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Ask HN: Do recruiters purposefully ignore you after a rejection?

3 points by throwaway8365 ↗ HN
There are valid reasons to want to talk to the recruiter after a rejection. For example, you might not have passed the bar for a certain seniority level, but might be willing to re-apply for a lower level. Or you might want to ask the cool-off period they expect before attempting to apply again.

I've had a couple of rejections now and asked just those things, but got crickets in response.

The naive in me thinks that "recruiters probably have massive inboxes clogged with inbound applicants and didn't see your message". The cynic/tinfoil thinks "there's probably a 'reject' button that once pressed sends the canned 'thank you for your time' email while setting up an email filter to send your messages straight to the spam folder".

I guess reality must be somehwere in between. What are your thoughts? Is there any industry standard in this, or is it really up to different recruiters in different companies at different times do different things?

4 comments

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gregjor
Recruiters (the good ones) spend significant time finding candidates and putting them in front of employers. They have relationships with the employers, sometimes exclusive placement deals. After an unsuccessful interview the employer usually (in my experience) talks to the recruiter about why the candidate was not suitable so neither party wastes time -- the recruiter can use that information to send candidates more likely to get hired, which is the only way recruiters get paid.

Recruiters will put a candidate to the bottom of the pile if they flunk multiple interviews, or badly bomb one. That embarrasses the recruiter -- they lose credibility with their actual customer (the employer) if they keep sending unqualified candidates and idiots who show up for interviews late in gym shorts and a Metallica t-shirt who don't know what the company they're interviewing at does (actual experience I had). A good recruiter will tell you how to do better next time. They probably won't send you back to the same employer for another try right away, though. A good recruiter can prepare candidates for the interview, the bad ones just throw mud at the wall to see what sticks.

throwaway8365
Great points. I appreciate it.

>and idiots who show up for interviews late in gym shorts and a Metallica t-shirt who don't know what the company they're interviewing at does

This made me smile. Thanks for brightening my day!

PaulHoule
This. There is a big difference in the quality of recruiters.

It's a problem that the normal hiring process is an elimination process, people who are struggling to hire at a company frequently have a hard time getting out of the elimination mindset.

A recruiter who is being paid on commission has a good reason to (1) get somebody hired, because otherwise he doesn't get paid, and (2) get somebody hired for the highest possible salary because the commission is proportional to the salary.

Contrast that to the typical hiring manager who usually hates job interviews as much as the average interviewee. That person would like to get it over with and move on to something else, but she gets paid for all the time spent interviewing whether or not anybody is hired. They're lacking in urgency.

Thus a good recruiter acts your wingman and is going to try to protect you from all the bullshit reasons you won't get hired.

gregjor
I assumed we're talking about external or third-party recruiters, who get paid a commission based on starting salary. Larger companies have their own internal recruiters on salary, and may also use external recruiters.

You're right that recruiters range from clueless to very valuable to have in your corner. When you find a competent recruiter with industry connections keep that relationship -- take the recruiter to lunch now and then. It's a low bar to entry career (like programming) so of course you get a lot of bad recruiters just throwing people at jobs and hoping for the best.

Some hiring managers go through a lot of candidates trying to pick the best one. Others (I will guess most) will hire the first candidate they like, so you may not get the interview because a good-enough candidate got there before you. Interviewing is tedious for hiring managers, as you mention -- I have never met anyone who really likes spending time conducting interviews.

You should ask the recruiter how many jobs the employer is trying to fill, so they can propose you for multiple openings or similar openings. Recruiters work from job orders they get from employers, but they also usually have access to other open job orders at the same employer.