Most people have experienced the recruitment agency black hole. This is when you register with an agency, fill out every form that they ask you to complete and attend a lengthy interview with a recruitment consultant. Then you hear nothing.

It is so frustrating when this happens because you have been led to believe that you will be flooded with interview offers as soon as you register. It makes you less likely to believe in recruitment agencies and more likely to ‘go it yourself' in the future.

There are two different ways to use recruitment agencies to find your ideal job. They are as follows:

1) Register with as many recruitment agencies as possible and wait for them to get back to you when a job opportunity appears

2) Register with one or two carefully selected recruitment agencies that specialise in your particular job sector and get to know at least one of the recruitment consultants within that agency as well as possible

Unfortunately most people go for number one. This means that they are only told about jobs that are particularly hard to fill.

So how do you make sure that you are told about they key jobs as soon as they become available? Simple. You need to be KNOWN by recruitment consultants in your industry. Whenever they receive a new job requirement from one of their clients, you need to be the first person on the recruitment consultant's mind.

In order to be one of the first people to be informed about an excellent new job opportunity you need to initially carefully select one industry specialist bespoke recruitment agency. You then need to meet one of their senior industry specialist consultants face-to-face to explain your specific requirements.

However, in addition to meeting the specialist recruitment consultant face-to-face, you also have to stay in touch. Consultants browse through thousands of CV's (Resumes) every month, so if you don't phone them every two weeks then there's a good chance that they'll forget about you. Another star candidate will have risen to the surface by then and you will be a historical statistic.

The mantra for dealing with recruitment agencies is

Stay in touch

Stay in touch

Stay in touch

Don't rely on the automated candidate finding systems that each agency has. Unless you form a personal relationship with one of the consultants, constantly asking them about new opportunities then the chances are than you won't even find out about top jobs that are available.

Good luck with finding your ideal job in the near future!