How to Job Search Like a Recruiter

Job seekers often believe recruiters don't understand how difficult it is to look for work. However, many recruiters have been through several layoffs and job searches, including Nicole Fernandez-Valle . She knows what it's like to be thrust into a job search without warning and tries to help job seekers understand how recruiters look for work.

Nicole joined LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman on the latest episode of Get Hired to share her advice for navigating a job search — especially during a difficult hiring environment. She also offers an inside look at the recruiting process, saying it's key that job seekers know how to stand out during each stage. Nicole also stresses the importance of acknowledging the feelings of loss and frustration that come with rejections but encourages job seekers to stay consistent in their efforts.

A transcript of the conversation is below. You can listen to the episode above or wherever you like to listen by clicking here.

TRANSCRIPT: How to Job Search Like a Recruiter

Andrew Seaman: Job searches aren't easy. There are multiple rounds of interviews, little to no feedback, and the process can take months. I'm sure some people feel like hiring managers and recruiters take pleasure in making the process as long and painful as possible. If you think that, today's show is for you. We're demystifying the job search process with insider tips and tricks from a recruiter who's been on both sides of the table. Stay with us. That's all coming up after the break.

From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs and the ever-changing landscape of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's editor-at-large for jobs and career development, bringing you conversations with experts who like me, want to see you succeed at work, at home, and everywhere in between. My guest today is recruiter and content creator, Nicole Fernandez-Valle. Nicole is a recruiter who works to empower job seekers because she knows what it's like. She's been laid off twice and has gone back and forth between the role of recruiter and job seeker. Now she uses insights from both experiences to help people navigate the emotional rollercoaster of a job search.

Nicole Fernandez-Valle: So I think I fell into talent much like many people fall into talent, which is by accident. I was initially a district manager for grocery stores, my first job out of college, and I had this panic moment of, I don't know if I want to do this, but I have to figure out something else. And so I actually went back to my college's career fair and met the recruiter that is actually serendipitously now my current manager, and suggested that I try out recruiting. And so I started off my career at Royal Caribbean as a recruiter, was there in the hospitality space, actually recruiting for the ships for about a year and a half before May of 2020 hit.

And as you can anticipate, that was not the best year for travel and hospitality, but ended up pivoting into tech, which was a great segment. I was able to work at both Wix and Metta, so able to see things that were a little bit smaller, more startup feel to big FAANG company recruiting for both of those years as well. And then similar to 2020, there was also a tech slowdown and so experienced a second round of layoffs then and was at that time that I pivoted back into the hospitality space, back to recruiting at Royal Caribbean, which is where I'm currently at now.

Andrew: Got it. And obviously you are a content creator, so how did you get into that and start sharing tips for job seekers?

Nicole: In that first round of layoffs in 2020, there was actually a six or eight month period of furloughs where really nobody knew what was going to happen during that time. And so I knew that there was a period where I might have to go into a job search, and at that time somebody gave me the advice of, "Hey, just use LinkedIn as a platform to really start connecting. You can start posting, just start getting your name out there so that way if and when a layoff does come and it did, then you'll already be prepped. You'll already have been starting to proactively get your name out there."

And so I'd started initially writing posts at that point, selfishly and self-serving at that time, just in case I needed to use it for a job search. But I think that because there were so many layoffs, because so many people were experiencing needing a new role and job seeking during that time, hearing advice of how myself as a recruiter was navigating my own job search, I think really landed and resonated. And I think that's where a lot of my content started taking off and I started doing it more frequently as opposed to just ad hoc, which is how I first started.

Andrew: And obviously one of the things you talk about is to job search like a recruiter. What do you think are some of the secrets to job searching like a recruiter?

Nicole: Yeah, I think there's lots, but I think that a lot of it is understanding the purpose of every step and why recruiters and part of the recruiting process happens in a certain way. So for example, I think that there's certain parts of the process that oftentimes frustrate job seekers and they get stuck on it and they can't move on. So for example, I think that a lot of job seekers sometimes get frustrated about not having feedback. And that's something that me on the recruiter side knows a lot of companies actually have a lot of policies around not being able to give any feedback post interviews.

And so one of the strategies is instead of getting stuck on the lack of feedback, figure out other ways to get feedback, whether it's mock interviews, working with a career coach, especially if you're a part of university or early career student, there's usually tons of resources there. And so I think understanding the intention of every step in the process and figuring out how to hack it to make it work, make the process work for you is the frameworks of how I share job hunting like a recruiter.

