Recruiting In Yoga Pants

Dressing up is for suckers

Category: sourcing

RECRUITER OUTREACH! Hey Recruiters! How’s YOUR Messaging?

May 26, 2023 /

Ok I’ll admit it. I’m guilting of SENDING this tired old message: 

“I came across your profile and was very impressed with your background! I’d love to talk to you about opportunities!”

Ugh. How embarrassing.

Here’s the thing recruiters. When we’re initiating contact, we have a responsibility for making the message worth responding to. Of course not all messages deserve (or will get) a response, and that’s ok! But we still need to at least put some effort in. 

The biggest challenge for many recruiters is balancing PERSONALIZATION with VOLUME. This is hard! I get it’s not always possible to spend tons of time on every single individual message. However, candidates don’t care about your volume problems. They care about getting messages meant for them that are worth replying to.

Instead of preaching at you about this, I’m going to tell you exactly how I do it.

Campaigns!

I actually do like automation when done correctly. I have a CRM that I can create “campaigns” in, meaning I can select candidates and start an email drip campaign. I can just set it and forget it, until I get a response – which then turns into a personalized recruiting process. I do it like this:

Start with a specific role

I don’t randomly reach out to people for coffee chats or just to hop on a call. I have stuff to do – most importantly, fill these damn reqs! If you’re getting an email from me, it’s because I think you might be a good fit for one of my open positions. By having a clear target, I can also share important stuff like compensation, location, and what makes the role cool (check out my pal Nic’s excellent post on this topic!)

So I have my list of folks I think might be good, and I will do small batches – maybe 10 at a time – so I can tweak the email to personalize a bit (who wants the same generic email EVERYBODY got? Boring!!) My first email goes something like this:

“Hi (prospect),

Amy from (Company), reaching out for the nefarious purposes of stealing you from your current job and convincing you to come do (cool stuff) here! I checked out your (resume, profile, blog, whatever) and thought there might be a fit based on (specific thing).

I don’t want to assume you’d be open to a change, but in case my timing is right, here’s a link to the role and (something cool, compensation, etc). You can learn more about (company, team, project) here (include link, articles, whatever).

Most importantly, I’d love to learn more about what kind of work lights you up, in case I have other positions now or in the future that might be worth talking about.  

You can reach me any time at (contact info) or feel free to book something directly at (calendar link). I look forward to connecting with you!

Me“

My goal here is to give enough information to actually act on, but also keep it short enough with a clear call to action that prospects can respond quickly if they want.

2nd Outreach

Ok maybe that wasn’t exciting enough for you. Or you missed it. Or just didn’t want to respond. Some candidates have actually told me they purposely wait for a 2nd or even 3rd email to make sure the recruiter is serious!! WHO KNEW?? So if the first email doesn’t get a response, number 2 goes something like this:

“Hi (prospect),

Hey there, following up on my email last week. I’d love to chat with you about a position I’m recruiting for – here’s the info (add job posting link, data included in first email) I sent – I’d love your feedback on it even if my timing is off!

We recently announced/shared (something cool), you can read about that here (include link or articles, depending on what you’re sharing)

If you’re open to hearing more, would love to connect live! You can reach me at (contact info) or book time whenever is convenient at (calendar link).

Thanks,

Me“

My goal here is to simply send a friendly reminder with an extra tidbit that may help convince someone to talk to me – or at least tell me no thanks. I’ll accept closure!

3rd & Final Outreach

Ok this is where I lose some recruiters. I am personally not interested in harassing people. I will send 3 emails, and if I get nothing back, I can take a hint. I have other prospects to move on to and I am not interested in wasting my time nor do I want to bug a prospect! It goes a little something like this:

Hey (prospect),

Just closing the loop with you. We’re still looking to hire for (role), but totally understand if my timing is off or the role just isn’t right for you at this stage of your career. If anything changes on your end please get in touch! If you know anyone in your network who might be interested in hearing about the role, please feel free to forward my info and I’m happy to share more!

Thanks for letting me invade your inbox – happy to connect in the future if you’re open.

Me”

I have a roughly 80% response rate to the 3rd email. That’s damn good for cold recruiter outreach.

I know some folks may think this is boring, or too focused on the role, but here’s my thought process. I’m trying to RECRUIT someone. They know it, I know it, why would I pretend this is anything but an attempt to get them in process with my company? Secondly, these are TEMPLATES – I fully expect anyone who wants to try this method to spice up their messages. My ACTUAL messages are a little funnier and include some cool stuff not shared here – give yourself permission to get creative!

