5 ways to take advantage of a candidate driven market

Most recruiters and hiring managers would agree that we’re in a pretty hot hiring market right now – with candidates very much at the wheel.

Even though you’re in a strong position as a job-seeker, it’s important to be smart and strategic about how you approach your job hunt. Here are 5 ways to leverage the current market to your advantage.

1. Make sure your resume is looking good

If it’s been years since you last took a look at your resume, it’s time to pull it out and give it a dust off. Things have changed a lot in recruitment over the past few years, especially with the advent of AI and application tracking software.

So you’ll want to make sure your resume is tailored to your job search, brings in keywords from the jobs you’re applying for, is formatted correctly and makes your skills, experience and achievements front and centre. Check out this blog post for more resume tips.

2. Be organised about your job search

Although it can be easy to walk into a job if you have specialist skills, studies show it can take up to five months to find a new role, so be strategic about your job hunt and don’t forget to track your applications and set reminders.

You might want to ‘batch’ your job-hunting tasks so you can create a more organised process, so spend a certain day sending applications, then move onto interview stage so you can hopefully be fielding all your offers at the same time and be in a better position to choose the role that’s the best fit for you.

3. Use your network

So often job-hunting is about who you know, and in a candidate-driven market, you want to make every effort to take advantage of your connections.

If you’re going for a role at a company where there’s an employee referral program in place and you have a contact at the company, as them for a referral. It’s much more likely that your resume will be seen by the hiring manager (even if there are lots of applications) and that you’ll at least get an interview.

4. Be visible and follow up

If you’re on LinkedIn, give your profile a tidy up –ensuring you have a professional photo, and that your work history and keywords mirror what’s in your CV. We know that 95 percent of recruiters go and check out candidates on LinkedIn, so you want your profile to be up to date.

It also can’t hurt to look up the companies you’re applying to and follow them on LinkedIn, engaging with their posts and commenting if you can do it in a helpful, natural way. We would also recommend following up to show you’re extra keen on the position. You could do this by email or phone, simply saying, ‘Just touching base about the role I applied for to see if there’s any update. I’m really keen and would love to know when you may be scheduling interviews’.

5. Negotiate on salary

In a candidate-driven market, employers are struggling to hire –and may also be losing employees (which is happening a lot at the moment). That’s not great for them, but it does give you a great deal of leverage the negotiation table and could result in a good outcome.

So, if you find yourself in the enviable position of being interviewed by several companies at once, that’s a great time to negotiate hard, say experts–whether that’s about salary or locking in a more flexible working arrangement than your last job had. Just don’t make the mistake of taking the first offer on the table! Now’s the best time to ask for more.

Want to nail that job interview?

Check out our blog for more posts on finding work, sprucing up your CV and nailing your next interview.