Andrew: Yeah, I think that is spot on because it's one of those things where I think most recruiters, most people who work in talent, they actually would love to give feedback. But it's one of those things where companies basically have policies around it saying, no, you can't do that because they worry that it might open them up to lawsuits or other things. In fact, I know someone who was hiring for independent contractors for their little small business, and they felt so strongly about giving feedback and they were telling me about it, and they said, I sent each applicant an email that basically said, I'm so happy that you interviewed and I hope you'll stay in touch. And then just gave them three things to work on three strengths. And she said that, I think it was two out of the five people basically blasted her. "What do you know?" And so she's like, "I'm never doing that again."

Nicole: Yeah. I actually, one of the companies that I worked at, we actually had links in our signature whenever we sent a candidate a rejection email that they could set up a 15-minute phone call to talk through some of the feedback. And a lot of it was just saying, "Hey, I don't think that's true. I think that I actually did demonstrate those things during the call." And so I think a lot of what I try and talk about on LinkedIn is whether or not you agree with the process, whether or not you feel like it's broken, it's figuring out how you can make the regular process work for you. So things like sending in job applications, going through the interview process, but also some ways that might be a little bit that can help you stand out in your search outside of just going through the regular process.

I think you can even go so far as to ask the recruiter, "Hey, do you know if there's any common questions that get asked throughout the process? Are there any pieces of information about the hiring manager that I should know that are really helpful?" If you have any sort of nod of what that next interview is going to be and what the purpose of it is, what the information they're trying to judge in that specific interview is going to be, that's huge. And you can definitely lean on your recruiter to do so, but if you're not working with a recruiter that's like that, I definitely would lean on just doing some research online about what the purpose of the recruiter interview is, what the purpose of a behavioral screen versus a technical screen is, because that'll help you better articulate the specific information that the hiring managers are looking for in that specific instance.

Andrew: Yeah, I think that's important. And obviously I think part of not knowing a lot about those individual steps in the hiring process creates a lot of tension for people and an emotional roller coaster, because there are moments where you're like, oh my God, this is great, and I got a call back, or I saw that they opened my application. What do you think are those emotional tests that job seekers go through during the hiring process?

Nicole: I think it's super emotional to be a job seeker regardless of why you're a job seeker, whether you're experiencing a lot of feelings about your current role and needing a change, whether you were part of a layoff, regardless of why you're a job seeker, there is a sense of just a loss that you have to go through and work through before you're starting a new job. And so I think that in addition to just having the loss of not being in the role that you were in before, that you were comfortable with, there's a lot of feelings of uncertainty. You're now put in a process that is based on rejection. So that's a really hard feeling just to have in the human psyche. And a lot of the times, especially what we're seeing now in the market is it's not just one or two rejections.

You're seeing job seekers go through long-term job searches, sometimes a year plus experiencing hundreds of rejections. And so that does a lot to a person's morale. And sometimes it almost ends up being this cycle where the more rejections you get, the more down you get about the job search. And so sometimes you're not putting yourself out there as much. Sometimes if you do land an interview, it comes out where you can feel the feelings of resentment towards the process and leads to somebody maybe not making it the next steps. So I think that the job searching process is really tough and emotional, and I think that if you acknowledge that, that's a really important first step as you're going through the process that you are going to have a lot of feelings that you might not have had when you were having a secure job.

Andrew: What do you think is at least some tips for staying motivated throughout the job search? Because like you said, there are rejections and there's the rejections that are outright, sorry, we went in a different direction. There are those that you get close to the job, then there are those that are implied where you just don't hear back at all.

Nicole: Yeah, I think that a lot of communities have been built around job seeking, whether it's Facebook or LinkedIn groups, whether it's even just a community, if you were part of a layoff with others who were also impacted. I think that having others that you can lean on during that time and just share any frustrations that you have helps get those feelings out so that it doesn't come up and let's say an interview process. But I think a lot of other frustrations tend to come up because you see a lot of job seekers who are doing the same tasks. So in this case, let's say sending out blast applications and getting the same results. And I think that feels frustrating.

And so outside of just finding your community, finding people who can keep you motivated throughout the process, I'm a very big advocate of if one path to getting a job isn't working for you, let's say in this case it's applying, you need to try something else. You need to either try and work on referrals and networking. You need to try and focus on your personal branding and see if you can get proactive reach outs. I think that those strategies tend to help people feel more motivated because you can say there's another avenue that I haven't tried yet. Usually those different paths yield a lot more success than just try to do the same thing that you're getting rejections from.

