Disclaimer: The below article is from my experiences and I am not stating that all Recruiters and Agencies operate in this fashion but there is a substantial amount of the below happening in the job market. This is not a recruitment bashing post but one to educate and prepare job seekers for their future encounters.
1. Fake Job Postings
Have you ever seen job descriptions from Recruiters which seem very vague, look familiar and provide no real insight into who the employer maybe etc.? Well chances are, these are not “real” job postings. Why do they post them might be the next question which springs to your mind. It’s quite simple – they want your resumes on file so that if / when a similar job does come up, they can immediately contact you to see if you would like to apply. It is all about building a large candidate database so jobs can be easily serviced as they come in.
2. Asking For The Name Of Your Boss
Again, this is a database building exercise. Knowing who your boss is can be vital to landing some work from a company. Can you remember during an interview with a Recruiter where they casually ask your boss’s name or state the wrong name only for you to correct them with the right one? The chances are that your boss is in a hiring manager position so having his details recorded and been able to forge a relationship could be quite useful to the Recruiter. If you end up leaving the business you are working for, who do you think will now offer your boss their services right in the nick of time to fill the gap you have left? You got it – the Recruiter who interviewed you!
3. Referees On Your Resume
Are you a manager? Ever wonder how Recruiters get your number? You got it – referees on resumes. This is a very easy and useful way for a Recruiter to build their knowledge on who’s who in the market. When I am writing resumes for my clients, I advise to omit referees from your resume unless applying for a position that requests them in the job advertisement.
4. KPIs, KPIs and More KPIs
Recruiters work off KPIs. There may be other naming conventions but Key Performance Indicators are vital to larger organisations in tracking how effective and hard a Recruiter is working. Some of these could be candidate calls, client calls, client meetings and candidate interviews per week. As shocking as this may sound, some candidates are sometimes only interviewed to tick off KPIs and prevent the management team from breathing down the Recruiter’s neck. It is a cutthroat industry in Recruitment so if you are not making the company money, your KPIs will be under scrutiny to ensure you are very much trying to.
5. Why You Don’t Hear Back
To put it simply, being a Recruiter is a very busy and challenging position to hold. From interviewing candidates, to making client calls, attending various meetings and trying to tee up interviews to suit both candidates and clients – there is never a dull moment. With this in mind, Recruiters need to be ruthless with their time. If you do not fit in with their pipeline of jobs and are no use to them, you probably won’t hear from them. Don’t take it too personally – it’s just the nature of the game. It would be a job in itself to follow up with every candidate across every occasion. In saying this, any good Recruiter should manage the relationship with a candidate as best they can and with integrity. I can fully understand the frustration caused when a candidate takes the time to apply or interview for a position and then does not receive any feedback. You can see some other reasons why Recruiters may not contact you on another article I created here.
I do hope that this has shed some light on what is happening in the job market and that you have a better understanding on how some Recruiters operate. Selling people to people is not easy and these guys have a tough job especially when the job market is bad. There are good and bad ones out there – best to find a good one and work closely with them as they can definitely assist in landing you a position. They may well develop some leads from you but that is the nature of the sales industry so don’t be too put off.
Feel free to check out some of my other blog articles here on resume writing, cover letter creation, job search guidance, LinkedIn coaching and much more.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and good luck!
Best regards,
Patrick Harnett
Professional Resume Writer Perth
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