What if you’re not actively looking for a job but want to know what your prospects are on the market, or what your salary could be if you moved jobs? Can you call a recruiter and ask? This week at Verify we discusses our experiences of helping professionals with general career advice.

Can I ask a recruiter for general market or job advice?

Well, sure you can. Most of us would be delighted to help. For us, it’s not about the instant gratification of placing you in a role right now – we’re happy to wait you until you are ready to move to a new job.

We really enjoy helping people with their job queries and most consultants who are good at their jobs do too. We’ll always have a few minutes to chat to someone about their career.

Obviously, if we think we have a job that might suit you, we’re going to tell you about it. (We’re still a recruitment consultancy) However, it’s always free to window shop, no one is going to force you to buy anything.

We’ve received calls or emails from professionals in the past about the following:

1) People who aren’t sure what career path to follow

If you’re not sure about what you want to do, a chat with a recruitment consultant can help. We know about all kinds of jobs and might suggest something you haven’t thought of. A good way of figuring it out is to think about what it is you literally want to do every day. Do you want to write code? Do you want to work with clients? Do you want to work with servers and cables? Think about what you like to do and what you’re good at.

Then call your recruitment consultant and see if they have suggestions.

2) People who know what their ambitions are but are not sure how to get there.

We have seen thousands of CVs and LinkedIn profiles. We’ve spoken to hundreds of people about their careers and how they got there. We can help you figure out how to get from where you are now, to where you want to be.

3) People who want to know what the market is doing

The news is packed every day with stories about companies opening hundreds of new jobs and every person working in the tech sector is being told they are worth their weight in gold, but what about you personally?

Lots of people have been in touch with us to ask what the prospects are for their specific area. They’re not ready to jump right now, but they would like to know that there might opportunities available if they choose to go back out on the job market.

So, if you have a recruitment consultant you trust, definitely call or email to ask for advice. We know your sector inside out and will share our knowledge with you.

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If you have any career or recruitment questions for Verify to answer, comment on our page on LinkedIn, tweet @VerifyCommunity or send them over to candidate@verifyrecruitment.com