Make Employers Come to You in 5 Steps

 There is a lot of good career advice out there, but much of this advice is built around you actively going out and finding a job. There is not much information out there telling candidates how to make employers come directly to them. It’s strange because it seems like the demand is there because evidence suggests that 74 percent of you all are known as passive job seekers, which means not actively looking for another role, but ready to consider a a move should the right opportunity present itself.

The good news is that it is possible to develop a passive job seeker marketing strategy that would encourage recruiters and employers to approach you with the best opportunities before they went to the general job market. The advantages of this approach is that you can move from job to job (minimizing periods of involuntary unemployment), and cherry pick the best roles and companies, be in a stronger negotiating position and have an all around firmer control of your career.

Please read on for my tips on how you can build an effective passive job seeker marketing strategy, and encourage employers to come to you.

1. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is used by thousands of recruiters and employers every day to search for potential recruits; so, a fully completed and up-to-date LinkedIn profile should be the bedrock of your passive job seeker marketing strategy.

I stress that the LinkedIn Profile must be fully completed and up-to-date because although many users have LinkedIn accounts, many don’t fully complete their profiles or keep them up-to-date with their latest employer or employment situation. Because LinkedIn users with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities through the site, an incomplete profile will mean that you could be missing out on potential approaches from employers.

2. Your online branded resume

Millions of searches are made every month for talent and potential recruits on Google by recruiters and employers. If you want to be found by these recruiters you need to build a professional online resume that is search engine optimized to ensure that your resume will appear at the top of the results when employers search for candidates with your skills. Don’t miss out on this key passive job seeker marketing channel.

And yes, you do need this online resume in addition to a LinkedIn profile. Why? Because, it is an additional marketing channel, which also gives you the opportunity to build a much more individualized resume than you can on LinkedIn.

3. Start Blogging

Yes, this can be part of your passive job seeker marketing strategy if done in the right way. This blog should be related to your profession, skills or industry and the purpose of it should be to demonstrate your knowledge of a particular subject relevant to your profession and your ability, to convey that knowledge to the general public or other professionals, and to engage in debate or discussion with readers and contributors. The blog should be informative, well written, and should reference other articles and external data. It should be a of good quality and be of interest and use to readers from your professional area.

If you build a blog this way, it is likely that your readers and contributors will be from your profession and sector and if any of them become impressed by your knowledge you could easily find yourself being the subject of a potential employment inquiry. Also, many recruiters actively search on industry blogs and forums to find talent with specific skill sets.

4. Get Quoted

Alongside developing your own blog, contribute to high profile industry related blogs and online magazines. Ensure that you contribute to blogs where you can be recognized as the contributor, e.g. where you can comment using your Facebook or Yahoo profile, or where they let you house your own contributor profile on their blog.

Not only will your informed comments on industry-related topics be seen by potential employers, managers and recruiters, you may end up being quoted in media, which will increase your professional profile and online market penetration. Sign up to a site like www.helpareporterout.com (HARO), through which you will receive queries from journalists seeking expert quotes, which could be related to your profession and skills and expertise. Answering these queries could lead to you being interviewed or quoted in the press, raising your passive job seeker profile even further.

5. Engage in public speaking events

If you enjoy and are good at public speaking events then step up to the podium at every opportunity be that at industry associations, alumni groups or industry events and present on relevant industry topics. Doing this will portray you as confident thought leader in your field with valuable contributions to share with others. It is a great way to make a good impression and become known in your industry sector, increasing your chance of being approached by potential employers and recruiters.