Check out this week’s video HERE

I Tested Resume Scanners So You Don’t Have To

February 10, 2023 /

I had a sneaking suspicion these sites were not all they claim. I have definitely had the privilege of being referred to MOST roles I’ve had in my career (recruiting can be funny like that) but I STILL needed to have a viable, story telling resume that left no doubt I was worth at least an interview.

Reminder – the purpose of the resume is to GET YOU AN INTERVIEW – that’s all.

Alrighty. I tried TWO popular resume scanners, and here are my results.

First up, landing a job at Google.

Now I knew a lot of recruiters at Google but none of them referred me. I had applied at some point in the past, I can’t even remember when – and they contacted me! Now did they contact me directly from my application or did they find me in a search? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, because THEY made contact with ME – based on (I can only assume) the information they had in their database – which is the resume I gave them at some point.

See for yourself how I got a “low match” for the job I was ultimately hired for:

Low match?? Let’s find out WHY!
Surely I did better on Hard skills though…?
Plot twist, I did not do better. Let me guess… if I PAY I’ll get the greyed out skills I missed?
Soft skills – in all my career I’ve never searched for “passion” as a keyword. Ever. Never ever.
I did not “bring” it. I’ve brought shame on my whole family.
Oh… I’ve got some negative words for you.
We’ll never know because I refuse to pay for this. Sad face.

Somehow I got an interview ANYWAY in spite of my terrible “low match” resume. When it was time to explore something new, I was referred by a pal to my current role – so many of you may think “oh it doesn’t count! You were REFERRED!” well friends, let me remind you that my RESUME still had to show I was a fit for the job. We don’t do “courtesy interviews” – ain’t nobody got time for that. Here’s what happened when I tried the resume I sent against the role I was ultimately hired for on a different scanning site:

Ok ok – slightly better than half. I’ve beaten my previous high scores on multiple sites!
Word doc, actually. And this feels like points for putting your name on your paper in grade school….
LOL @ education. No it doesn’t, and more importantly, NO I DON’T.
File under “obvious keywords for a recruiter” – hit the only ones that matter
If only I said “Management” one more time…
Y’all… this can’t be serious. I definitely referenced working with business leaders like “VPs and Directors”
Did “proactively” and “proactive” cancel each other out here? WHAT IS HAPPENING?
I’m all about measurable results. I am skeptical.

SO WHAT’S A JOB SEEKER TO DO??

I will NOT discourage you from using one of these sites. You’ll notice I didn’t name names or link back – because I won’t ENDORSE them either. If you find value in this exercise, please knock yourself out. There are limited free versions that my help you – kinda like a placebo effect. Heck you can even spend money on it if you really want to. I waste money on frivolous shit all the time – no judgement here.

Bottom line – these sites are ok at taking a guess at important keywords and telling you if you have them or not – and that’s about it. These don’t compare you to any other applicants. No spell check, no feedback on the story telling aspect or narrative… just…. words. Matching. Or not.

I recognize that for ME – having the privilege of knowing really really well how resumes are read (and by whom) it’s easy for me to skip sites like this. If you really feel stuck and your resume is just not getting it done, try a scan. See if you pick up any glaring inaccuracies or misses. Better yet – find a recruiter in your field, trusted colleague or even potential hiring manager who will read your resume and give you straight feedback. There are FREE resume review sites on both LinkedIn and Facebook – I’m a moderator for both. Staffed by volunteer recruiters, you can get honest feedback with NO strings attached from a real live human who reviews resumes for a living.

Check out the accompanying video over on my YouTube channel HERE.

Good luck out there y’all.

How Recruiters Use AI For Sourcing!

December 23, 2022 /

Well I started some shit on LinkedIn recently. 🙂

AI in Recruiting is such a hot topic. Some folks think that AI should do it all and recruiters are completely unnecessary. Weirdly, some of those same people get all salty about us using technologies to do our jobs more efficiently.

(I swear the Venn diagram of people who know nothing about recruiting and complain the most about recruiting is a damn circle).

Back in my day we had to put ads in newspapers, fliers on cars and call random strangers and ask if they want new jobs. It was total chaos. I remember checking the news for “business updates” and names of people getting promoted or moving to new companies. Then, the internet happened.

