Reasons Why Job Seekers Don’t Hear Back From Recruiters
Why Haven’t I Heard Back From the Recruiting Firm?
Today, someone took the time to search out my email to personally tell me their disatification about not hearing back from a recruiter after submitting their resume.
Here’s the thing: as someone who had to make thousands of phone calls and emails to get into the media and start my business, I can empathize with the frustration.
However, the frustration spawns from the thought that it is an affront to their work or their career qualifications when my recruiters don’t immediately respond.
This deserves some clarification, as the last thing I want to job seekers who reach out to my firm believing is that there is something wrong with their resume or who they are simply because they did not hear back and were not interviewed.
The reason that job seekers don’t immediately hear back from us — or from any particular recruiter — is because we don’t have a client that is a match. Though, this goes even further:
Say our recruitment company receives 10 new client inquiries a day. Speaking to them takes half of our day. Now, of those 10 leads, 3 are viable.
By viable, this means that the salary budgeted for the open position justifies us representing them. As I always state, I didn’t start this firm to work for poorly run companies and you should not strive to either. I’ve always thought of this as a way to remain reputable with our job seekers. Continued
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Ken Sundheim KAS Placement Twitter and Youtube Channel
Ken, fantastic article!
So true indeed. When I lived in England and did contract work I had 5-6 agencies that I had great reputations with. If I was out of town I could call the agencies letting them know I’m back on a certain date, the next day I was working. I was able to have a full time job and take off after a contract was complete. By doing this, I worked for many different companies, learning all kinds of operations and much more, an asset of experience in many different industries; as I believe – Experience is an excellent teacher!
Thing is, now being state side you have to think about benefits, which in the UK was never an issue, we just paid more taxes (to the equivalent of healthcare premiums) and enjoyed the nationwide National Health Service, never having to worry about benefits, which was less stressful and therefore more healthier – not needing to go to the doctors. Benefits and Healthcare is a whole different topic, but a massive consideration in your “experience planning” and “career planning”, so just thought I’d mention it.
Upsides/Downsides:
The upsides of agency/contract work are that you can gain so much diversified experience in different industries. Also if you are working with 5-6 agencies and have a good reputation with each of them, you can play the agency game. For example; if I was offered a job for more money with a different agency, I would let the current agency I was working for know that I was offered another position for more money; they then would match that offer (or more) to give you the incentive to continue working for them. So you could in a sense play them at their own game, by dollar pinching the salary, which used to drive me nuts about agencies, but through my experience realized by having a good reputation and showing my cards with them, I found a way to up my salary, and keep a good reputation with each agency.
The downsides to doing all of this is that for all the great experience you get during short term contracts (which in my eyes shows great experience and knowledge, along with entrepreneurship of doing all this in the first place), others may look at it as not a steady job (which to me is crazy). In my past experience with doing contract work, regarding my resume, I found that I had to bunch it all together and really doesn’t show the amount of experience I received from that time. Not to mention allowing me the ability to go and network and connect with many people and doing lots of entrepreneurial things.
I would recommend it to anyone; it was a fantastic time with so many things learned, not just by doing the contract work, but by giving me flexibility and time to do other entrepreneurial things.
Hi David,
Thanks for the reply. This is some really good insight as it seems that you know what you’re talking about.
Especially liked the reference “agency game.”
The issue often is that the “candidate” often believes the recruiter is working for them – wrong. They are working for the entity that pays the bills – the company that is trying to fill the position.
It is great to have “recruiters” in your arsenal but you best have several, along with the other means with which you are looking.
Mike Coffey
Career Counselor –
B’ham, AL