Reasons to Fall in Love With Your Recruiter

Recruiter. What's the first feeling you have when you hear that word?

Let me guess: it's either something really positive (you love them) or really negative (they're all jerks). So, I'm here to tackle this from the perspective of the candidate. First, let's talk about you, job-seekers.

You're looking for a new job and had a negative experience with your recruiter. Or maybe you tried to work with several recruiters, but you never heard back from any of them no matter how many times you applied. While each situation is completely unique, I'm going to take a broad approach here to give you some insight into our world.

First, we are human.

Which could also potentially mean that maybe your recruiter is a jerk. Okay, this probably isn't a reason to love your recruiter, but hear me out. It could be true that the person you worked with only cares about making money and doesn't think it's important to make a good name for themselves, their clients or their company. This is a real possibility and a real problem.

To be fair, jerks are everywhere. Jerks also build software, market products, manage teams, serve your coffee, prepare your food and drive beside you on the freeway. Don't fool yourself into thinking they all became recruiters.

Second, we work efficiently and focus on meeting our clients' needs.

Maybe you weren't qualified for the job(s) in which you applied. I did some quick math today, and depending on the type of job I have posted, I may receive 20-30 applicants a week just for one role.

As an agency recruiter, we're probably working an average of 30-40+ jobs at any given time. So, on the low end, that's sorting through 600 applicants a week. If you're not qualified (for one or many reasons), you may not receive a phone call.

If we took only two minutes to call each applicant, that would take 1,200 minutes (over half of our work week) just to tell most people "no."Not only is that plain depressing but also an inefficient way to get anyone a job.

Third, we are matchmakers.

We love finding the perfect match for our open jobs, but it's no easy feat. You might be the perfect fit, but is your resume less than stellar? This still matters. Organization, clear summaries, descriptive statements and use of key words make it easy for us to see your experience.

We are recruiters, and while some of us wish we had a previous life in software engineering, marketing, accounting, mobile development and AutoCAD designing, we can't say that we're experienced in all of these industries. So, it helps if you make your own experiences obvious to us and your future employer. Even if you skip the recruiter, most resumes go to HR or an internal recruiter first, who will typically be another non-technical person.

Lastly, we all make mistakes.

Perhaps you were a fit, you interviewed with the client, and then the recruiter never got back to you. Ever. I will apologize now if this has ever been me, my colleagues or any recruiter out there. You deserve feedback, and you have the right to call that recruiter 1,200 times until they give it to you.

But before you go to such drastic measures, don't assume the worst. The recruiter may not be able to reach the hiring manager for feedback, so sometimes we get stuck in the waiting abyss just like you. (However, it only takes a minute to shoot over a quick email to let your candidate know you're still waiting on the client... just sayin').

In the end, we're all human with amazing qualities and terrible qualities. As recruiters, our customer and our product are both made up of organs, feelings, dreams and personalities, all of which is constantly changing.

And so are we.

While we should aim to be responsive and professional in every situation, I hope you remember that us recruiters are human too, and just maybe from that understanding, you'll fall a little more in love with our humanness. (Read about how I fell in love with a recruiter here!).

 

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This article was written by CyberCoders Executive Recruiter Jenn Merz. It was originally published on LinkedIn Today. Jenn is a talented recruiter who continues to excel in matching great people to great jobs. Check out the jobs Jenn is representing right now!