Suddenly we had access to information like never before! Once LinkedIn really picked up speed people (and their work history) was RIGHT THERE for us to read all about. Wild!

Fast forward several more years, technology continues to evolve and now we have AI, ML, decision trees, automation (to an extent) – it’s wild out there! But how is this stuff ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTED?

For me, it’s about SEARCH.

There are many great AI sourcing tools out there, but a personal favorite of mine is HireEZ. I’ve used it for years at several companies, and it really is a recruiter’s best friend!

Note – this is a completely separate process from reviewing incoming applicants. Completely. Different. Process.

HireEZ (or any other AI search tool) is a 3rd party app that MAY integrate with an ATS. Big question mark there, as it does depend on the configuration and what security allows. I have always used it as a stand alone tool for outbound recruiting. I have two specific processes I follow when starting a search:

Labor Market Insights

Before starting a search I will upload the job description into HireEZ and run some analytics. The tool will parse my job description, separating the title, industry, must haves and nice to haves, and make suggestions on other keywords or drop downs I may want to consider. Once I have made all my adjustments, I can pull labor market data including how many available prospects there are, rough estimates of compensation, even geographic hotspots for the kind of talent I’m seeking. If I get too few results, that can be an indicator that our requirements are too stringent and we should rework the JD.

Sourcing

I LOVE the AI sourcing feature in HireEZ. I can use a job description (a described above), write a boolean string, or simply select my criteria to start a search. Once I’m ready, the tool will recommend some calibration profiles based on what I’ve asked for. I can give a thumbs up or down along with feedback to help the tool “learn” what I really want. Then I can set up recurring searches that will continue to add more prospects to my search project. Set it and forget it!

But what about bias?

Like any other system, the bias is in the user. It’s up to ME to make the right choices when filtering and selecting search criteria. I am in complete control of WHAT I’m searching for and just as importantly how I engage with people I find.

Ok, you found people – now what?

Again it’s important to reiterate these are NOT RESUMES. HireEZ (and tools like it) pull publicly available data, turn it into a profile, and presents it to people like me who are searching. That’s it. NOT a resume (unless you’ve got on uploaded on your social profiles). Merely data that has been aggregated from Al Gore’s internet. Once we have enough info to decide we want to learn more, we can also leverage these tools for contact info and make super targeted outreach to convince you to talk to us.

NOW we can talk about specific roles, applying to positions, and getting you into the ATS for further consideration, interviews, and hopefully offers.

More in this week’s video HERE.

There’s a sucker born every minute. Some go into recruiting.

October 5, 2019 /

1997. I was attending a vocational school night classes in Lacey, WA (since bankrupt) in an attempt to learn how to type and be a receptionist. I had two little babies at home and I knew I need to get some training and make some money. Natalie (I can’t remember her last name) was the branch manager of our local Office Team. She came to speak with all of us students about “temping”, why we should consider signing up with Office Team after our training and we knew how to answer phones and file documents. She stood there in her branch manager suit, all polished and professional, and I knew in that moment – I wanted to be Natalie when I grew up.

So began my path to recruiting.

I signed to be a temp for Office Team, and spent several weeks covering the front desk while their receptionist was on parental leave. When I was offered a role as a Staffing Manager, I couldn’t run away fast enough. All the Staffing Managers I worked with went home crying every day – no way in hell I was signing up for that. Fast forward a few more months and I somehow networked my way into a recruiting gig for a local boutique firm hiring truck drivers. Thus began my recruiting career.

Twenty years later, I’m living the good life as a senior recruiter for a well known tech brand. I’ve learned SO much over the years, the most important lesson is that I’m actually really good at this. I often joke that I’ve been in recruiting so long that I literally cannot do anything else. Probably true, but besides the point.

In all my years I’ve seen disruptive new models come and go. There was the company that offered to pay you to speak to recruiters (it’s ok they’re working on a relaunch). The latest is a firm that is going to do some cool stuff with blockchain and prepaid visas. I listened to the amazing Chad and Cheese Podcast about this today and there was a reference to “Equifax for Resumes” which frankly freaked me the hell out.

Am I in a Black Mirror episode??

