I hear stories all the time and receive testimonials from people that the recruiters at P&A have helped find jobs.  There are lots of recruiters out there calling you, wanting to work with you, acting like they have your best interest at heart. There are recruiters that tell you they are the best. There are recruiters that say you should only use them because they have some sort of recruiter certificate.

What should you really look for in a recruiter? The bottom line is simple – you want someone that cares. They don’t need to be slick and a certificate is just a piece of paper. What they need to do is care about YOU. Care about how looking for a job is one of the most stressful times of your life. Care about how your job, or lack of a job, impacts your entire family.  Cares that their actions could determine whether or not your job search is successful.

What prompted me to write this blog is an email I received from someone that just got a job through Taylor Clark at P&A - whose blog testimonial coincidentally is the post below.  What happened to this candidate is pretty scary and sad. When you work with a recruiter you should interview THEM. You should develop a bond with them and feel that you are partners in your job search.  You should get a sense that they truly want to help you find the best job possible.  If you do not feel that they are working with you because they want to help you not because you are a paycheck – RUN. There are many great recruiters out there. Do not let your chances be ruined because a recruiter does not do their job.

Below is the letter I received that prompted me to write this blog:

I just wanted to thank your establishment for the recent assistance I was provided.  I recently had my resume on line and it fell into the hands of another recruiter.  Initially I was excited to know that there was someone out there that was willing to assist me with my career advancement.  Shortly thereafter, I was left with the impression that I was inevitably, still on my own.       

 Basically after our initial consultation what I got was a go between.  We had a brief discussion, this recruiter ran through a few different companies who were looking for staffing.  He asked me if I was interested in any of them. I chose three.  He told me that I should expect to start hearing  from them in the next few days.  Two or three days later I got a call from Cracker Barrel.  Awesome!…  Kinda. I totally bombed the phone interview.  Same deal with Boudreaux’s Cajun Kitchen.  I could feel the exasperation in the recruiters tone when I recounted the situation with him.  By the time I heard from Fox & Hound, I was so discouraged that I had pretty much resigned myself to staying where I have been for the last three years.  Although I did get a scheduled face to face interview with them, I was petrified.  What are they looking for? What do they need to hear?  Will they be a good fit?  It was pitch black! 

     I can’t describe his assistance as anything less than a God Send!  Taylor was constantly asking questions and giving answers to anything I was concerned about.  He re-wrote my resume with me!  He sent me no less than 10 pages of E-mails describing what I needed to know about the company I was interested in. What the company was looking for, What not to say. What to say.  You name it, he did it, and then some.  By the time he was done with me, I WAS THE KING!  I knew everything I needed to know. Every contact I had through-out my next four interviews was a slam dunk.  I have been in the restaurant industry for about 20 years. Alot of that time spinning my wheels. Finally with Taylor’s help,  I’ve been able to hook up and put the rubber to the road! 

At Patrice & Associates, we have several women who have combined their business development with being a Mom.  These women are an inspiration and testimony to what can be accomplished when one  puts their mind to it. 

Lynda’s story.

I am proud and thankful to be the mother of two fantastic kids.  I have an 11-year-old daughter, Donna, who just might be the next iCarly with her musical and computer talents. My 13-year-old son, Dominic, is just as creative, but he gravitates to the world of fantasy through computer games and books about dragons.  

Dominic is joyful and loving but he doesn’t express the full range of emotions that other kids his age are able to show.  I knew from the time he was 1 year old that he was different.  I felt that he viewed the world differently. 

Yet I did not know until he entered school that he has Asperger’s Syndrome, a high functioning form of Autism. He was originally diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Today, Dominic is progressing through regular classes in middle school and learning how to make new friends…thanks in part to a wonderful therapist who’s helped us teach Dominic how to engage in two-way communication. 

This challenging personal situation only increased my need — and desire — to work for myself from home. I’d taken a year off from my previous job of running a local marketing agency in Orlando, and I admit that once I was ready to return to work I briefly entertained the idea of working for someone else. It would be a dependable job, I thought, and I’d be around other people. 

But once I realized that I needed the flexibility of a home-based business, and that I had to be available for Dominic when he needed me, my decision was made. I opened an office in my basement and began work as a recruiter of top management positions for local restaurant chains. 

What I’ve learned to do is structure my day around the times when my kids are at school. After they have both left for school, I grab my coffee and my laptop and I start my work day.  I continue working steadily until they come home. 

