Magic Pot of Jobs

So was that title confusing enough? Jason Alba makes some very thoughtful points about follow-up from recruiters and what expectations everyone should have of each other during the process. The commenters make some excellent counter-points as well.

The thing that struck me as I was reading through the whole thing is this idea that returning a phone call or email is a “basic courtesy” and that when it doesn’t happen, someone isn’t getting something they’re entitled to. While I agree that returning phone calls and emails is a nice, even courteous thing to do, I find myself disagreeing very strongly that a response to an unsolicited phone call or email is actually all that basic a courtesy to which everyone is entitled.

I mean, think about it. Do you return the call of every telemarketer or sales person who leaves a message in your voicemail? I know you don’t respond to every unsolicited email you get. We all- jobseeker, recruiter, and everyone else- return calls when we think that doing so is a good use of our time. That’s not rude; it’s just practical.

That’s not to say that we’ll only return calls in order to directly and immediately benefit ourselves (although that’s certainly how some people return messages), it’s just that we all make choices about how to respond to phone calls and emails in the way that makes the most sense for our personal priorities, whatever those may be.

So how can you give yourself the best chance of being a caller/emailer that’s on the priority list if you’ve never worked with me before? Here are a few tips that will help you get on my personal priority list. I suspect these tips will help you with other recruiters, too:

- Give me complete information. I get random messages all the time from people whose voicemail just says, “My name is John Smith. I’m looking for a job. My telephone number is 555-1212.” I have a very specialized recruiting practice, so the simple fact that you’re looking for a job doesn’t actually help me all that much. All that message does is tell me that you’re a poor communicator. It’s not the way to get a call back from me. “My name is John Smith, and I’m a [web designer/plumber/forklift driver/salesperson] looking for a new job. My number is…” will increase your chances of getting a call back from me, even if what you do isn’t what I do. Maybe I happen to know someone who needs forklift drivers.

- Make sure that I can actually get your contact information from the message. That means you should repeat the number, slowly and clearly, at least twice, and spread it out in a couple of places in the message. If I have to sit there and puzzle out whether you said “five” or “nine,” you’re probably not getting a call back. This goes double if you’re calling from a cell phone, which have a tendency to cut out right at a critical moment, like while you’re leaving me your number.

- Tell me who/what referred you. People referred to me by a colleague or friend will always get their calls returned faster. Even if you’re calling because you heard my company’s ad on the radio, I’m still more likely to call you back than if you hadn’t told me that. After all, I’ve heard those ads too, and I know what kind of response they’re supposed to elicit. If you call me based on those ads, I’ve got at least an educated guess about how I can help you.

- Be articulate and use proper English. The person who sends me an unsolicited resume with “hi i was told send my resume to you” isn’t getting a response. Sorry. I don’t have to have perfect comma usage from everyone, and I can certainly be understanding about English not being your first language, but if English is your native language, there’s no excuse for not using complete sentences.

One other thing, while we’re on the topic of priorities. While I do need to talk to job seekers in order to fill my open jobs and in that way our priorities are aligned, your job search is never going to be as high priority to ME as it is to YOU. After all, it’s your paycheck at stake, not mine. I have to develop a candidate pool in order to be successful in the long term, but as others have correctly stated, my immediate priority is the jobs on my desk, while your immediate priority is getting a job for YOU. So if you aren’t hearing back from me right away, by all means call again. If your call doesn’t mesh with my priorities one day, it might a week later, but by then I might be working on so much other stuff that I don’t remember your call. So try a couple of times before giving up on a recruiter- we generally try at least a couple of times before giving up on a candidate, after all.