Y’all can read the posts and listen to the podcasts yourselves, but let me just say this – ALL of this seems to hinge on the willingness of job seekers to be, well, seeking a job. There’s also apparently a claim that the 5% fee received by the JOB SEEKER is enough for a so called passive individual to make a change. There’s also some discussion about how staffing agencies can actual leverage this tool – which is FASCINATING since the early premise seemed to be that staffing agencies suck or something (my words not theirs, simmer down internet folk).

Alrighty. All that, leading up to THIS – Turn Recruitment Into a Second Income.

leo dicaprio GIF

I’m CRYING, y’all.

So the basic premise (maybe?) is that you can do this really hard work on the side and by leveraging the fine folks behind this shiny new tool, make some side money. After all, You go and get a job requirement from a company, agree to your terms with them at a 20% fee.

That’s all! Just go get a job requirement. From a company. Get them to agree to your terms at 20% fee.

Easy peasy.

Sure, working with this outfit reduces your fee, but they also remove all the risk and challenges recruiters face and skip right to the money making part (absolutely THEIR words this time, y’all. You can’t make this shit up).

I gotta tell you my emotions are all over the place with this. I went from being mildly amused to pissed off to confused and now am squarely in the sit back and pop some popcorn camp. I think recruiting is BIG ENOUGH for all kinds of people to try all sorts of neat things and make great money doing it. What I DON’T like is anyone reducing my hard work to a simple transaction.

In a phrase, F*CK OFF.

I work REALLY hard to engage people who otherwise wouldn’t consider a job change. I consult all the time with managers, convincing them to take chances on people who may not look “right” on paper.  I constantly peel back the layers to understand the emotional currency of my candidates, and try to help them navigate the really hard, complex interview process at my company. I GIVE A SHIT about my clients and candidates. I did at my last several companies. I’ll do it again at the next one.

If you think you can distill all that hard emotional heavy lifting into signing up for a f*cking job board you don’t know recruitment.

Now – if your premise (which is what I took away from the podcast) is that you’re a supplement to recruiting firms / TA teams, that’s cool. But that’s not your premise, right…? You LITERALLY POSTED that recruiting is basically driving around and picking people up in your car.

To the founders, executives, writers, anyone involved that wants to discuss – let’s do it. Amy@recruitinginyogapants.com. I’m open to a conversation – I’ll give you my personal cell phone and we can talk all about it. We could even meet on the Recruiting Animal Show. Let’s talk about how I can make great money with no qualification. Surely you didn’t mean it to come across the way it did…

Right?

Metrics That Matter

July 12, 2019 /

Pull up a chair and grab a beverage kids, we’re diving in to METRICS!! Everyone’s FAVE subject especially if you suck at Excel and data makes your eyes glaze over (just me? oh, carry on then).

Waaaaay back in my agency days I was taught to dial the phone 100 times a day. That’s right. Pick up the handset, dial 100 different phone numbers in an effort to connect with at least 10 people. Out of those 10, you could hopefully find one qualified, interested candidate for your open role(s). Good times.

Fast forward to the internet where everyone’s a marketer. Lord save me from girls I went to high school with trying to sell me pink drinks and essential oils. Now it’s all about connects, retweets, and page likes. We still somehow / some way have to get CANDIDATES connected to HIRING MANAGERS, but there are still some die hard phone enthusiasts out there, God love them.

People are easier than ever to find, yet harder to engage. We have to rise above the noise and whatnot. This post though, isn’t about THAT. If you want more about how connect with prospects (or at least not send shitty inmails) check out this post. If you don’t believe me, hear straight from the source on this post. But come back because this is important, y’all.

Ok so METRICS! YAY! What should I REALLY be thinking about and measuring? How do I know I’m doing a good job? What the hell is a funnel anyway?

Here are the key measures of talent acquisition success, plus a true story to back it up – I’ll lay out definitions and rough process based on my completely biased yet accurate experience at multiple tech companies.

