Recruiters Ghosted by Candidates
Recruiters, especially those in tech and startups, are experiencing a significant challenge: difficulty getting candidates to respond to outreach. This is compounded by an increasingly complex sourcing process involving numerous tools, metrics, and personalization demands, leading to feelings of overwhelm and questioning the effectiveness of current strategies. The core issue is a shift in candidate behavior and expectations.
SOURCES (60)
“Extremely common. If you're looking for a biologist position where you don't leave the house, you'd better get really really good at writing. I'm a PM in this industry and most of the junior staff (who would be doing this kind of work) are wfh…”
“I've never had a recruiter get me so much as a single interview and I've dealt with upwards of 100 by now over the past decade, so YMMV.”
“That's interesting.... because recruiters normally take a spray & pray approach to finding candidates, similar to how we apply to jobs. The majority of candidates that get cold emails don't bother responding, so recruiters need to cast a wide net, and only spend time narrowing down by fit after they already have someone on the hook. So it's surprising to me you've never gotten a single email from a recruiter. Is your LinkedIn super private or something? Mine's public so i”
“Reading posts in the various CS-related subs, sometimes someone will mention that recruiters contact them and the story gors a different direction. Not once in twenty years has anyone ever reached out to help me find a job. It's an uphill battle where I have to prove I can read and speak English every time. ...but it seems like having someone else do the footwork and at least get my resume in front of human eyes would be a good thing, so...how do I get that? On the other hand, some posts are”
“I'm a bootstrapped founder and just hired two engineers. Hiring was not easy. I went through 150+ applicants, and with AI writing half of everyone's portfolio, raw talent is the one thing that's everywhere now. What I actually care about is harder to find- how someone communicates and how they are to work with. I'd take a solid engineer who tells me what's rough and takes a hard question well over a genius who goes quiet or gets defensive the second I ask why. Talent doesn”
“That seems like an extremely incorrect framing of the problem and role. Sometimes contractors are used for ASAP needs, but other times for backfills or covers. It’s not because they have no value. It’s because the company either has decided it doesn’t have the time to dedicate to a long hiring process for a regular FTE for whatever the role is, and/or the money for it. Also, with so many layoffs, contractor roles are completely reasonable to take on. You’re making it sound like all contractors a”
“Have been having immense trouble finding candidates throughout indeed its starting to seem like a waste of money, and the prices on linkedin are laughable. I just keep getting bombarded with mcdonalds workers and janitors who think they're seasoned sales reps, props to them for applying - but thats not what im looking for, nor does it fit the job description AT ALL. any tips on where to find B2B sales reps? Do I keep throwing money at indeed until it works? Do I have to privately message a b”
“I'm going to speak from the US POV. Generally, APMs are new grad programs and are usually sourced through undergrad internships or people with < 1 YOE post-graduation. However, I'll set those items aside for now. Usually some type of prior technical internship and a leadership position in school Neither. No one cares about certs and no one has the time to read anything that's outside of your resume. After ATS screening, you have 5-10 sec for your resume to stand out to the reviewe”
“i posted a role last month and got 60 applications. tried to run async video interviews on all of them automatically, ended up with four genuinely strong candidates. so roughly 1 in 15. curious if that ratio is normal or whether better job descriptions would change it significantly. also wondering if the role type affects it, client facing positions seem to filter harder than back office ones in my experience submitted by /u/frankgetsu [link] [comments]”
“I'm pretty picky. I'm a developer myself, so my ability to detect BS is stronger than most recruiters.”
“that actually sounds kinda useful for non technical founders who don’t wanna sift through 100 “full stack ninjas” on linkedin. curious how picky your screeners are with juniors vs seniors though.”
“Referrals absolutely get your application/resume to the top of the pile, that’s how I got my new grad job after 400+ apps in 2021. You can also reach out on LinkedIn to alumni from your school you may know, or former coworkers at new companies.”
“Specifically looking for someone with experience with candidates in the AI startup world with customer success and quality assurance/product engineering experiences. Wife has been out of a job for 2 years now and am not sure I understand why it's taking this long. Also, on a separate note, do reverse recruiters actually help better in an economy like now or would it likely end up being another time and money down the drain situation? submitted by /u/gofardeep [link] [commen”
“It's not just you. I haven't hired in a few years but when I did I think I was starting to see the emergence of this trend. Young people with no problem solving or critical thinking at all. I can't imagine how bad it is now we have GPT, Claude etc. In fact, yes I can. A couple of days ago I emailed a work placement kid (19 yo) asking for some details on an app he was building. I got a fully AI-generated reply. I cannot be arsed.”
