To any recent college graduates reading this, congratulations on your hard work and dedication that goes in to achieving your diploma. After all of what goes into those 4 years, we know that you want a career that you can be proud of. That is why you should meet with a recruiter at Professional Alternatives upon graduation, this can enhance your career search significantly. So many recent college graduates leave without knowing where to start next on finding a job that suites them. Here are some tips if you proceed on teaming with a recruiter after graduation.

Resumes

Have a resume that includes all of your education, past employment/internships, organizations involved with and volunteer work. It is important to frame all aspects of your activities in your college years if you were not able to work or have an internship. The more information your recruiter has from you, the better they can make your resume to present to a future employer for an interview.

Mindset

Come with an open mind that your first job will most likely be an entry level position. Have realistic expectations with your recruitment professional as no one will find you the perfect job without you doing the necessary work on your side. The recruiter can only do so much; you have to help the recruiter help you.

Availability

Be open and available to all possible positions that your recruiter will present to you that match your skill set and personality. Direct hire or a temp-to-hire position, either or you should not focus on that, but more so focus on the position at hand. Focus on the experience you will receive, that will add to your resume in the future.

Honesty

Be honest with your likes and dislikes to help the recruiter understand what company culture you belong in. As well as your wants and needs from a company! The more open and honest you are with your communication to your recruiter, the better off you will be. This is how you form a relationship with your recruiter and where they can really understand you to find the best fit possible for you.

Listening

Listen to what advice your recruiter has for you. You are fresh out of college diving into the job market. Our recruiters have been doing this for over 20 years, they know what it looks like out there. Here at Professional Alternatives our recruiters truly care about YOU, and want the best possible option for you. You are not just a number to our company, like how most staffing agencies come off as in today’s world.

Do you have more questions about the recruiting process? Please feel free to reach out to Professional Alternatives! Contact us at 713-572-2100 or email us at resumes@proalt.com. Our mission is to provide our candidates and clients with the highest level of expertise to insure a smooth and enjoyable experience when working with our staffing solutions firm.

Deciding to work with a recruiter to find employment for yourself can be difficult. Professional Alternatives is here to share how to successfully move forward with this process. The key is to find someone who is a fit to your career niche. The more they understand you, the more helpful a recruiter can be in landing your dream job. Our 5 recruiting teams focus in lending services, credit and risk, financial services, support services and professional services.

What Recruiters Should Be Asking You

They should ask you about who you are and what type of company culture you want to represent in the beginning of the process. To make the correct candidate/recruiter match is key to helping our recruiters really find the best fit for you at a career stand point.

Questions to Ask the Recruiter at Your First Meeting

• How long have you been recruiting?
• What is your recruiting niche?
• Who pays your fee? (It should be the hiring company)
• Can you share some of the employers that you work with?
• How many candidates have you place in jobs have you placed in the last year?

Recruiter Follow-Up after Moving Forward with Partnership

Make sure that your recruiter has all forms of contact information to reach you. Being readily available to your recruiter is crucial to this relationship. At any time a hiring employer could speak to your recruiter and need to know an answer about you for a potential job position. Depending on your time line of when you need a job, this will rely on how much your recruiter will need to be following up with you. Their job is to keep you in the loop at all times during this process. Our recruiters at Professional Alternatives main goal is to have a clear, honest and upfront relationship through this process.

Confirm Your Preparation Plan

Make sure to confirm your arrangement with your recruiter via email and phone call. Be upfront and honest from the beginning and give them any information that would be of importance. An example of what to reveal would be any companies that you would NOT work for. Along with companies that you would REALLY want to work for. Any past job issues, or accomplishments. They are not here to judge your career past, they are here to learn from it and place you in the best job role in the future.

Your Job Search Before Teaming with the Recruiting Firm

The recruiter you’re working with should ask you about your current job search and where you are at in it. Always let the recruiter know if you’ve received a job offer that you haven’t accepted yet, and also any jobs you have applied to before partnering with the recruiter’s agency.

When You Have Your First Interview

Partner with your recruiter and REASEARCH the company you’re interviewing with. Make sure that you have received all of the names and proper titles of who you are interviewing with at the company. Also, listen to your recruiter when they tell you how to prepare for the interview, and ask what questions may be asked by the interviewer to be fully prepared.

Confirm Compensation If/When Hired

Discuss in detail what the compensation for the hired position is. Confirm this agreement through email with your recruiter throughout the process. Then gather the assurance from your recruiter what benefits will be attained from the company.

If you were comfortable with the response and the interaction throughout this entire process, and you and the recruiter have developed a professional relationship. Then you have successfully picked the right recruiter and staffing firm to team with in your career journey!

Are you in need of a recruiter currently? Please reach out to our office at 713-572-2100 or email us at resumes@proalt.com. We would be honored to help you with your professional search!

Credit is an essential part of life that provides opportunity to build and achieve financial security for your future. This is a challenging task for young adults just starting out on their journey to build a good credit score. This can become a stressful responsibility because it weighs so heavily on their future purchases.

FICO Credit Score

This credit model is made up of 35% payment history, 30% accounts owned, 15% credit history, 10% new credit and 10% credit mix. FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation, which is a service used by the majority of lenders (banks) to help accurately predict a consumer’s ability to repay a debt on time.

Let’s go on to educate and explain what each of those percentages truly mean:

Payment History 35%

The lender giving the loaned out money wants to check to make sure that the borrower is going to pay them back. This is looking at your past bill payments, if they were paid on time or not and how long have you been making the payment in general. This search goes deep to where they even search if the borrower has ever been sent to a collection agency before, due to not paying their bills for a long period of time.

Accounts Owned 30%

This is focused on what amount of the credit that you have do you actually use? Having nothing spent on your credit card could actually hurt you, whereas if you have a reoccurring balance that you pay off can show that you are responsible and financially stable to pay off your credit bills.

Credit History 15%

The length of your credit history is also important. A long credit history is helpful (if it’s not marred by late payments and other negative items), but a short history can be fine too as long as you’ve made your payments on time and don’t owe too much.

New Credit 10%

Your score look at how many new lines of credit accounts you’ve opened up. It looks at how many new accounts you have applied for recently and when the last time you opened a new account was. Whenever you apply for a new line of credit, lenders typically do a hard inquiry which is the process of checking your credit information during the underwriting procedure. This is different from a soft inquiry retrieving your own credit information. Hard inquiries can cause a small and temporary decline in your credit score. This happens because the score assumes that, if you’ve opened several accounts recently and the percentage of these accounts is high compared to the total number, you could be a greater credit risk. People tend to do so when they are experiencing cash flow issues or planning to take on a lot of new debt.

Credit Mix 10%

The last percentage the FICO formula considers in defining your credit score is whether you have a mix of different types of credit, such as credit cards, store accounts, installment loans and mortgages. It also looks at how many total accounts you have. Since this is a small component of your score, don’t worry if you don’t have accounts in each of these categories, and don’t open new accounts just to increase your mix of credit types, like mentioned in the above paragraph.

To conclude, while your credit score is extremely important in getting approved for loans and getting the best interest rates, you don’t need to fixate over the scoring guidelines to have the kind of score that lenders want to see. In most cases, if you manage your credit responsibly, your score will show proof of that!