It's good to talk! Why you should want to talk to recruiters...

“Send me the job description and I’ll get back to you if it’s interesting” is the one phrase that recruiters hear all day long and hate. Why? Well because it’s like playing the lottery. You only have a very small chance of success.

So why do recruiters always want to speak to you? Well it’s because we don’t know that much about you (even when we already have your CV!) and obviously our clients pay us to be the first level of filtering so both they and you should benefit from more accurate matches.

I think you would all agree that your CV does not tell a recruiter everything that we need to know about you. Your skill set, desires, career plan, dislikes, salary requirements, etc… it only scratches the surface. It’s the same the other way around with job descriptions.

The reality is that at any one point in time a recruiter will be working with approx. 10 different client requirements in roughly similar fields. On top of that they will have a wide network of clients that they will be constantly thinking about whilst speaking with candidates.

Without having that conversation you are limiting yourself to a Yes/No on one opportunity rather than opening yourself up to multiple opportunities at any one point in time and countless more for the future.

Whenever we have new opportunities we always think within our network as to who might be suitable, long before the position is advertised or candidates are searched for. So the better the relationship you have with the recruiter the more likely we are to think about you for all of those positions that are not on the open market.

And for those people who “don’t have the time” to speak… well then I guess a job search is not too high on your priority list. Everyone can find 5-10min at some point in the next couple of days, it’s just a question of desire. If you’re serious about finding the right career option for you, it’s a good investment of your time.