[The following are excerpts from a recruiter responding to an applicant who said he was qualified for a position the recruiter was working to fill. Although written in 2004, it is applicable today. This offers a side of the job search business, from the recruiter perspective, that many of us don't see. Recruiters have been given poorer ratings in the last few years because job seekers find them unresponsive. Read this recruiter response, then consider that some recruiters get 300 or more unsolicited resumes and 50 or more phone messages from job seekers every day.]
I apologize for the length of this email. I want you to understand where I am coming from and why.
You don’t have to tell me how many stellar people are unemployed or unhappy in their jobs. I receive as many as 300 resumes a day and I acknowledge each and every one of them. I do my utmost to help people as much as I can, but I am a one-person office and I’m working seven days a week 12 hours a day. My last day off was Christmas. My next will be the 4th of July. I know what it is like to be in the search mode I was downsized from Corporate America at the beginning of the ‘90’s recession.
I was unemployed for a long time and fell into recruiting by accident. I know what the candidate feels. I was there! Therefore, I hate telling people “sorry” but your background isn’t a match, and then they look to me for help them find one that may be. They want just a half an hour of my time, which if you times that by, at least, 60 requests a day you know what I would be doing. I wish there were more of me to go around. How does one pick and choose?
The past three years have taken its toll on the recruiting industry. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, last year (2003)about 1,500 headhunting firms, or about 12.5 percent of the industry, went under. Corporate America still believes the candidate pool is adequate from which to draw without turning to outside help such as retaining a recruiter. Our economic recovery is still weak. This coupled with that is the fact that offshore outsourcing (which will ultimately be the death of America as we know it today) is now sweeping the nation I don’t see much improvement in the near future for my industry. Last year 6 of my esteemed colleagues went out of business or under or both. One ended up living in his car – so you see I don’t need to be told about desperate people in desperate times. I’m closer to the situation than most.
These days, the proliferation of resumes has reached overwhelming levels -- and the finger pointing at the perceived causes of the problem is everywhere. This wasn't the case just a few of years ago, when resume flow was down to a trickle for most positions. Now ask recruiters, and most say they don't have enough time to review all the inbound resumes they receive -- let alone notify candidates if they are unqualified.
But one of the major causes of resume overload is the candidates themselves. Most candidates no longer read job descriptions. Job ads have become a lot like horoscopes: every applicant thinks the job description describes them perfectly. Even if there isn't a fit at all, many job seekers proscribe to the philosophy, “Oh, I can do that or if I'm not right for this position, maybe there's something else within the company that I'm good for." Armed with an Internet connection, a list of job boards, and a Word document of their resume, a job seeker can crank out about a 100 job applications in less than four hours. This is especially true in the current market, where mass layoffs, outsourcing and bankruptcies only add to candidate desperation and leave them with plenty of time on their hands to increase resume submittals.
As I tried to explain to you in one of my messages the requirements for these positions are very, very industry specific. The candidate who sent me a resume has a stellar background but it is 360 degrees out from what my client wants. There is no learning curve available. It’s hit the ground running.
Yes, I would love to help people. Nothing gives me greater pleasure, but in this situation I must put the needs of my client first. |
