What Recruiters really want to say to you

“LinkedIn has become (maybe always was) a space for candidates to vent about recruiters and recruitment processes. I'm a recruiter and think the sweeping statements are hilarious (but I guess Humans love a good sweep). If you could be brutally honest with candidates, what would your advice/scathing comments be? Any topic is fair game”

I got this question submitted for the Friday Knockoffs newsletter but I liked it too much to wait for the next edition of FKN, so here I am venting on behalf of Recruiters on a Sunday.

First to set some context, I worked in agency Recruitment for 12 years and then the past 4 in Internal Recruitment. There is sometimes a sort of divide between Internal Recruiters (most commonly called Talent Acquisition) and agency Recruiters but there is a lot of cross over in the roles. Most of what I’ll say is from the agency Recruiter perspective but plenty of Internal Recruiters/TA’s need to vent with each other about candidates and hiring managers.

I agree with a lot of the venting that happens too. Some Recruiters are bad. Some Recruiters seem bad because of the contingency model (Typically Recruiters only get a fee if they place you, which can drive some bad behaviour). But also some Recruiters are really good.

But if a Recruiter comes out and vents about their shit candidate or shit client, they’ll rarely get much sympathy from the non-recruitment community, or mortals as we call you (little Recruiter humour there for you).

So this is what I believe Recruiters will want to say to some candidates and clients, some of the time. In no particular order.

You are not the client

Here is a call I used to get about once a week:

“Hi can I speak to Mitch?”

“Yes who is calling please?”

“It’s his client John”

“What company are you calling from John”

“None right now, I’m unemployed. I met him yesterday for an interview”

In the typical Recruitment model, the client is the company hiring as they are the one paying the fee.

You’re commonly referred to as a candidate, job seeker or if you want to put it really bluntly, you’re the product being sold. A good Recruiter won’t treat you like or make you feel like a product, but unless you’re paying a Recruiter to find you a job, you’re not the client here.

And in my experience, the people that acted like they were the client, demanding a list of companies to interview at 24 hours after a first phone call or meeting, were the worst candidates to deal with.

The perfect arrangement is the client, Recruiter and candidate treat each other as partners all trying to work together to achieve the same result. But that doesn’t always happen.

Your company isn’t that great

Recruiters take briefs, a list of requirements that the company is looking for in their ideal candidates.

Often, companies or people within those companies have an inflated opinion on how good their company is to work for. Or how attractive they are to candidates.

Or totally unaware or unwilling to listen to what the market says about them as a company.

So when these companies ask Recruiters to find them the best people in market to work for them it’s because they probably do think they are the best company in the market to work for, but that’s not the reality.

I get it Craig, your little Design agency is your baby and you think you do great work. But that top tier Branding Designer working on the World’s biggest brands doesn’t actually want to come to your studio and do property development logos 70 hours a week while you yell at everyone and/or disappear for days at a time on a coke binge.

I understand how that’s hard for you to understand Craig, I’m sorry I will do better.

GTFO Craig you goose. My mum tells me I’m handsome but I’m not entering any model competitions, it might just be a teaspoon of reality you need to add to your morning coffee.

If I present you to my clients, I risk losing my clients

Similar to how some companies view themselves in much higher regard than the market does, many candidates also do this.

And the more inflated the ego, the more aggressive they can be about demanding to be put forward to certain roles or certain companies.

But not everyone is a match for every role or every company. Often companies give Recruiters a stricter brief, so if they are going to pay the fee someone has to tick even more boxes.

Recruiters can (should) agree on some must have criteria with their client and even though you think you can do it given the opportunity, that’s not what the client is paying them for. Some clients are more open minded. Some trust their Recruiter to recommend people with the ability not the experience. But some don’t want to see your Resume unless you have A, B AND C, possibly with XYZ too.

We heard a different version to your story

Possibly an under valued or misunderstood aspect of an experienced Recruiters value is how many people they know and what industry gossip comes their way.

For example, I once had someone call me to pitch themselves to work at the agency I was managing. Little did they know someone from their current company had told me how they just got sacked for faking client meetings and making up placements.

Or the client that hadn’t used us in years, popped out of nowhere with a few juicy roles. I made a call to the agency I knew they had been using and you wouldn’t believe it, they had about $50k in unpaid invoices.

As competitive as Recruiters are with each other, many are also friends and they speak to a lot of candidates and a lot of hiring managers and Business owners.

I don’t get paid if I don’t place you, why would I not want to place you

I’ve seen a lot of commentary on how Recruiters are the gatekeepers and they are the enemy when it comes to finding you a job. If a Recruiter could place everyone quickly, please trust me when I tell you they would.

They usually can’t force a client to hire you or create roles in companies that you dream of working at or change the market conditions or make you a better interviewer or change your reputation in the market.

They really want to place you.

You are not the only person on earth

Some candidates and also some clients can act like they are the only person that Recruiter deals with. Where’s all the jobs? I met you a week ago and I’ve only had 2 interviews. I briefed you on that job yesterday, why don’t I have 10 resumes in my inbox yet?

Experienced Recruiters will learn to manage expectations on both sides (I hope) but I’ve met some people whose expectations simply cannot be met.

We found you the right person, you treated them like shit

Recruiters typically have a rebate period, so if they place a candidate and they don’t stay past 3-6 months, they have to replace the role or refund some/all of the fee.

When this happens, some companies will blame the Recruiter for placing the wrong person. But sometimes, that’s not the case at all.

The Recruiter may have recommended someone else more. The Recruiter may have been surprised with the person you decided to hire.

Or the Recruiter may have fully agreed with the hire and then when they spoke to their candidate, found out that as a Hiring Manager you’re a Narcissistic Micro Managing child who no one wants to work for, who miss sold the role and company to them and while you acted like the floofiest sheep during the interviews, you turned into a vicious wolf the day they started.

It’s easy to blame the Recruiter when this happens but deep down inside, you and your therapist know that you’re the one to blame. Don’t have a therapist you say? Not surprised.

You make me want to quit Recruitment and move to a cabin in the woods and not want to deal with people again

I think this one is pretty self explanatory.

Recruiters, if I missed any of your common frustrations then please DM them to me.