I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the pains of recruiting. But there’s one result of all the pain that’s . . . well painful . . .
One of the things I experience in coaching, writing, and speaking on jobs is that people are rarely happy with recruiters and HR in general. They’re upset they didn’t get jobs, they aren’t happy (understandably) with the system, and this often gets taken out on the poor sod who has to tell them they didn’t get the job. In short, people often have some Hate Rage for recruiters.
It’s easy to blame the economy, but that’s abstract. Politics is the same. Hating the companies themselves is old hat. But when I’ve talked to people about recruiters and HR, I get a lot of negative feelings about them, expressed quite verbally and colorfully.
Recruiters? They know this. They know people aren’t happy. part of their job literally involves doing things that will get them hated for no good reason.
Try that on for a giant pile of annoying.
It’s not fair to them, but really, it’s not easy. A huge amount of their job is rejecting people, not hiring people, and finding more people who are, by the odds, not getting hired. A lot of the job of a recruiter is rejection.
People don’t really cut them enough slack as far as I’m concerned. But they live with it.
JOB SEEKER TIPS:
- Just be nice to the recruiters. Really, because there’s enough people probably being jerks to them.
HELP OUT RECRUITERS:
- Part of a recruiter’s job is rejecting people. you may be able to help them communicate better with the rejected if they’re rejecting people in your profession or similar professions.
GEEK EXTRA:
- I’d like to see a website about “recruiter confessions,” including how recruiters take rejecting people.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.