Afternoons are spent wrapping up projects I’ve been involved in during the day. I rarely start a new project once the kids are home, but I do check my e-mails and make follow-up phone calls to clients. By following this routine, I have steadily added new clients since I opened my business. 

Some working moms who choose to have home-based businesses for the first time soon realize that they don’t have that “line of demarcation” that draws a clear distinction between being an employee at an away-from-home workplace and a mom/businesswoman who runs a home-based business. Away from home, they don’t have a son running up to them asking for help with his math homework, or a daughter arriving home in tears from school who needs immediate attention. At home, you have to be both businesswoman and mom at the same time. 

My computer and phone are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but when my kids need me I can shift from work mode to mom mode and tend to their needs. When I’m on the phone with a client and Dominic needs attention, the person I’m talking to often is a parent and has no problem with resuming our conversation after I resolve a home issue.  

The biggest challenge to overcome is the “availability factor.” The perception among your family and friends is that since you work at home you’re available to swing over to a car mechanic and get the oil changed or run an errand for a neighbor. 

The best way to ensure that you have a productive workday is to follow a few simple guidelines: 

• Prioritize your day. You have to know when your kids will need you, so structure your tasks to make yourself available to your children on the days or times when their needs are greatest.

• Establish a clear line of communication with your family. Let your husband, kids or live-in mother-in-law know what your work hours are and that you need to be left alone to do your job.

• Adhere to a defined work schedule. Designate which days are workdays and which are days off and stick to the schedule to create a productive routine.

One last bit of advice: If you wake up on a designated workday, but you just can’t get it together and you feel guilty, you’ve just got to forgive yourself.

Lynda Gail Alfano is a Regional Recruiting Manager for Patrice & Associates, the nation’s leading employment search firm for the hospitality industry. Based in Orlando, Lynda’s clients include several well-known brands such as Smokey Bones, Freebirds World Burrito, Cracker Barrel and Ruby Tuesdays, which have hired her to find top talent for their management positions. Lynda can be reached at (407) 351-JOBS (5627) or lyndaa@patriceandassociates.com.

The report highlights a growing concern that there is not enough governance in place to keep organizations protected from possible claims of discrimination from applicants who have been turned down for jobs.

“Traditionally, recruiters have had clear restrictions on the types of information they can ask candidates,” the study states, including information about families, religion, politics, financial situation, medical condition and other issues.

“Now,” it states, “recruiters can easily and anonymously collect information that they would not be permitted to ask in an interview, and the survey found that recruiters are doing just that.”

Among the more surprising survey findings: 75 percent of U.S. recruiters say their companies have formal policies in place that require hiring personnel to research applicants online. That figure drops to 48 percent for U.K.-based hiring managers and 21 percent for both the German and French counterparts.

Jennifer Sandberg, a partner in the Atlanta office of Fisher & Phillips LLP, says she hasn’t had “anybody ever call me and say we are going to have a policy in place like that.”

While it doesn’t surprise her that HR checks social-networking sites, she found it unusual that 75 percent of companies have a policy that says they

Lisa Harpe, a senior consultant and industrial psychologist at Raleigh, N.C.-based Peopleclick Authoria Research Institute, calls the study “fascinating.” She says one reason the online-search policy figure is so low across the pond may be because of the large number of European privacy protections that are already in place.

“In Europe, there are so many more data-privacy issues, it makes employers want to say, ‘We’re not even going to touch that,’ ” she says.

Harpe was also surprised to see that, when 1,345 consumers from those same countries were asked, only 7 percent of the U.S. consumers surveyed said they believe information about them online could affect their job prospects, compared to 14 percent of all the consumers surveyed.

“[Consumers] are not getting the fact that hiring managers are looking at what they’re posting,” she says. “But at the same time, if you asked consumers if they would check online reputations of candidates if they were the hiring managers, they’d probably say they would do the same thing.”

Patrice Rice, founder of Dunkirk, Md.-based recruiting firm Patrice & Associates, says U.S. consumers are just not as aware of privacy concerns as citizens of other countries.

“U.S. citizens are very free in publishing information about themselves that can be perceived as negative,” she says. “For example, placing inappropriate photos on a Facebook page that potential employers could access.

“U.S. citizens don’t have as much of a sense of privacy or concern for who delves into their private lives,” she says. “That information is freely available for all to browse, so U.S. organizations take advantage of that lack of concern among U.S. citizens.”

Harpe says that, as consumers encounter more and more hardships in getting a job because of what’s online about them, they will better understand the connection.

