I may take some heat for this post – particularly from my boss. But after reading @AvidCareerist‘s post “15 Reasons Corporate Recruiters Won’t Talk to You“, I didn’t see much of a choice but to share my reasons why returning calls to recruiters is rarely, if ever, at the top of my priority list. Or why I do not have time to post positions on Purdue’s online job board for recruiters.
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely agree with everything Donna, aka @AvidCareerist, had to say. Job seekers commonly assume that the only thing corporate recruiters have to do is, well, recruit candidates. So not the case.
That said, recruiters, job seekers, alumni, students, faculty, if you have ever wondered why I didn’t return your phone call within an hour, it may be because I am:
1. Providing career counseling or job search assistance to between 8-20 students per week, depending on the time of year.
2. Assisting students during drop-in hours which consumes 6 of the 40 hours I work each week in the office.
3. Overseeing my institution’s post-graduation survey which involves collecting data from approximately 4,400 recently graduated alumni each May.
4. Managing my department’s social media presence as best I can.
5. Demonstrating LinkedIN to a group of students to enhance their networking skills.
6. Running resume search requests for recruiters.
7. Sitting in a meeting. (Trust me, I’d rather be returning your phone call.)
8. Overseeing and mentoring 2 interns and 17 student ambassadors that work for our office.
9. Writing content for my department’s website.
10. Requesting reports from multiple departments, colleges, and offices to collate the data you requested on your uber-long voicemail about the number of women in the computer science program and the percentage of under-represented minority students in the nine engineering programs.
11. Speaking to a class about the importance of managing your online presence or how to network effectively at a career fair or rocking the on-site interview or any other number of topics.
12. Assisting recruiters on their on-campus interview day or at any of the 36 career fairs held during the academic year.
13. Eating lunch…at my desk…while responding to emails and trying to reach inbox zero!
14. Aggregating, cleaning, and analyzing data to precisely track the number of student interviews held by college, by major as well as the exact number of unique employers that visit campus each academic year.
15. Planning any of the multiple programs that are in constant development to serve our student population.
However, the main reason I have not returned your phone call is because you left me a voicemail while I was doing any of the fifteen (or more) activities listed above. If you desire a quick response, simply email me.
We should all keep in mind that our jobs are multi-dimensional. While it may seem recruiters exist to serve job seekers, they have multiple other roles as do most of us. Take that in to consideration the next time you lament about how unavailable recruiters are. Think outside the box, take some initiative, and instead of wasting your time complaining that you can’t get a recruiter to take your phone call, use that time to be productive in your job search.
