Every Jobseeker Should Be a Recruiter for a Day

Editor's comments: I want to welcome first time guest blogger Janine Truitt. This is a powerful article filled with heart, humility and wisdom. I believe it's a must read for all! As a reminder, all the posts to this blog can be found on the The 1% Edge Portable Coach App under the HR Tab:  #hr #Shrm #hiring #recruiting #jobsearch

Every Jobseeker Should Be a Recruiter for a Day

A Walk in the Shoes of a Recruiter...

Recruiters are getting a bad rap these days. They don’t get back to candidates. They don’t take enough time to read resumes. They don’t have half a brain to think outside of the box and give every candidate a fighting chance at landing a job. How can a professional so crucial to both the employer and jobseeker be so useless and unfeeling?

Every recruiter has been a jobseeker at one time or another in their career, so they have a pretty decent idea of the ordeal that it is. However, every jobseeker has not been a recruiter, so what do they know about being one and the challenges they face on a daily basis? The truth is the average jobseeker doesn’t know much about recruiting, being recruiter and/or anything having to do with recruitment.

Recruitment and searching for a job have some things in common. Jobseekers are trying to fit in with a company and recruiters are trying to find the right fit for the employer. In this regard recruiters and jobseekers agree. Beyond this commonality, there is little that the two agree on. Jobseekers generally hold the opinion that they should be considered and/or interviewed for any job that they think they are qualified for. Recruiters on the other hand, don’t see it this way. You either qualify or you don’t in the eyes of a recruiter. Recruiters are not clairvoyants. They cannot conjure up knowledge, skills, and abilities to make a jobseeker qualify for a position. In their heart of hearts they would like to have a bevy of vacancies open to fill with wonderful, qualified jobseekers-but alas this is not the case.

If every jobseeker were a recruiter for at least a day they would learn a few things about “the process” that would surprise, shock and numb them. If every jobseeker were a recruiter for a day they would know that there are never enough jobs for the amount of talented jobseekers you encounter. The jobseeker would see that for every 20 applicants they receive on a given opening that it is quite likely the hiring manager will only want to see 5-6 best qualified out of that pool. Jobseekers would also know that the recruiter’s hands are often tied.

For example, a recruiter may post a job, but in some circumstances your resume was never reviewed, because the hiring manager’s neighbor who has no education or skills to do the job has already filled it. Yup, that’s politics for you. The jobseeker might also be interested to know that a recruiter’s inability to follow-up or give closure has absolutely nothing to do with you or their inability for that matter. Many times it means that the hiring manager has attended to other tasks and has ignored the last ten emails the recruiter sent for updates and feedback.  How many times can a recruiter string you along with the same script? It’s an uncomfortable position to be in. You see it is more like, “I am ashamed that I have nothing of substance to tell you," from a recruiter’s perspective than "I’m blatantly keeping you in the dark about your status.”

A jobseeker that spends the day working as a recruiter, particularly in a federal contractor setting will not be released to the drudgery that can be job seeking without hearing about the tedium that is the OFCCP. Indeed you will hear this acronym ad nauseum and it will make your job for that day much harder.

While well-intentioned on both fronts, you and the OFCCP will have a love/hate affair in which you will constantly be charged with considering not only the best qualified but the minimally qualified as well. Why you ask? The answer is because you are righting the wrongs of every discriminatory employer that ever existed. If you’re the “Robin Hood” type you’ll enjoy this but if you’re a recruiter you will walk on egg shells all the time. If the regulatory and compliance stuff hasn’t exhausted you completely by this time; surely your workload will get you to the finish line.

You forgot that this is a company with multiple sites and an ever shrinking budget- which is why there are two of you recruiters/jobseekers on the team. That means both of you are handling a minimum of 75-100 jobs a piece. Oh and please don’t forget that they throw some union jobs and generalist duties in there for kicks. Get ahead of those job postings and get on top of those phone screenings and for God’s sake make sure you call the 50+ applicants that are screaming that they haven’t heard back from you since their interviews.

Welcome jobseeker! This is a day in the life of a recruiter. I’m not saying that there aren’t some less than stellar recruiters out there. However, I write this article with an intention to open your eyes to the reality of a recruiter’s job. Sympathy is not expected. Empathy should be par for course.

A recruiter’s job lives and dies by the candidate. That is- if the recruiter cannot find suitable candidates for their positions they are doomed. This is an important reminder, because it implies that recruiters are not out to sabotage your job search as proposed by some jobseekers and career professionals. You need them and they need you. It is a symbiotic partnership.

I urge all jobseekers to think before they react the next time you don’t get a timely call or response. Stop and remind yourself of the day you acted as a recruiter (via this post) and what that entails. Breathe, be gracious and give the recruiter the benefit of the doubt. 

About Our Guest Blogger - Janine N. Truitt 
Janine N. Truitt is an HR Professional based in Long Island, NY. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Hofstra University and five human resources certifications from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Her career in HR/Recruitment spans eight years in industries such as pharmaceuticals, scientific and healthcare. Her expertise is in Recruitment, HR Technology, Talent Management, Employee Relations, and HR Policy/Compliance. Over the course of her career she has hired, coached, and mentored hundreds of candidates. In 2011, she launched a blog called “The Aristocracy of HR”, an HR blog that was created to discuss Talent Management triumphs, blunders, and best practices. She is a regular contributor for ERE.net , an online go-to source for corporate recruiters. In 2012, she is due to launch, an HR consulting firm specializing in Talent Management and HR Technology consulting/advisory services. Follow her blog "The Aristocracy of HR" at http://hr.toolbox.com/blogs/aristocracy-hr/ . Connect with her on LinkedIn and Google+. Follow her tweets on Twitter @CzarinaofHR.

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