And hiring managers have not been shy about sharing that connection. The study finds that 86 percent of U.S. hiring managers have informed candidates they have been rejected due to what’s been found online about them.

Candidates around the world are starting to get that message, as eight in 10 of the 1,106 worldwide consumers surveyed say they take at least some steps to keep their professional and personal profiles separate, including keeping profiles anonymous, restricting access to personal sites and refraining from publicly sharing which sites they use.

But the question of who is responsible for protecting their online reputation shows that there is still a gray area between hiring managers and candidates: While 62 percent of hiring managers say it is the responsibility of the user to protect his or her own reputation and not rely on the Web site to do it, only 48 percent of U.S. consumers feel the same way.

Harpe, who recently published an e-book states, male recruiters (86 percent) are more likely than female recruiters (61 percent) to look online for reputational information of applicants.

“There’s a definite gender discrepancy there, and I’d like to see some more research on that,” she says, adding that “this is just one survey, and if you do another you might not find as big a discrepancy.”

She says one possible reason for the discrepancy could be that men and women view social networks differently.

“There’s some information out there that females actually use social networks for social networking [for personal relationships] much more than men do,” she says. “Women aren’t using it to post job-related information like men may be doing.”

Women, according to the study, are also more likely than men to consistently consider their online reputations when editing or posting content online; 39 percent of U.S. men and 54 percent of U.S. women responded positively to that question.

Such gender discrepancies in the survey bring up an intriguing notion for Harpe.

“If you have a female recruiter, then you might get judged on different criteria than a male recruiter,” she says.

She adds that, regardless of the gender of the hiring manager or recruiter, caution must always be used when researching a candidate’s online reputation.

“If you look at a person’s ‘profile’ section on Facebook, it’s almost entirely a list of questions that should not be asked during an interview,” she says. “Companies really need to be careful about who’s doing the searching and how that information is being used.”

If companies are going to use social-networking sites in the candidate selection process, she says, they should designate one person, or a small group, to do the searching who will pass any relevant information along to recruiters.

“[That group] can see the race and gender information, but the hiring manager won’t,” she says. “They would just screen for job-related information and that’s it. … Having formal policies [on the use of social networks] in place is great, but you have to ensure that it’s being used in a non-discriminatory manner.”

While technology allows for gathering more information, Sandberg says, HR leaders must ensure hiring managers and recruiters understand that the same laws against discrimination in the workplace govern conduct in cyberspace.

“All the existing laws apply,” she says. “Getting caught might seem less likely, but I’m not sure it is.”

It’s just a matter of time before job applicants begin to file lawsuits claiming they were unfairly discriminated against because of what a prospective employer saw online, Sandberg says.

“It’s the beginning of a trend,” she says. “This is just the next step, the next technology. The rules are there. … We just have new technology to make it seem as if there’s a new way to violate the law.

“Anything you do with [a workplace computer] is ultimately discoverable [in a court of law] and we might learn exactly what you saw online and the applicant can charge discrimination. The same framework is there, and the company better have a legitimate business reason to explain why the candidate was not the best in their opinion.”

No matter what level of position you are seeking, there are certain tips that are universal. Looking for that next career move today is more complicated than in the past. One would think that all the new technology of today would make finding a job easier – quite the contrary.

The world of the internet has changed all the rules. Job seekers today have to realize that what’s on the web could have a direct correlation not only to whether or not they get a job, but whether or not they get that first call for an interview.

If you are looking for a job, you need to know what people can find about you in the internet.  Do you have a Facebook page with inappropriate pictures posted? What are people saying about you? Do you have a family MySpace page and are your children telling stories about you and your family?

How you are presented on the internet can drastically affect the success of your job search.  Another “knock out” medium could be your phone message. If a potential employer calls, do you have a professional message on your phone or do you have loud and inappropriate music?

Today, more than ever, people are turning to recruiters to help them find a job.  As with most professions, some are good and some are not.  Some value the placement while others value the relationship.  It’s important to find the right recruiter for you. Good recruiters establish, build and maintain relationships with industry decision makers constantly.

Good recruiters have relationships with people you don’t.  They can help you to better understand a specific opportunity and can provide insight into company culture and leadership style.

Good recruiters are invested in you. They want you to perform well because you, as a candidate, are a reflection of them during an interview. Your interview performance validates the recruiters assessment of you and therefore helps him strengthen his client relationship.

Good recruiters help you manage the interview process from beginning to end. Good recruiters are great resources.