Pass Through Rates (PTRs) That Matter –

  • Submittals : Tech Screens
  • Tech Screens : Onsite Interview
  • Onsite Interview : Offer Extended
  • Offer Extend : Offer Accept

For our purposes, the candidate process looks like this –

  • Submittals – prospect has been fully vetted for interest / fit by a sourcer or recruiter
  • Tech screen – conversation between hiring manager or other qualified person and candidate
  • Onsite interview – you should know this one
  • Offer extend – I am giving you a letter with numbers on it
  • Offer accept – you like my letter and numbers
Here’s an example of what that might look like. For my visual people – 
I know what you’re thinking…  AMY! That’s a 50% DECLINE RATE! What the WHAT?
Yep. I thought so too. 
Once upon a time a young tech recruiter worked for a really cool team doing big important things at a giant company. Let’s call her Amy. She was invited to a VP level meeting where she was told the team needed to see MORE RESUMES. Amy panicked, thinking “but I’m so BUSY… I’m sending TONS of resumes… what the hell are they talking about?” 
Luckily Amy was SMART and Amy had DATA. Amy was able to prove that over the last 3 months resume submittals had actually INCREASED. 
(some data slightly changed to protect the innocent, but the percentages are ACCURATE)
Jan Feb Mar Totals PTR
Submittals 41 58 71 170
Tech Screens 34 50 66 150 88.24%
2nd Tech Screens 27 30 36 93 62.00%
Onsite 10 17 21 48 51.61%
Offer Extend 3 5 8 16 33.33%
Offer Accept 1 3 4 8 50.00%

Now Amy had a story to tell. 
Here’s what we learned – 
  • We were seeing lots AND LOTS of resumes. In fact, the pipeline is increasing month over month. We liked most of them enough to talk to them.
  • Our ratios were relatively strong, considering the expectations of the roles (variety of engineering/PM/data science roles across levels)
  • We actually had an extra step in the form of a 2nd tech screen – potentially a factor in timing, interview fatigue, or part of why we were trending above OS:OE PTRs
  • We were extending a decent # of offers and trending above company norms of 20-25%
  • CLOSING was our pain point
***Bonus Point – people were leaving US at various steps as well! That was explored further in later reporting***
Armed with this kind of information, you get to drive the narrative. In this case, we had a lengthy discussion around our accept rate, and decided we could live with it based on a number of factors. More on that in a future post. 
Bottom line is this – I went into a meeting where the expectation was I was going to rain more resumes into a leaky funnel without any real understanding of the metrics. I LEFT the meeting a strategic advisor who was able to create a clear, actionable plan based on market realities. I had a GREAT story.
What’s YOUR story?

Actually, You DON’T Want To Hire “The Best”

July 2, 2019 /

Of all the lies recruiters tell themselves this might be one of my faves. We only hire “the best”. We only engage with “the best” talent on behalf of our clients. We won’t consider less than “the best” for our open roles. In fact, someone looking to hire a recruiter recently told me “decent is a bad word to me”, as he only hires “the best”.

As I’m thinking about this post, I’m wracking my brain trying to remember a time a hiring manager said those words to me. “ONLY BRING ME THE BEST! NOTHING ELSE WILL DO!” I gotta tell you guys, I’m drawing a blank here. This is not to say leaders get it right all the time – but generally they know to caveat their requests with some specifics. In all my years of tech recruiting, we are usually looking for someone who –

  • writes clean code
  • has been part of or possibly led a team
  • solved large scale problems
  • has a relatively provable track record of success

Can I with any confidence say I’m going to find “the best” developer and convince them to take this role? Or “the best” manager to lead that team? What the hell does it even mean? Is it all just meaningless buzzwords we use to feel superior? If I let myself fall too far down the rabbit hole I have to wonder just who is holding the measuring stick for all this best-i-ness!! HOW CAN I KNOW???

Fun Fact – I can’t. And neither can you. There are certain things we can and should vet as part of the recruiting process. Can the person accomplish this thing? Check. Are they interested in doing said thing for my client? Check. Will they actually leave the current place they’re doing the thing and come do the thing here for the amount of money I can pay them? CHECK CHECK CHECK.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you might have yourself a hire! Now congratulate yourself on being a master of the recruiting universe and stop wondering if someone “better” is out there. Because they are. You will drive yourself absolutely bat shit crazy if you focus on only “the best” however you choose to define it.  I guarantee someone else involved in the process will have a whole ‘nother way to measure “best”.

