It’s a tough time to be a job seeker, whether you’re early in your career or looking for a leadership role. Mass layoffs continue to be rampant in industries like tech, media, and finance. Companies are posting “ghost jobs” where they advertise for positions they have no intention of filling. And when you do find roles that are suitable for you, you’re competing against large numbers of candidates—most of whom possess similar (or higher) levels of experience and qualifications.

In such a hyper-competitive climate, you might be wondering if there is anything you can do to make yourself stand out. One thing that more and more candidates are doing is turning to “reverse recruiting.” Typically, organizations pay recruiters to fill jobs. The recruiters will reach out to potential candidates on behalf of the company, often conducting the first screening call before the candidate meets anyone from the company. With reverse recruiting, it’s the candidates who hire the recruiters with the job search process or to help them find companies that might have job openings suitable for them.

Brianna Rooney is the founder and CEO of TalentPerch—a company that provides on-demand recruiting solutions for VC-backed startups. She shares her thoughts on why she’s seeing more and more candidates (of all levels) using reverse recruiters in their job search, when it might or might not be right for you, and how to make sure that you’re working with the right one.

CUTTING THROUGH A CONFUSING LABOR MARKET

Reverse recruiting isn’t a new concept, but Rooney believes there are two reasons that explain its prominence. First, “it’s a crowded competitive market for candidates,” she says. “There are a lot of layoffs . . . [and] too many applicants. With AI being used, people don’t know how to pass the bot, people don’t know how to optimize for LinkedIn, and be really clear how they’re going to come up in searches.”

The second reason, Rooney explains, is that many recruiters are not getting work from organizations. Companies are posting “ghost jobs” that people continue to apply for and are realizing that they can just tap into those applicants when they are ready to hire. Even companies who aren’t doing this are choosing to hunt for talent themselves.

The bottom line is that the labor market “is messy for everybody,” Rooney says. And candidates are hiring reverse recruiters to give them a leg up, no matter how senior they might be. In fact, Rooney says that she’s seeing an uptick in the higher-level roles when it comes to reverse recruiting.

More companies are opting out of engaging recruiters and posting jobs for executive-level positions, she says, and that’s something that hasn’t really happened in the past. “I would say that the managers to execs are looking the most for reverse recruiting,” she says, “because they need the most help.”

CHOOSING A REVERSE RECRUITER

So how does a candidate go about choosing a reverse recruiter? The first is to figure out what you need. Are you confident in your interviewing abilities but just need help with reworking your résumé and LinkedIn page? Or do you need someone who will look through every application, help you craft your “star story” in interviews, provide coaching and interview role-plays, as well as search for open positions that might be suitable for you?

The next is to consider your budget, and assess that against the salary range for the jobs that you’re going for. The price for services is highly varied, depending on the recruiter’s level of involvement, the industry, as well as the pay and seniority.

Rooney gives the example of a $10,000 reverse recruiting program that provides a money-back guarantee if you don’t successfully land a role. This kind of pricing might not make sense for someone applying for jobs with salaries that are less than $100,000. But it might make sense for someone applying for a high-paying six-figure role.

Most importantly, it’s important to choose a reverse recruiter with recruiting experience. Rooney suggests looking for “social proofs” like LinkedIn recommendations and any previous webinars they might have done on this topic. At the minimum, they should be open to a 15-to 20-minute consultation.

“If they focus too much on selling you, that’s a problem,” she says. You also don’t want someone that’s wishy-washy, she says. A reverse recruiter needs to tell you what is good (and bad) about your current job-searching approach—whether that be your résumé, your LinkedIn profile, or interview technique—and tell you what you need to do to get better.

ALTERNATIVES TO REVERSE RECRUITING  

It’s important to note that not everyone can afford hiring a reverse recruiter in their job search. And while Rooney acknowledges that this trend can create more inequality in the hiring process, she stresses that there are alternatives to hiring someone to help you if you need assistance.

First, she recommends looking at webinars and e-courses, some of which are free, or at least priced significantly lower than hiring a reverse recruiter. It might take a little bit of extra work and time, she says, but “there’s enough free material out there that regardless of how much money you make, you should be able to get the information that you need.”

She also recommends reaching out to recruiters who are working on behalf of companies that you want to work in. Any good recruiting agency, Rooney says, should already be reverse recruiting for free. “I’ve been in this industry for a long time,” she says, and that anytime a candidate calls to ask for help with the job search, “I will almost always get on the phone with them for 15 minutes, and I’ll tell them how to go about job search.”

She reminds candidates that, at the end of the day, recruiters get paid when the company makes a hire. “For people looking for this, reach out to recruiters, make friends with them. They want to help you because they also get paid if they do.”