you with this research about targeted, potential employers and recruiters, as part of a targeted, structured job search approach, which includes all of the above, and more.

We can also expose you to recruiters who we regularly work with and who are experts in their field.

Does all of this seem too big and overwhelming?

If all of this is too much for you, or if you have been doing this for a long time, and do not know how to work with overseas recruiters as an immigrant jog seeker, or if your efforts has been without much effect, I can understand your frustration…

This was one of my biggest frustrations as an immigrant job seeker. I had no idea on how to work with overseas recruiters.

Now, I know.

Years of dealing with immigrant’s in the same position, refining and perfecting the Unique Immigrant’s Job Finding Strategies, have taught me what works and what does not.

I can offer you this assistance and guidance, from A- Z. From your research, to creating a Strategic Immigrant’s CV, a Unique Immigrant’s LinkedIn Profile, how to apply the unique immigrant’s job finding strategies and how to work with recruiters and targeted employers one/one, etc.

My programs and services are designed for a variety of people, whether you want to do it yourself with online programs, of if you want me to take your hand to help you, until you have a job offer (no matter how long it takes).

Yes, I can offer that too…

This service includes full instructions and step by step assistance on how to work with overseas recruiters.

The best way for me to help you, is for us to jump on a Skype Strategy call and analyse your personal situation, so we can come up with a customised plan to get you your much-needed job offer.

You can book a call here.

You can go to this page, to see what this call is all about, and we will take it from there.

I hope to see you there.

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