“Not sure if this is off topic but couldn’t find a flair that best fit. For all the middle managers out there (supervisors, managers, directors, etc) of recruiters, what are the top 3 complaints you hear from your team members week after week and what are you doing (or trying to do) to solve them? If you could eliminate one bottleneck for your team tomorrow, what would it be and why? I’ll go first. We’re a small team and we simply don’t have the bandwidth to keep up with the volume of openings an”
“So about 1-2 times a week, some VC reaches out to me for recruiting for one of their startup roles. I've always found this a bit strange. On one side, I get that early-stage startups are very busy and often don't have experience with hiring, but on the other hand, it seems like this is a really important thing early-stage startups need to get right. What do you guys think? Has anyone actually accepted an offer that was from a VC cold-intro? submitted by /u/ecethrowaway01 [lin”
“There is a reason ATS systems have a filter for FAANG companies. The name means something, at least in the recruiting part of getting you into conversations. My personal thought, as someone who does not have a FAANG is to do it. As a HM it never influenced my decision, but I personally wish I had it to get into more doors that are just not open for me because I am filtered out. I don't think the role is too far off the path of product that you can't jump back in if it is not for you.”
“Always knew that hiring for Big 4 is tough because they are very specific on who they bring on-board. Now facing in real time. Has anyone done it in the past, really need some advice here. submitted by /u/Standard_Anteater785 [link] [comments]”
“jan to march is mostly leftovers and random roles, not big wave, everything’s insanely competitive now”
“People ate blaming recruiters because it's the face they see and many recruiters are starting to fall victim to generalizing candidates because they have too many to actually look past the surface. But y'all are dealing with a broken system too. The fact is, there just aren't enough jobs available. Time and time again I hear companies and executives come to my school and talk about wanting unique candidates who bring something new to the table, and how they hire for potential not imm”
“Designers have portfolio websites because that's part of design. On average, recruiters spend 5-10 seconds scanning a resume. Do you believe that they will take the time to actually visit your website?”
“Took me six months and a LOT of interviews. Getting the interviews wasn’t bad, but actually getting through against all the competition is brutal. You’re competing against a large pool and only the strongest make it. You might be an expert on operational planning, but the other people interviewing are too. Probably even more experience. The other maddening thing is how many of the jobs suddenly “aren’t being funded anymore”. It’s bizarre”
“Last year, got a few NYC interviews from recruiter reachout. Currently my linkedin is spammed with SF/NYC recruiters as well”
“I used to get Amazon recruiter reach out at least once a week. Now it’s once every 3 months. I always got an intro call with big tech recruiters. Now I’m lucky if I can apply.”
“It was insane, I was getting about 10+ recruiter messages per day on linkedin with 5 YOE. Seriously I was hired with a signing bonus after literally failing a technical interview, it was crazy”
“I've been on a few sides of this - as a junior thrust into the role of technical leader, as a contractor who took on essentially the responsibilities of CTO companies with non-technical founders, and more recently as a shared equity co-founder. I did good work in all these roles, but what I lacked in the earliest one was the experience to know when to push back and in the contractor roles, the authority to do the same. Even if you get a genius recent grad willing to take on that level of res”
“Just curious what the range is and what it's been like this year. submitted by /u/MatthewCorbett92 [link] [comments]”
“Yeah that’s a talent shortage because we spent the last 10 years telling people to “learn to code” and a lot of people with no interest in the field did it because they thought they’d be able to secure a job and keep it forever.”