How about we look at this a little differently, hmm? Start asking yourselves these questions –

  • is my prospect QUALIFIED (they can do the thing)
  • are they INTERESTED (willing to talk about doing the thing here)
  • can I AFFORD them (I can pay what it will cost for them to do the thing)
This is obviously the BARE MINIMUM of what we should be thinking about / discussing – but how differently does our recruiting approach look when we stop caring about subjective, silly qualifiers like “best” and focus on things we can actually measure? A simple change in mindset is so freeing. All of a sudden I can start focusing on what MATTERS and forget about pipeline that won’t fit my criteria, no matter how great. This is often a discussion when it comes to remote work – you can’t really say you want “the best” when you’re not willing to let people work from home. Or bring their cats to work. Or wear yoga pants. Someone, somewhere, is doing an AMAZING job at the thing, and you won’t hire them because you have this or that rule. You can have those rules. Within reason and the law, you can have just about any old rule you want. So throw out “the best” and focus on what works for the team AND the candidate. In other words, “the best for this specific role, at this specific time, under these specific circumstances”.
You can have a high bar. You can expect BIG THINGS from people (even more so if you give them something juicy in return – be it money, culture, growth, whatever). Just keep it real. Your clients and candidates will love you for it.
Sincerely, 
Not the best – but definitely sometimes really great 🙂

Beware the Idiot Lights

June 18, 2019 /

Y’all I’m still geeking out over the Talent42 Fireside Chat last week. For those who don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, check out the live stream (thank you Ninh!) HERE.

Long story short (hahahahaha as if) I had the privilege of hosting a group of talented Google engineers (including 2 who lead teams) and ask them anything about recruiters. And boy did we hear it. I learned a few things, had a myth or two busted, and found myself amazed at the “yeah buts” we got. There were a few takeaways I found particularly interesting –

– On average, my panelists aren’t getting hit on THAT MUCH. I think we agreed it was roughly 1-2 times a week. Some days you’d get 10 contacts, then radio silence for 2 weeks. There is literally no rhyme or reason that I can see. Just…. random.

– Approximately 1 in 10 outreaches are worth responding to. Now this is not license to fire off 10 shit messages and say “OK NOW YOU HAVE TO RESPOND TO ONE OF THEM!” No, in a sea of mediocrity, ONE IN TEN (again, averages) is worth a acknowledging.

(side note – if you’re looking for 10 connections a week, and say to yourself “great, I need to email 100 people to hit my number!” you’re doing it so wrong that I could throw up right now)

– Interruption communication is the WORST. Phone calls in the middle of the day, that kind of thing. Emails / inmails (inmauls) are “meh”, but better than startling someone or causing them to momentarily think something horrible has happened because really who even uses the phone anymore. Oh pipe down agency/retained/gazillion dollar billers. I know you’re all K I L L I N G it by smiling and dialing. Why are you reading this anyway? Point is, scheduled communication is key. And appreciated.

So what’s a recruiter to do? There are a seemingly infinite number of ways to source someone, so instead of leaving an exhaustive list, how about this –

Ask.

Ask your damn targets what they want to hear from you. Ask what kind of opportunity they want to hear about. Ask how often they want to be contacted and how. Pay attention to bread crumbs they’re leaving you on their social real estate. If someone blatantly calls out I’m never ever EVER going to leave Seattle, why are you pitching a role in NYC? If someone has been leading a team for the last 10 years, why would they answer your call for a junior engineer? (yes this has happened, REPEATEDLY, to one of my panelists)

In other words, stop tripping the idiot lights.

What Prospects REALLY Think of Your Inmail (and how to be better)

April 29, 2019 /
Or better said, InMAUL (thank you Uncle Steve).

Y’all I just CAN’T with this today. I blame this nasty cold I’ve been fighting for nearly a week, it’s made me crankier than usual. I was feeling almost human today, so thought I’d respond to an otherwise “meh” inmail (inmaul!) I got last week. Here goes –
Hi Amy, 
I had reached out to you via InMail a few weeks ago and I am just touching base to make sure you received my message! I am currently looking for Recruiters for a few exciting positions at [COMPANY] and I am writing to gauge your interest. I would love to further our conversation if you are interested in recruiting opportunities at [COMPANY] 🙂 Let’s connect and see if we can collaborate either now or in the future. Happy connecting!
  
Ok so this was the 2nd message in a week. Totally fine. The first message was more general networking, nothing exceptional either way. I had every intention of sending a nice “thanks but no thanks” – however being curled up in a miserable ball of sickness derailed that plan. I digress.
I decide to write back this morning – I like to be SUPER transparent and make sure I’m leaving no room for guesswork. Most of the time these responses knock me right out of consideration, which is fair, given that it would take something truly spectacular to pull me away –
hi [AGENCY RECRUITER], happy to chat, but I do want to be clear on where I am in my career / what it would take to pry me away 🙂

I’m full time at Google – Since I’ve been here less than a year I’d have a significant clawback if leaving any time soon. This would obviously need to be accounted for in any potential offers. (I know it may seem premature to mention, we’ve only just met! But I just want to be extra transparent).

