Do Yourself a Favour - How to Be a Successful Candidate

Unfortunately recruiters have succeeded to earn themselves the mediocre reputation of being commission-driven and opportunistic in their goals. 

When I accepted my position at Four Seasons Recruitment as a Candidate Consultant, I had been employed in retail management for quite some time. Based in a luxury department store, I used to get contacted by recruiters with a certain frequency, and my experience with them wasn’t always a walk in the park. Now that I have deserted the retail troops and have joined the recruiting barracks, I can say without being unfair that here at Four Seasons we like to do things differently. We work our way into success by putting our focus on placing the candidate rather than filling the role. However, in order for the process to be as smooth as possible and for us to help you get the best job you can get, here are a few tips to ensure we can provide you with an exceptional recruitment experience: 

1- Bear with us, we will call be communicating with you a lot. Recruiters act as middlemen, meaning that it is our job to get messages from you to the clients and vice versa several times before we can let go of you as a candidate (but by then you will have hopefully turned into someone’s employee). So be patient, return our calls if we haven’t got through and do so in a timely manner, you don’t want to waste the opportunity to interview with a fabulous brand because you haven’t listened to your voicemail. Cooperate and we will go miles to help you find your dream job. 

2- Be honest. Always tell us the truth about your current situation. Do not lie about your position, team size, responsibilities, and especially salary. For three simple reasons: the retail industry is smaller than you think, if you are not the store assistant manager as you say you are, it will eventually surface. Secondly: you cannot improvise what you can only learn from experience, if you lie about having conducted a stock take, it will show. And finally, you simply can’t forge your P45. Tell us the truth and we will do our best to make you shine! 

3- Do your homework. Even if you are multi-lingual or a top seller, getting you an interview can still be a lengthy process. We will take the time to prepare your CV and tailor your profile to make you stand out, and make several communications with clients, to get you that first stage interview, so please do the same and take some time to prepare for the interview. Read about the company, try and forecast possible questions, show your enthusiasm, dress appropriately. And please, oh please, if we have arranged and interview for you, show up. If you do your best to prepare for your interview then we will keep having faith in your talent, (even if you didn’t get through that first stage :) ) 

4- Stay in touch. Once you have found a new job through us, we are still here to help. We work very closely with all of our clients, so do get in touch at any time after you have started at your new role if you need more support or have any questions about the terms of your employment. It can’t hurt to have someone there to offer you advice and it will make you a happier, more successful employee if you can always navigate through clear waters. We are likely to be able to help, get in touch! 

As recruiters we are only as successful as our next candidate is committed. Finding you your next great job requires efforts on both sides. We promise to do our job at our best to help you to get the job, so if as a candidate you commit to do the same, then you have just doubled your chances for success!