Andrew: Yeah, I think that's really great advice. And then the other thing too, I think is a lot of times people, they put their emotional eggs all in one basket sometimes, and I think that is one of the most dangerous things. It's like they'll find a job description that they'll sort to say, here it is. Here's this job.

Nicole: This is me.

Andrew: Yeah, this is me. They're describing me. I'm going to submit my application. And how do you suggest people temper their expectations while staying motivated?

Nicole: I think it's a fine line to walk. And it's funny because in the past few years, having gone two or three times back and forth between recruiter and candidates, sometimes even I feel like I've been susceptible to feeling like this was the perfect role. I crushed it, and then not getting an offer at the end and feeling like it was ripped away when in reality there was probably just a better fit for a candidate in the role. I think that understanding that a lot of the hiring process and reminding yourself that it's not about you, usually the time is just about the other candidate helps temper feelings of loss and feelings of rejection because you really never know when somebody posts a job description, was there somebody else that was already being considered for the role? Was there an internal candidate that was slotted for it? So I think realizing that while it's your job search and it's really important to focus on yourself, if you don't get something, it's usually more oftentimes than not more about the other person than you.

Andrew: Yeah. And I always try to remind people there are endless variables in the job search process, and they all play a factor in getting hired or getting an interview. But at the end of the day, when it comes down to making the decision, it could be that that hiring manager's picked the person who went to their alma mater or that hiring manager just so-and-so knew someone who knew a cousin or something like that.

Nicole: Yeah, sometimes it's out of your control. And I think in the same way that maybe you feel like somebody else has a leg up in a certain scenario, I think that you can also find ways in the job search process to give a leg up to yourself. So for example, I always tell people to really do their sleuthing when they're going into an interview and asking the recruiter, "Hey, what can you share about the interviewer?" Or seeing if there's any clubs that they were a part of on LinkedIn or on their Facebook, seeing what information you can find out about them before. Because sometimes it's that one piece of information that just jump starts the connection that already sets the call off on a positive foot because it's making the interview feel more connected to you.

One example is I know one of our hiring managers is a very competitive ping pong player, and so I share that with one of the candidates, and as the stars were aligned, so is he, and so he was able to very casually work it into a conversation with the hiring manager. And while I'm not saying that that's what landed him the jobs because it was the skills, the qualifications that he brought to it, I think also figuring out if you don't have that connection where you're from somebody's alma mater, you are somebody's referral. You can also find ways to hack the process to make yourself come across as more connected to the interviewing team as well.

Andrew: Yeah, like open your briefcase and a bunch of ping pong balls fall out.

Nicole: That's crazy.

Andrew: And just be like, oh, that's where I put them. I'm sorry, I got a game after this. We'll be right back with Nicole Fernandez-Valle.

Andrew: And we're back with recruiter Nicole Fernandez-Valle. The other thing that I hear from a lot of people, and I'm curious to hear how this played a role. A lot of people, I think they feel a guilt tied to job searching where they think they have to be tied to their computer and they just have to sit there and hit refresh and hope there's a new job posted. How do you think people should spend their day as they're job searching?

Nicole: Something that I recommended and something that I use in my own job search in terms of structure was I had certain goals that I had set for myself for that day. So for myself, it was to research apply for 10 companies that met the, whether it was the value, the salary expectations, or really just the mission that I was looking for that aligned with the roles that I was looking for. And then I also set networking goals for myself, whether that's I reach out to somebody from a coffee chat, I made a certain amount of LinkedIn connections.

I tried to go to an event that was networking focused. Those were my goals that I set for myself in my own job search. People land jobs a hundred different ways. And so I see a lot of people who are three, four, 500 applications down and they keep increasing their goals of applications even though that's not the thing that's necessarily working for them. And so that's why when you think about a structure, and I think that it's important to diversify, what are those activities that you're doing to get to the ultimate goal of having a job?

Andrew: I think part of that too also is knowing when you're experiencing wins. And for people who maybe don't see them, what would you consider a small win along the process for people to celebrate? Because I think a lot of times people are, it's like it's not a win unless you get the job, I think for most people.

Nicole: Yeah, I think there's a lot of small wins that you can find throughout the process. I think that a lot of people get really discouraged when people don't reach out back after their connections for a coffee chat. So I think that if you are able to land a coffee chat or just like an informational interview with somebody, I think that's a win because you never know if that's a connection in the company that can help advocate for you down the line. I think getting through the interview process or just getting that first interview is a huge win because I think then it gives you data as a job seeker to say, "Hey, at least I know that my resume is in a good spot because I got the interview." So at least it's taking away some uncertainty about why am I not moving forward? Because at least at that point, you can eliminate that at your resume.

