Top Shared Blog Post in 2014: How to Get on a Recruiter’s Radar: 3 Ways to Get Noticed

Editor’s Note: The following article was written by Travis Scott, Veteran Recruiter and Marketer (@SeaWaRecruiter) and first appeared on the Microsoft JobsBlog.  MVP Mentors can help high school and college students develop and improve their technical, professional and soft skills.  Fill out this short form to request your MVP Mentor. We apologize that the MVP Mentor Program does not provide professional consulting to adults candidates.  If you are interested in learning more about the MVP Award Program please visit our site.

When you’re looking to land your dream job, you want to differentiate yourself from the crowd. “Networking” is the big buzzword, and today’s technology offers all kinds of ways to reach out. But what methods are truly effective? And what kind of communication sets the right note?

In a two-part series, we’ll get your questions answered. In today’s post, we’ll address the etiquette, so you can accelerate the process of getting yourself recognized. In Part II, coming Tuesday, we’ll look specifically at Twitter.

Here are three key ways to get noticed by your top-priority employers:

1. LinkedIn

Most job descriptions mention the team for each role. Most recruiters self-identify on LinkedIn according to the team they partner with or the area they specialize in (e.g., finance, marketing, engineering). Do a quick LinkedIn search for recruiters associated with the team or area of the company, and send a connection request. Once they accept, send them an InMail (or if they don’t, you can reach out anyway). Keep it short and sweet. Introduce yourself. List your experience that correlates to what you feel are the top two or three required qualifications listed on the job description. Focus on hard skills, not soft skills. Hard skills sell on paper; soft skills sell over the phone or in person.

2. LinkedIn Groups and Twitter

Identify groups recruiters follow and become a regular contributor. Once a week is a great cadence for posting meaningful content. These posts will help show you know what you’re talking about and will start to breed familiarity among the group, including the recruiter and potentially, any hiring managers who are members.

Twitter is also a great medium for finding and getting noticed by a recruiter. Find and follow recruiters at the company you are targeting. Start engaging with them by retweeting their content, asking them questions and commenting on their tweets.

3. Name Drop

Do you know an employee at the company? Can you trust the person to give you a positive recommendation? If so, ask for their permission to mention their name. Use the above-mentioned search on LinkedIn to find and reach out to the appropriate recruiter. In your message, mention you know John Doe (for example), a Software Engineer on the Bing team. If you’re able to send the recruiter an email, be sure to copy your contact to provide more legitimacy.

You may be wondering, “Why not just ask the person to send your resume to the recruiter?” This is fine if the company is small, but sometimes IC’s (individual contributors) on the team don’t always know who their recruiting partner is, and it may require several emails on their end to find this out. That can cause delays – and time can cause you to miss your opportunity for an interview.

The good news: You’ve come to the right place, at the right time. Visit Microsoft Careers today.