Why Recruiters Don’t Call Back

“Network with recruiters,” they said.

I did. About 30 of them. It was an exercise in ME reaching out to THEM and rarely hearing anything back from them.

I didn’t understand the relationship between recruiters and job seekers, nor did I understand the role recruiters play. What is a job seeker to them?  What are their goals?  Understanding those things helped me realize why no one was calling me back.

I just read Lisa Rangel’s 12 Unspoken Reasons Why Recruiters Are Not Calling You Back. She lists 3, and gives you a link to download a paper with the rest.   Anything I’ve read from Lisa is great, and worth the time…. so go check it out.

Here’s my answer to why recruiters don’t call you back: because you are not a likely candidate to fill a role they have been hired to fill.

It’s that simple.

I thought recruiters were “power networkers” (which is  phrase from Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone book). Some might be, but many I’ve talked to are not good networkers at all.

I thought recruiters loved to, and were good at, helping people get hired.  Not really… that’s not necessarily their job.  Their job is to fill a role… not help someone (anyone) get hired.  I’ve come to learn that that expectation is as absurd as expecting the butcher at my grocery store to come to my house and cook the meat I bought.  It’s just completely, totally outside of what they get paid to do, and even what they are trained to do.

When I realized that recruiters didn’t call back because they didn’t have a role that was perfect for me, and they never would call back unless I was going to help them fill a role, I moved on. I stopped forcing networking with these supposedly great networking contacts, and networked with other people.

Doing this was mentally liberating. My expectations and hopes, with regard to relationships with recruiters, was more realistic. And I spent time where I needed to.

How about you – are you ready to move on from “networking” with recruiters?