Dear Mike:

Recently I came across this great opportunity with a company that I highly respect and I submitted my resume via the organization’s job portal. It has now been a week and I haven’t heard back.

It is really frustrating for me in that I know that I could do this job and it is not the first time that I haven’t gotten a call from a recruiter after applying. In fact, my experience with recruiters hasn’t been that great and I am losing faith in the process.

Are all recruiters this bad?

Thanks,

Schroeder

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Hi Schroeder,

Glad to hear that you are staying active in the job market, evaluating opportunities, and putting your credentials in front of several hiring organizations. I agree that the process can definitely become tedious but would encourage you to keep your foot on the gas and continue to press on in spite of this experience.

However, I can completely understand your frustration in not hearing back from recruiters.

“Here I am with the right credentials at the right time for the right opportunity……..and no one is calling!“. As a former job-seeker myself, I too have had similar lament in applying online.

To offer some perspective I would suggest that it would be practical and perhaps even mentally beneficial to divorce from the expectation of a call-back after submitting a resume online. For one, job postings can receive hundreds and at times thousands of applications and simply put no organization can staff a team to call back every single applicant. At a minimum, one should at least expect an automated email response that the application has been received, but beyond that one is going to need to do the work to separate their candidacy from the onslaught of applicants.

But wait you say, “Mike, I am not like all the others. I am the perfect candidate!“

And absolutely that may be true, so let’s discuss how to best work within this dynamic.

In a best-case scenario, one should build relationships with recruiters while we are in a role and not necessarily seeking a new opportunity and because of that investment, we will have a personal connection that we can call upon during our true time of need. But while that is sound advice, less than 10% of folks proactively invest in this type of proactive relationship building. And by the way, a good recruiter will follow the same advice and actively have proactive conversations with in-seat executives without a specific job opportunity to discuss.

But I digress…..

So assuming in this case there is no previous relationship with this company and your goal is to receive a call back on a specific opportunity, I would always recommend contacting the recruiter, hiring manager, or even members of the executive team directly. Ideally – this would be done before and perhaps in lieu of navigating the online application black hole, but also could be done in conjunction if you are committed to continuing to apply through a company’s employment portal or job board.

Yes – I am recommending that beyond applying online that you actually email or call the recruiter, the hiring manager, or even the CEO. Worse case, your additional reach-out is ignored, the best case is you actually get a call back. And if you do this, you will be in the minority of applicants who take this one extra step beyond just applying online.

Now if you email or call someone within an organization and you do not get a person-to-person response, that is absolutely inexcusable. In a paraphrase of one of my favorite verses, then shake the dust off your feet and move on to the next town!

Keep the faith. I’m rooting for you!

Mike

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TNCR Community – what advice would you add to this thread? Do you have a perspective that you can share? Have a career question for Mike? Email him directly at mike.burgett@burgateglobal.com