A Beginner's Guide to Working with a Recruiter to Get Your Next Job

With Blind Bytes on "The Blind Ambition with Jack Kelly" podcast, Jack Kelly and Rick Chen reveal insider tips about professional life, which you can use immediately to level up your career. In this episode, we take on how to work with recruiters.

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Jack pulls back the curtain on recruiters and how they get hired and paid by companies. He explains why they might go from nagging to ghosting you and what their messages and phone calls actually mean. Finally, he shares how you can take advantage of working with a recruiter or headhunter and what you can do to find one that can level up your career.

All right, hello, everyone. Hey. This is Jack Kelly with another episode of Blind Bytes. Got a short, condensed version of a podcast that's going to give you some information you need really quickly, not spending a whole hour, two hours on a topic.

Today, I want to talk about recruiters, headhunters, and what you need to know about them. If you're looking for a job, you need a job. Most often, part of looking for a new opportunity is to find a recruiter.

Recruiters, I'll say, I got to say this, I've been doing this for 25-plus years. I get it. People could love you, hate you. It's like any other profession. You know, some are great, some aren't. There are great accountants. There are great stockbrokers. There are great lawyers, and there are some terrible stockbrokers, lawyers, accountants. It runs a gamut.

I think there's a lot of frustration, you know, that people have when you deal with a recruiter, you feel either they're like, pushy, you know? Why do you keep bothering me? I don't want a job now. Leave me alone, or they just blow you off and ghost you. Like, what the heck? I need your help. Like, I have to find a job. Help me out.

So I think people are left confused, like, what's going on? Like, why? Why is it? Why do they blow me off? Or, why do they annoy me? Well, I'm here to answer that. Here's the deal. I'll walk you through it really, so you understand how this works, and by understanding how it works, it could help you in terms of finding a new job, and then, also having good recruiters who can guide you through the rest of your career.

So, the different kinds of recruiters. Here's the first thing you have, what you call retained search. Retained search, usually, is for c-suite executives: chief financial officer, chief executive officer, chief risk officer, chief compliance officer, you know, kind of the more senior people. It's not exclusively c-suite. It could be underneath that, like senior-level people underneath.

And with retained searches, what will happen is this: You'll have a company that will go out to Jack Kelly and say, hey, we have this role. We need a chief financial officer. Here's what we're looking for. So you give all the details, Jack Kelly and his company would be the only ones recruiting for this role. So what happens is that you don't have other competition. So you know, you're working on it, and you could just, you know, find the right people, come up with a slate of maybe three to six different qualified, appropriate, suitable candidates, and share it with the company. Interviews take place, and they find.

So then you have something called contingency, contingent search. With contingency, contingent search, it's different than retained. A company will say, hey, Jack, we have this role, you know, for XYZ? Would you like to work and recruit for us? Sure. I'd love to, you know, get a contract and all that kind of good stuff. Then, what happens? Rudely, they don't just leave it with Jack Kelly. They'll also say, hey, 123 search firm, XYZ search firm, you know, such and such search firm, this search firm, they'll give it out to five, 10 different people. Then, not only do they give it out to all these other search firms, they'll post it on LinkedIn. They'll post on Indeed. They'll post it on Blind. They'll post it on Glassdoor, so it's all over the place. They'll post it on their own site.

So, now picture this: You're a recruiter, and with contingency, that's the vast majority of the types of searches, you know. That's where most of it takes place, for the people you know, the white-collar folks who watch these shows and listen to the podcast. So, the larger the chance of speaking with the retained, maybe 5%, 2%, 3%, probably, 80%, 90%, 95%, would be dealing with contingency recruiters. So that probably makes the most sense for you to understand.

There's also staffing, which is more like temp gig work. We'll put that aside for another episode with contingency. As I mentioned, they're going to give it out to the world. So think about now, think about how that works. So they give it out to everybody. You know, I'm a recruiter. I get it, and I know that, you know, maybe there's five other search firms working on it, and they're putting it on postings. So I have to get to that candidate for that job really quickly, and I have to find someone who fits the bill and entice them to say, hey, here's this great opportunity. The subtext is like, yeah, your job sucks, but this is a better job, more money, more opportunity, more stock options, all that kind of stuff. So you want to get them interested and excited.

More often than not, companies, when they use the search firm, they want to find somebody who's currently working happily. And you can pull them away and entice them to leave. You know, everyone wants what they don't have, you know, so if that person's working doing well, they want to kind of get that person, steal them away.

