Key Takeaways

To help you navigate this path successfully, we’ve put together some practical tips that will guide you in your quest to improve your visibility to recruiters for contract gigs.

If you’re a consultant looking for contract opportunities, you’re in a position to take your career to new heights.

Before you start reading, if you’re new to C2C navigate to our ELI5: What is Corp-to-Corp (C2C)?

Why Visibility is Important

Visibility is one of the key factors in letting recruiters know you are available for work.

LinkedIn has approximately 930 million people across the world.

For reference that’s equivalent to adding the populations of the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico. 

This makes LinkedIn an excellent profile to reach potential recruiters but also makes it even more important to stand out so you can be placed faster.

Key Steps to Improve Visibility

Include your previous clients as employers

Recruiters are more interested in the projects you’ve worked on than the staffing agency that pays you.

By adding the previous client, the recruiter has an idea of the type of company you’ve worked for and your experience.

This is much more useful than broadly saying you’ve worked in financial services.

Make sure you’ve marked previous contract gigs as Contract to show you have experience with contract work.

One item to note is some clients may not permit you to share their name so you should check if it’s a concern.

Add Project Descriptions to each Role

Adding a 2-3 sentence project description gives context to the type of work you’re doing in addition to your duties and responsibilities.

For example, imagine a role that wants someone who has experience in large data migrations from On-Prem to AWS by including your description you’ve made your experience more transparent to the recruiter.

Update Your Profile to “Open to Work”

This one is often overlooked for fear that your current job may notice, but it’s an important indicator for recruiters looking for candidates

Request Recommendations from Previous Clients

Often when each contract expires, as consultants we are moving towards our next opportunity.

Referrals on LinkedIn allow people to speak of the work you did which serves as social proof.

I recommend reaching out to 1-2 people you’ve built rapport with to provide a referral shortly after your contract ends.

Specify the type of contract work you want in your profile

Often recruiters assume that all contractors want W2 work because it’s easier.

Calling out your intentions helps recruiters understand if they are a good fit for you.

For example, in your LinkedIn profile, you could mention “currently accepting 1099/C2C roles strictly. No W2 roles.”

This can potentially save time for the recruiters who are adamant about w2.