A Job Req - How a Bill Becomes a Law

Treat a job req as an employer treats a resume. Go over it scrupulously but don't harp on detail. Use it as a resource but don't depend on it in and of itself. Be conscious of the fact that it's written to serve two types of readers: you and the person searching for you.

Understanding the process of making a req is vital to knowing how best to use it to get a job. Think how a bill becomes a law. There's argument, agreement, concession, more argument, then eventual settlement. A few things can happen based on the firm and the hiring manager in question. To keep things simple let's observe what I see as the three most common trends with hedge funds when it comes to making job reqs.:

1. The hiring manager personally writes the req. and sends it to his most reliable headhunters.
2. The hiring manager sends out a general template that the group always uses and it is up to the headhunter to sift through suitable candidates based on his own past experience.
3. The hiring manager dictates the req. to human resources and order an email blast to the masses.

The first trend often arrives in an email with an informal subject line and an unprofessional run-on sentence in the text box. Contrary to belief, less is more. These reqs. have the human touch; they are prepared for a select audience. The relationship between the headhunter and the manager is good enough where they can let their guard down and be informal. That's a good indicator that you're working with someone who knows what they're doing. It also means there's a sense of urgency at the hiring firm to make a hire.

The second and third types of reqs. are far more difficult to decipher because, at least on paper, they are identical. The difference lies in the history the recruiter has with the company in question. Navigating the intimacy of that relationship is far more important than dissecting requisite semantics.

Reqs. that fall under the second category (The hiring manager sends out a general template that the group always uses and it is the headhunter's task to sift through suitable candidates based on past experience) are ironically the most unofficial. This is because junior, mid-level and senior candidates all receive the same thing, causing at the least confusion, at the most aggravation. At some firms it can be months, sometimes years, before reqs. are updated. That's why, alongside fears of confidentiality, there's always reluctance on the part of recruiters to send them. It's more harm than it's worth.

The last type of req. is simple and far less complex- the blast. A company packages a slew of reqs they need filled and they bulk email it to every recruiter on the street. Big hedge funds are notorious for this because of the overarching exposure it creates. Even if head count is scarce they have big enough budgets to find a way to make room. Smaller shops hardly have that luxury. When openings occur they fill them; otherwise they don't ask recruiters for help. Unfortunately there is no clear cut way to tell the difference between this req. (trend 3 listed above) and the general intimate template req. (trend two listed above). You have to wring that out of the recruiter.

Let's recap. When it comes to reqs., be cautious of getting hung up on job responsibility. A better strategy than mining the req. for secrets within the text is getting the information from the recruiter. Understand how well he knows the client. See if he can name drop people he knows/has worked with in the past at the company in question. Let him defend the client as a whole to see if he has an emotional attachment to the firm beyond monetary incentive. Those passionate about their clients and helping them for reasons beyond a paycheck are the guys to work with.

None of these things are easy to decipher. That's why a good job search can take months and months.