You want to take someone who's now working. But I'm just kind of giving you a kind of picture of how this works, and you can imagine how competitive it is, so that if you're trying to find somebody for a certain role.

So, let's say I specialize in compliance. So I'm looking for this compliance person who's going to be responsible for cryptocurrency platform, knowing, anti-money laundering, what have you. So everybody else is diving in for that, too. So you have to quickly find out who you know. Who can I find? Who has that background, has that experience? Get in front of them, pitch them the job, get them interested in the job, and get their resume to the company, and start the interview process.

But while I'm doing it, there's all these other places doing it, so it's really competitive what happens with contingency recruiting.

Now get this. You may not be aware of it. It's kind of a "eat what you kill" mentality, meaning that if you make a placement and the person stays at the company for a certain length of time, you get paid. Usually, the placement fees run from maybe 20% to 30% depending on the contract, depending on the company, depending on the level. So the money starts getting big. You know, it could be 20%, 30%, 40%, $50,000 fees, depending on how senior the executive is that you work into place.

So you can see there's this is a lot of competition, a lot of rivalry, a lot of trying to get that person. So, with that in mind, think about how this works. It's a race to get that person before your competitors do.

So what happens? And this is where I think people get frustrated. I'll call up any other recruiter. Let's just take me, for example. So I'm going to call up, you know, Christine, and say, I have this role. Here's what it is, and so forth, because I've seen her LinkedIn profile, I've heard good things about her. People recommend me to call her, and I'm going to be pitching her hard because I know if I can get her to say, yeah, I'll be open to looking. I feel that I have a really good chance, maybe an 80%-plus chance, that if she interviews, she'll get that job. So she'll get the job, she'll get more money, maybe a higher title, maybe a remote option, and my firm will get a fee and a nice, hefty fee, so there's that motivation to get her now.

If she says, well, I don't know. Let me think about it. I'll get back to you. Do you think a recruiter be like, oh, okay, or will the recruiter say, wait, wait, no, no, no, let's talk about it some more. Let's have another conversation. Let's go out for some coffee. Let's go out to get some food to eat. You know, you're not going to just say, okay, because, you know, if you just say, maybe the other recruiter get a hold of Christine and they'll place her. Or, you know, I just lose out on somebody who could kind of get get a placement done. So that's what's really cutthroat.

So think about it now. Now that you get the picture right, you get the big picture. When somebody, when a recruiter, is hitting you up like relentlessly, they're not being jerks. Well, maybe they could be jerks, but they're not being jerks in the sense that they know if you would be open, you'd be a perfect fit. This would be a great job for you. You could advance with you in your career, and the recruiter does well as well. So they have to be pushing. They have to kind of keep following up. They have to stay on it because if they don't, their competitor is going to maybe place the person, and you just lost out.

Now, I'm using an example of one person, but you know, you're speaking to lots of different people. You know you're going to be hitting them up on LinkedIn and different sites and making lots of calls. So there's a lot of time and effort into it.

And if you don't make the placement, you could spend weeks or months searching for people, sourcing people, interviewing people, sitting out on interviews with the company. And it turns out they don't hire a person, so you may have spent hours and months to do this, and there's no trophy for second place.

The person who places the applicant and successfully stays with the company for a specified period of time gets the fee. So if you don't keep going and pushing and trying, you could lose out, but if you do keep pushing pushing, yeah, it's going to annoy people.

So this is why it's a very bizarre situation, and that maybe, like, the light bulb might be gone if you go, oh, now I understand why they're so pushy. All right, I didn't realize. I thought they just get paid a salary. And, you know, they get a salary, and they're doing their job. If they place, they place; if they don't, they don't; they just get their salary. Everything is good. Now, maybe some recruiting firms have that, but I'm sorry, the match majority don't. The vast majority don't.

So that's why they act that way, and that's why you're like, wow, leave me alone. So maybe now you know that you have a little bit more empathy for them. Or when you have a conversation, you say, hey, Jack, I get how it works and why you're kind of really pitching me hard, but I'm really not interested. I promise you I'm not going to go through another recruiter. I promise you, I'm not going to submit my resume. I'm just, I'm not, I'm not doing it, but I do have a lead for you. You know, I think Mike would be really good, and I'll send over, you know, his LinkedIn bio, give him a call.

