Improve your marketability as a candidate

Times being what they are ... the challenges faced by recruiters are greater than before. Client companies hire us only when they've gone through their own networks and posted to web sites and sifted through the high volume of unqualified candidates.

Once a client company decides to invest in a real, honest - to - goodness search, they expect us to do a lot of recruiting to bring forward the most qualified and most marketable candidates.

A candidate can be highly qualified but totally unmarketable for a number of reasons. The top ten reasons as enumerated by one blogger are listed here.

Because there is more pressure on the recruiter to perform, there's more pressure on the candidate to be marketable. Some of the reasons listed are obvious (dead fish handshake, too much fragrance). But there are subtle and deadly indicators on this list as well.

For me, number 10 is the most important. Candidates must have sincerity/self-confidence/clarity/conviction for me to pass them through to the next round. If I feel they are measuring their answers or trying to out - think the question or participating for self - aggrandizement, it's game over.