And then I think making it through the job search, even if you're that silver medalist, that second, third place, that's huge because a lot of the times, us as recruiters will revisit those candidates for future roles. And I know plenty and plenty of people that didn't get the job first time around, still stayed in communication with the hiring team and with the recruiters and ended up landing a different role leader on in the company. So I think you have to also recognize and celebrate those wins throughout the process because if not, it can feel super discouraging.

Andrew: It really is one of those things where it is that frame of mind to say, if everything is a loss, unless you get this big win, then you're going to be losing most of the time. But if you realize that there are smaller wins along the way, you have more cost to celebrate, you'll be positive. You'll feel that momentum behind you, I think.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. And I think job seeking loves momentum. I've talked to so many job seekers where they'll go through a dry spell of a month, two months, not hearing back, and then all of a sudden get a chunk of interviews in a week. And I think it's a lot of the times also having to do with how you're feeling. If you're feeling positive, if you're feeling excited and motivated, it's going to cause you to seek out those networking and just people focused activities that tend to land jobs. And if you are talking to people, you're going to come across in a much more excited and motivated place, which usually also lets people want to help to advocate for you. And so I think that's why holding onto those small wins is really important because that's a lot of the times that positive mindset, what gets you through the job process.

Andrew: Totally. And I think what's interesting is in all the years that I've been doing this is the piece of advice that I hear back from people the most about when I say it, and they'll be like, "Hey, of all the things, that was what moved the needle for me, it is being excited." Because like you said, it is excitement for yourself, but it's also when you go into interviews and you're excited about the role, you're excited about that opportunity. People are like, "Great, I want to work with this person."

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. There's been so many times where I've seen it really come down to two candidates, and the point that ends up moving the needle is whether or not somebody's passionate about the opportunity. And you can show passion in so many different ways. I think some people that I've spoken to are like, I'm just not that naturally super energetic person, which is totally okay. I think you just have to be interested. I think that everybody has conversations with people around them, and this could be outside of the workplace where you know when you feel energized after a conversation because somebody's genuinely interested in you and asking really insightful and thoughtful questions versus somebody who talks, they say a few points and then there's no follow up.

So you can take that same thought process and methodology into the interview process because I promise you, recruiters, hiring teams are interviewing tons of people every day, and the ones that really stand out are the ones where they leave feeling energized because somebody else was really interested in what they were doing. And it seems like something so small, but that a lot of the times is the deciding factors if you have two people that are equally qualified.

Andrew: Is there anything else that you think is important to add, especially about navigating the ups and downs of a job search that I didn't touch on?

Nicole: I think that really when you're feeling the ups and downs, I think that sometimes it's easy to stop the consistent activities you're doing. I think that it's easy to say, "I don't really want to network anymore because I don't see the benefit of it." Or I know a lot of people are scared to put themselves out there and post and focus on their personal brand. They're like, "I don't see the value of it because I'm not getting the immediate gratification of it." When in reality, sometimes those day-to-day consistent activities of how you show up long-term of whether they're going to land you the job.

And so I know even in my own job search, I was posting for months before somebody ended up seeing one of my posts, realizing that there was an open role in my next company and tagging me and connecting me in the post of my future hiring manager. And that's how I landed the role. So it was months of posting and doing an activity that I didn't really see any huge ROI from that ended up landing me a role, and not any of the applications, not any of the networking. And so I think just making sure that you're consistently showing up is something that is a good reminder because sometimes when you're in the lows of job searching, those are the first habits to go.

Andrew: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Nicole.

Nicole: Yeah, thank you so much. This was fun.

Andrew: That was Nicole Fernandez-Valle, a recruiter and content creator who teaches people to "Job hunt like a recruiter." If you're leaving this conversation with a new learning to apply to your job search or career, I'd like to invite you to write about it in a review on Apple Podcast. Our team really enjoys reading what you learn from our shows, plus it helps other people discover our community. And speaking of community, remember that we're always here backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me, Andrew Seaman and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. In fact, subscribe to my weekly newsletter that's called, you guessed it, Get Hired, to get even more information delivered to you every week. You can find those links in the show notes.

And of course, don't forget to click the follow or subscribe button to get our podcast delivered to you every Wednesday because we'll be continuing these conversations on the next episode right here, wherever you like to listen. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Grace Rubin and Emily Reeves. Assaf Gidron engineered our show, Tim Boland mixed our show. Dave Pond is head of news production. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer. Courtney Coupe is the head of original programming for LinkedIn. Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well and best of luck.