On the other side of the equation. Now, this will make sense for you, too, on the other side of the equation, where people are like, where is that recruiter when I need him or her? They're always bothering me, but then when I need them, where are they? The reason is this: That person doesn't have the skills, background, accreditation, credentials, educational background to fit the job you're recruiting for, and the cold, hard truth is, and I hope you appreciate it, I'm like, you know, everyone's going to hate me for saying this, but I'm a transparent person, so I want to tell you what really goes on behind the scenes. So what happens is this, if let's say, somebody calls me and says, hey, Jack, yeah, hey, I'm interested in this and that, but that person doesn't have the background, skills, experience for the jobs that I'm working on, the more time I spend with that person, I'm taken away from the time to find the right person.

Now, that doesn't mean I would be rude to the person who's saying, hey, Jack, I need your help. I lost my job. Oh, please help me. What happens is a lot of recruiters specialize in a field in a sector. I specialize in compliance, legal risk, anti-money laundering, financial controls, those kind of things. So if someone comes to me, and they're a Java programmer. I need your help. I need your help. I literally can't because I don't know enough about it. I don't have the contacts with companies. I don't have placement agreements with these firms, so I really can't help them, even if you could put a gun to my head. I don't have the ability. I don't have the know-how. I don't understand it well enough to do a good job. So what happens is the person who's looking for the help walks away like Jack is a complete a-hole. He's a jerk. He just blew me off.

Now, it's not that I'm blowing off. I just can't help. I don't know it well enough, but that's somehow translated to, oh, he doesn't want to help. And that's why if you notice where you feel like, why are you blowing me up? They're blowing you off. It sounds harshly blowing off, but I'm just saying that you kind of get what I mean.

So if you feel like you're getting blown off, it's really because they can't help you. They don't know enough about what you do. They don't specialize in it. They're not sure where to go, who to send a resume to. So should they be polite and say that? But I think a lot of times, a lot of times recruiters, just like anybody else, we have egos. You know, a lot of recruiters have huge egos. If you speak to them, you know what I'm talking about. So they have huge egos. So they may not want to say hey, like, I just did say hey, like, I don't know these areas, and I can't really add value because I don't have connections. I don't understand it well enough, and I wouldn't add value. Other recruiters wouldn't say that, right? They're not going to give away the truth because they don't want to, like, make it like they don't know stuff. So you're left feeling, wow, I just got blown up.

What you may want to do if that happens is you ask a recruiter for advice. You want to find a recruiter who specializes in your area, who knows your area, who has contacts, who could help place you, knows the hiring managers, knows the HR people, knows the corporate culture and could navigate you through because that's really what it boils down: Do you want to find that right person who fits. And you could find these recruiters on LinkedIn. I have a recruiter, directory of recruiters. You could check that out.

And I think that'll be helpful for you to just to understand the dynamics. The dynamics are really nuts if you think about it. You know the "eat what you kill. Like, if you could work your butt off and do so much hard work to find somebody, and then just some random candidate applies online, and they get the job, and like, all your time and effort was for nothing. So it's this very odd cocktail of things, the way it works, and then also how you can see sometimes recruiters being a little snarky, a little short of attention span, a little frustrated because it's really stacked against them. It's a really rough job.

And I'm not asking for your sympathy or feeling bad. I just want to with these, you know, Blind Bytes, to give you these insightsyou may not hear from some, you know, anywhere else.

Now, intuitively, you might have thought, huh? I kind of thought it was that way. But now I feel better. I understand, and now I get it. Now I understand why these recruiters do what they do, and then also what helps you because then you can make your life easier to say, you know, if you find if you're looking for a job, and you go to a recruiter who doesn't do your stuff, you're like, oh, I get it. I'm barking up the wrong tree. Can you point me in the right direction? Who is a recruiter? Who is good to help me with my particular career, you know, my particular expertise?

So I hope that helps out, gives you flavor for how this works, and maybe gives you some clarity and empathy to how this works. So then, the next time you get a call from recruiter, or don't get a call from recruiter, you understand the game. A lot of these are games. So you understand how the game is being played.

So then, you know, I have to find a certain kind of recruiter who's specialized in my field. They understand it. They know the people. They know the hiring managers. They know how much I can get paid. They know what my chances are getting hired, hey, and that's what I go to, and if I get blown off, it's not that I'm getting blown off, it's that person can't help me right now.

So I hope this helps give you some color and clarity on this kind of weird, you know, profession and how it works. As always, if you have any questions, if you want to learn more about, you know, headhunters or recruiters. If you run into issues with headhunters, recruiters, you want to say, like, what do I do? Feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn. I'm on Blind and on Twitter. I'd be glad to help you out. So it's Jack Kelly for Blind Bytes, and I hope this was helpful and illuminating.