Career Confidence

19Recruiters Hate Me; I Am Okay with That

Let me preface this chapter by saying that I count many recruiters and headhunters as friends, allies, and resources for our resume clients, and many of these folks are good, hard-working, and respectable people. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know that I have a bug up my craw for negligent, ignorant, lazy, and rude recruiting processes and recruiters.

I am by no means saying that recruiting is not a hard job. So many candidates, so little time, and all that. But my biggest pet peeve in the hiring process is lack of communication and rude, disinterested, or inconsiderate people, and that is mostly aimed at recruiters who drop the ball, string people along, and treat them like dog doodoo instead of worthy candidates.

Recruiters get blamed for a lot of the ghosting that happens in the interview process, and rightly so. It is their job to keep candidates informed, it is their job to maintain open levels of communication, and it is their job to let you know that you did not get the position so you can move on. While I do, from time to time, understand that recruiters can feel overwhelmed, just like the rest of us, I do not believe there is any valid excuse to ignore any candidate who has, in good faith, put in the time and effort to go through an interview process.

So, that said, many of my LinkedIn posts are designed to communicate how important it is that candidates feel seen, valued, and heard throughout the hiring process, and when ...