I’m also connected to a couple of leaders at [COMPANY ([SPECIFIC TEAMS])] and am having long term chats about future potential. Since you’re representing an agency, I just want to be up front on that, as I may not be a “fee-worthy” candidate. Also, not interested in contract unless it pays VERY well, 100% remote and allows me to finally relocate to Hawaii. 😉

How do you define “exciting positions” at [COMPANY]? I have my own thoughts on what makes a role epic, but curious what that means to you.

Happy hunting!
  Amy 
Here’s the thing y’all – I’m 9 months into my role. I’m having some growing pains like anyone else. I’m CONSTANTLY engaging with / networking with recruiting leaders as you just never know where your career will take you. I’m not actively looking to leave (I JUST FREAKING GOT HERE) but I wanted this recruiter to know that I already know people at your client. You are probably not getting a fee for me.
Here’s the response I got – approximately 5 minutes later –
Hi Amy, 
Thank you for the information! I have many roles across different recruiting teams at [COMPANY]. I work with the direct managers at [TEAM, TEAM, TEAM I ALREADY MENTIONED, and TEAM]. I hire all levels of Technical Recruiters to these teams. Dependant on your skill set I would present you to one or multiple of these teams. The roles are primarily sourcing roles. Let me know if you would be interested in continuing the conversation! 
I am curious, are you full time or contract at the moment? 

Cheers, 
[AGENCY RECRUITER]
Please take a moment and see if you can point out the mistakes.
Ok, have your list? I have one too. But first, my snarky response back because I JUST F%&$ING CAN’T TODAY.
full time

my super power is recruiting strategy and client engagement. I helped build the Business AI team at Microsoft while I was there. I currently manage all senior hiring (engineering managers) across YouTube with a team of 3 (2 sourcers and another recruiter)

I’ve spoken at tons of conferences, conducted lots of trainings, webinars and written many recruiting articles – lots out there that speaks to my skill set and expertise 🙂 If you still think you can charge a fee for me after learning more about me, happy to chat. 

I won’t consider contract unless it’s breathtakingly better than what I’m currently doing (and pays like, $100 an hour or more depending on cost of benefits, etc)
YOU DIDN’T READ MY RESPONSE
I am clearly full time. I said that. Like clearly stated I’m full time and not interested contract. Yet you still asked if I was full time or contract. Is this real life?
YOU DID ZERO HOMEWORK
Don’t bullshit me on this. If you’d done even a cursory scan of my LinkedIn profile (let alone the rest of my social footprint) you’d know a few things about me. You could have cracked a joke about yoga pants. You could have said “great job on last week’s webinar” (even though you clearly didn’t listen to it) you could have said SOMETHING, ANYTHING, that would have indicated I was more than just another target on your inmaul list.
YOU DIDN’T ADDRESS MY QUESTION
I gave you an opening. I asked you why your roles were exciting (YOUR WORDS). You could have given me any kind of pitch that maybe JUST MAYBE would have gotten my attention or possibly given me a reason to refer someone your way.
Y’all I’m nobody special. I’m just another recruiter in a sea of AMAZING professionals trying to do my best and feed my kids. I work for a high profile brand, I have a bit of name recognition because I verbally vomit all over the internet. I’m not the only one, and don’t think I’m any more qualified than the next guy on your list.
The next guy deserves better. So did I.
So does the Engineering Manager I’m about to contact out of the blue. They guy or gal who’s happily leading a team building the next epic thing at a cool company. The leader who’s INUNDATED with inmails (INMAULS) from recruiters like me. The manager who’s more concerned about getting the next feature shipped and NOT their next job.
I have a new rule for any outgoing message I send. How would this MAKE ME FEEL if I was on the receiving end? If the answer is “like a number”, then I should probably rethink before I hit send.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the response I got to my final message?
Hi Amy,

Thank you for letting me know! At this time that is higher than I would be able to pay. If that changes I will be sure to reach out!

Cheers,
[Agency Recruiter]



Hawaii, here I come!

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