Managing Job Seeker Expectations
I am going to lay out some difficult truths for job seekers. I want to discuss managing expectations, specifically expectations of job seekers towards recruiters, hiring managers, and experienced industry professionals. Every day, I get job seekers sending me messages along the lines of, “Hello, I am looking for a job as X and I believe you would be interested in my attached resume.”
85% of the time, job “X” is something I don’t recruit for; it isn’t even in the same business unit I belong to, and I have no idea who could possibly be the recruiter for the role in my organization if we *do* recruit for that discipline. Since I have said time and again that the types of positions I recruit for (and levels) are in my LI profile, I would think by now that job seekers would do the tiniest bit of research to tailor their efforts-but no. Sending me your resume for, say, a devops engineer, when I haven’t recruited for that particular role in almost 3 months — frustrating to both of us. Me, because I genuinely do try to keep up on my LI messages and be helpful — but a 10 second perusal of my LI profile would show you that I have moved on and I specialize in analytics now.
A *proper* message would be, “I saw a few months ago that you were hiring for devops positions; I know you have moved on, but is there possibly someone you could refer me to for follow up?” (I have done that several times in the last few weeks.)
But probably the most inappropriate messages are from job seekers — whether they are qualified for a job I am recruiting for explicitly or not — are the requests for me to DO something. I do not have time for all the “fifteen minutes of your time for a call to discuss my qualifications” requests I get every single day, especially when resumes and messages are sent to me with absolutely NO context (I already spend 3–5 hours/per day chatting with candidates I already believe are qualified). Send me a message with the specific questions you have, and when I get a few moments, I’ll reply. If you believe you are qualified for a role I am explicitly recruiting for, my first question is going to be, “have you applied online for the role?” If the answer is yes, my next response will be, “I’ll take a look at it and let you know if we will be moving forward.” (And that process includes forwarding your resume to the hiring manager if you do look qualified.) If you are looking at a role in my company that I do not recruit on, the best I can do is tell the recruiter that you have submitted an application…and for that, I will need the job number/URL of the position. I don’t have ANY VISIBILITY into roles other than my own without that information. Zero, zilch, nada.
But what I really want to discuss is the trend of job seekers requesting “please let me know if you see anything I might be a fit for”. Here is the thing: I can usually let my fellow recruiters know if I hear of any openings, because there is a likely chance that I have been approached about them myself so I know who is looking, and what the job looks like. I probably even have some visibility into HR roles for the same reason. But outside of that, my focus is really on recruiting for *my roles*, and I spend 40+ hours a week concentrating on them. I may hear of a role one of my team is recruiting for and be able to share that, but please think on this:
Recruiters are hired to attract and retain talent FOR THEIR EMPLOYERS.
Ethically, I am not able to refer candidates to my COMPETITORS for the same sorts of roles I am hiring for, except under very limited circumstances (and I outline that process below).
Here is the thing: I hear about jobs the same way any job seeker might: I follow people and companies on LinkedIn and join groups, I am active on social media (Twitter, FB, Reddit), and I see these as “announcements” or “updates” or actual job postings. I don’t have access to a secret job board that only recruiters see. Any jobs I may come across on my daily digital perusals are there for anyone to discover.
There is absolutely no such thing as a “personal recruiter”. I don’t know of any career coaches that offer it as a service, and the best you can do is find staffing agencies that specialize in the sort of roles you are qualified for.
*If you are looking for roles right out of school/internships, you need to concentrate your efforts on the appropriate audience: CAMPUS or UNIVERSITY recruiters — this is an actual specific title in the staffing industry (just like “technical recruiter” or “legal recruiter” or “healthcare recruiter”). Larger employers are generally more likely to have university programs and dedicated resources for recruiting.
What I, and most recruiters are HAPPY to do for job seekers is help you network in the following situations.
1. You have identified a company and a specific role you believe you are qualified for.
2. You have actually APPLIED DIRECTLY TO THE ROLE.
3. You have identified someone in that organization that I am a first degree connection with on LinkedIn.
4. You explicitly ask for an introduction to the person you have identified, and you include the URL or Job Number of the role you have applied for.
5. I will check your LI profile against the role — I am very protective of my LI network and I am not going to refer someone to a valued colleague if you are patently unsuited for the role you are interested in.
Recruiters really do enjoy helping people. If we don’t, this is the wrong job for us. When I am answering questions about the life of a recruiter, one of the main things I point out to prospective recruiters: this profession, like physicians and attorneys, is always “on” in terms of people wanting advice. Once someone finds out we are in a position to hire, we get questions about: resumes, interviewing, salary negotiations, trends –you name it. And generally we are happy to expound on our experiences to help people understand what the process looks like from *our* side of the equation. Many of us have podcasts, videos, blogs, articles and even books that we produce explicitly to help job seekers/professionals in their careers, and many of us volunteer our time on panels or in online communities to further share knowledge. In tough economic times like now, we become the experts for people that are drowning and discouraged. But if we are lucky enough to be employed, please remember that our primary responsibility is to our employers to fill THEIR jobs first and foremost. Please be respectful of our time, energy, commitments, and boundaries.
