What to Do When a Recruiter Calls

A recruiter called you for one of four reasons.

1. You applied to a job that they are directly working on for their own company (they are an in-house recruiter) or their client’s company (they are an agency recruiter).
2. You fit the profile for a hard-to-fill job based on information found on LinkedIn or within their in-house ATS, even though you haven’t applied for this particular job.
3. They are trying to build up relationships with the types of candidates that they place often so that their network is deep when an ideal role comes in for someone with your background.
4. They are trying to find people to present to a?potential?client they have been targeting.

It’s likely that the recruiter is calling you out of the blue - and you may be in the middle of something completely unrelated to a job search. Say so. A recruiter doesn’t want to waste your time or theirs and most have the good sense to ask, “Did I catch you at a good time for a brief chat?” That’s your queue to tell them the truth. If it’s not a good time, look at your calendar and suggest another time so you and they can be prepared for the call.

It’s possible that the recruiter called and you didn’t answer. I don’t blame you. This is why you want to be sure your voicemail is set up and available to take messages. You’ll never know if you missed your ideal job because the recruiter couldn’t leave a message and they just went on to the next person in the list.

(Sometimes recruiters have tons of time and will also text and email to reach you. sometimes they won’t. Each recruiter has their own preferred process, so make sure you’re able to get messages.)

Listen to the message and reply in kind with a good time to talk.

Now it’s time to find out why they called.

Keep reading - https://zencareer.substack.com/p/a-recruiter-called