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The Reality of Recruiting
Do you think that every employer is talking with every recruiter on the planet, in your country, in your city, in your region, in your area of expertise in that country, region, city or market area? Of course not.
Put yourself in the position of an employer and receiving a call from someone that you’ve never heard of before, who is saying, “I have this great guy. You really need to talk to her. She’s terrific. He’s colossal. He’s fabulous! You really need to talk to her. Oh! You don’t have any positions open right now!“(Yes, I know I alternated gender pronouns). Then they call the next employer that has never heard of them before, saying much the same thing and getting turned down again . . . and again . . . and again.
Why? Because there is no relationship between the 2 parties. There was no contract in place. There is no access to the jobs that are open at this firm.
Recruiters do not get on the phone and call individual companies on behalf of a particular job hunter with any regularity. Yes, some do and some say that they will (and don’t). Let’s also assume that the person that you’re speaking with is remarkably honest and they are recruiting firm works with every employer in your market area. If that’s New York City, Los Angeles, or the Bay area, what do you think the likelihood of that is?
What do you think the likelihood is that every hiring manager at every firm in your market area will take a phone call from every recruiter and accept them presenting you to them? I think you are a smart person who can figure out that is unlikely to occur.
It is great that you have a good working relationship with this particular recruiter but what do you really know about them? Yes, you are comfortable with them but sometimes being comfortable is the worst thing that could happen to you. Sometimes, you need to work with someone who’s going to make you uncomfortable and push you to your limits in order to get through and help you extend yourself.
So, what will a recruiter do? His or her firm is working on filling a certain number of positions that they already have available. They may reach out to all the firms that are advertising on the web in your area. Sure. I have a bridge I want to sell to you. How likely do you think that is given all the firms that are advertising on the web these days? After all, there are millions of positions open in the United States. How likely is it that they are getting on the phone and reach out just for you?
Do you think they are spamming your resume to the Western Hemisphere? Would you even want them to spam your resume to the Western Hemisphere? Of course, not. What you want is a hiring manager and a recruiter who have a relationship with one another, where the hiring manager trusts this individual and the recruiter understands the needs of the hiring manager.
In a given agency, even the largest ones, there are only a finite number of situations that each recruiter has with their clients that allows them to deliver that result. If you are in a 60 person agency, You may have 3 or 4 clients that you have that degree of intimacy with? So, 180, maybe 200 tops, firms in the entire agency that they have access to in that office.
You do the math for your market area. Are you limiting yourself? Yes! It is a mistake to do that.
Does A Recruiter Deserve Your Trust?
Yes, you want to work with people who you trust but do they deserve that trust?
Go to their profile on LinkedIn and see how much experience they really have. I have heard from a lot of people of recruiters who will claim to have 15 years of experience and you go to the LinkedIn profile. You can see that they have been working as recruiter for 2 years. Or, worse than that, sometimes you see that they been working 2 years here and 3 years there or one year here and 6 months there. They are telling you that they are not placing a lot of people and need to change jobs regularly.
Sometimes, that’s because they have been lied to by their employer but most of the time is because the recruiter is not performing to a high level. As a result, they have to change jobs way too often.
There are messages behind everything. Be smart about this. Don’t rely upon recruiters to do everything for you. Get out there and start networking because the statistics say that recruiters fill at most 20% to 25% of all positions. Most jobs are filled as a result of networking and, in particular, by networking to people that you did not know at the beginning of your job search.
So stop procrastinating. Stop outsourcing your job search to people who you barely know.
© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2016
Do you really think employers are trying to help you?
You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.
The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.
JobSearchCoachingHQ.com changes that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.