Within the last month, I’ve had 5 recruiters contact me regarding jobs that I might be interested in. Some of them left voice messages, asking me to call back, and some of them emailed me about these jobs, which is fine by me. I’m what you would consider a passive job seeker; I’m happy with where I am right now, but since I’m on contract and I’m looking for job security, a full time offer would be hard to pass by.
Out of these 5 recruiters, I went to interviews with 2 recruiters, talked to 1 of them on the phone, and exchanged emails with 2 others. Let’s break down how these went:
Recruiter 1
I went to an interview with the recruiter at one of the offices. This was quite a large and well known recruiting company. The recruiter asked me questions about my background and experiences, then asked me to do a computer test on my choice of subject. I chose ASP.NET, and surprised the recruiter when I got an 89 in 15 minutes (this was a 40 minute test that according to the recruiter most candidates scored in the 70′s). She was quite jovial and told me that she’d definitely propose my name to some of the positions that would come along. (There was a full time opportunity at th e time, but it was too far away for me to commute, so I declined this one at that meeting)
After 2 weeks of not hearing from her, I emailed her just to follow up on the situation. No reply came, so I just emailed her again after another week. Again, no reply up until now.
Recruiter 2
This person emailed me and said that she might have a position that suited my skills. She asked if I was willing to meet her and discuss this. I agreed, and we met at a coffee shop for about 45 minutes or so. She gave me the name of the company, and said that she’d forward my resume to that company, hoping to set up an interview soon.
I emailed her a couple of things the day later and she replied quickly. The interesting part here is that after a few days not hearing from her, I again followed up with an email asking about the status of the application. I left that at about a week or two, and since I didn’t get a reply, sent out another email asking politely whether I’ve been rejected. Surprise, surprise, no reply up till now.
Recruiter 3
I’ve dealt with these guys before, and they seem to be quite unorganized, since I once received 2 calls from different recruiters within the same company, and once I sent my resume back to one of them, the other one still hadn’t noticed. Oh well, this time he called me with a great opportunity, as he said, and that I’d be a marginal fit since I lacked some of the qualities.
Calls back and forth within a week’s time (again, I had to talk to another recruiter within the company, and he actually called me back the next week, asking the same questions as the last … short term memory loss anyone?), and after not hearing from anybody the following week, I fired up a friendly email asking about the status of the application. The guy said he’d follow up, and let me know. No reply since…
Recruiters 4 and 5
Sent me emails about possible fits. I traded email back and forth, again with promises from them that they’d get back to me on the status. Well, do I even have to tell you what happened?
So, that’s my experience with recruiters the past month. I don’t really expect them to get me an interview or the job, but courtesy would say at least to get back to me on what happens right? Or am I being too demanding here? A simple email saying that the company has decided not to interview me, or letting me know that there’s been a delay isn’t too hard to do is it?
Asking me to talk to them, go to interviews, submit resumes etc, and then having no follow up after just seems unprofessional. I know there are many recruiters who care about candidates, and will keep in touch just so there are no bridges burnt, but my experience these last months have been quite irritating.
Technorati tags: Recruiters, Courtesy
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