“Do you have stats that show this? anecdotes don’t matter and I haven’t seen evidence of a ton of single person startups”
“Same as title. The opening was posted on July 7th submitted by /u/Expensive_Lime_2740 [link] [comments]”
“Boosters always use this line on the internet, but they're not out of date, debunked, or irrelevant. I benchmark ML and NLP for a living. I wouldn't hire a junior that assumes benchmark gets thrown away because anthropic writes a marketing post. I ask a version of this concern in my interviews. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot”
Good suggestion. Didn't think about the importance of selecting the ones who are empathetic and have active listening skills but I guess I won't be able to know the complete truth in…
“I’ve had calls with a few recruiters for C++ jobs. A couple have put me forward for jobs, others have (allegedly) kept my info in case entry level roles come up. If I see other roles listed by the same recruiter, is it ok to apply to them? And does it affect how I write the cover letter - do I acknowledge having spoken to them before, do I add anything new or keep it super brief? submitted by /u/MentalNewspaper8386 [link] [comments]”
“Recruiters are overwhelmed - they get hundreds of applicants for every position they post. They have AI assistants who are not really well designed to find the most qualified applicants. Instead of applying to a job as the first step, find out more about the department where the job sits, the team, hiring manager on LinkedIn or using AI and then start networking with them. Follow their content, build a relationship and then apply when they actually interact with you. This applies to all jobs exc”
“Hello, I’m looking up for people who could help me out, I’m trying to reach out to the hiring recruiters / employees who can provide me a referral , I’ve applied to multiple positions as highlighted in the subject(roles), I’ve 4+ YOE of relevance of EXP So let me know, you can ping me on my Reddit user ID I’m looking to shift to NY, Would mean a lot Thanks submitted by /u/Practical-Pick8685 [link] [comments]”
“Just asking out of curiosity. Employed people usually have only one advantage - Their skills and experience are witnessed/proven by another employer. But that's it. All other factors from an employed guy are actually downsides, for example: They have more freedom of leverages. They would negotiate way more than your budget or even be arrogant during whole interview process. Unemployed would just take the opportunity anyway. They tend to have longer notice periods, especially for senior roles”
hey, iit grad. building a startup with 30k+ users. been seeing way too many people get rejected because of weak resumes, bad cold emails, and no clear strategy. so i'm helping 20…
“I’ve started talking to a few recruiters. What questions should I be asking? How do I root out the scummy ones and find a good one that will be a good fit? submitted by /u/momothemouse [link] [comments]”
“Yep, it's just a lazy filter. Saw a recruiter bin a resume with 15 years of kernel work because the degree wasn't from a target school, then the team got a fancy MBA who couldn't code.”
“2 months back i was having multiple recruiters reaching out to me almost every day but currently i dont see any momentum. For context i have 5 yoe and have been trying to switch since the start of this year. Wondering how the experience has been for others. submitted by /u/Good-Preparation-179 [link] [comments]”
“I had a recruiter reach out recently and the conversation started feeling strangely bot like. Not to mention the response was pretty quick. Example: said I wasn’t interested in a SAAS industry role (they sent over a salesforce opportunity) and then they responded and sent me over the same type of position with Microsoft. Are people really using bots to try and work customers now? submitted by /u/repatriated-Xpat [link] [comments]”
“The difference is you worked at small startups. It's very different if your resume already has brand names. Recruiters get paid by those who are able to pass the interview and join. For recruiters, it's much safer to put in the pipeline those who already worked at multiple firms with similar interview processes because the recruiters can be more confident the candidate can pass the interview. Let alone a brand name school on top cements the notion the chances for the applicant to get the”
“Any advice on sourcing tools you guys are using? Currently on HireEZ which I like, some of our team also has LinkedIn Recruiter or Lite. I’m in the insurance recruiting world and many of the tools we’ve demoed don’t seem to come up with the right people. We’ve tried SourceWhale but when testing it against HireEZ it didn’t come close to finding the right people or volume of people. Juicebox was slightly better than SW but not as good as HireEZ. I don’t need one that doubles as an ATS or CRM. Just”
“I recruited for IB last cycle and ultimately landed a spot at an elite boutique. The process was grueling though. My stats: 742 emails sent; 112 coffee chats; 35 bank applications, and 32 unique interview rounds. This was an all-consuming process for roughly 5 months. However, the logistics were almost a bigger job than actually recruiting for banking itself. Tracking deadlines, conversations, thank-yous, and applications was a scattered process across the notes app, spreadsheets, google calenda”
“I am not this guy, but recently I spent 30 minutes on a call with a 2nd degree contact helping him prepare for an interview where I worked. To be honest, I don’t really know why I did, especially since the company explicitly refuses to give referral bonuses for indirect connections, but nonetheless I invested the time. I guess just to feel helpful and talk to someone a vouch claims is worth the time? So yeah for whatever reason the 2nd degree connection thing works better than it sounds under in”
“You're very kind to offer. I've been through a lot of iterations on my outbound materials with lots of folks. I was, in fact, the guy most of my friends called for help with stuff like that for many years. It's genuinely not a problem a resume rework is going to fix. If you'd like me to break it down for you quickly and you are in recruiting you will likely get it. I am aged out, worked as a solo tech in marketing departments for a lot of my career which means my network does not”
“Sure, if you work at a dedicated tech company or a large company with teams of devs, but in small/medium non-tech companies that just have “Tech” departments with 1-4 devs, it’s hard bringing up a junior while still being relied on to keep pushing everything forward at a steady pace. Specifically the scenario of being a solo dev and only offered help from a junior dev, that’s a scenario I would say it’s not beneficial to anyone and would recommend adding more experience first so you can build th”
“Develop some soft skills. Know a little bit about each, enough to get in the door and then use soft skills to buy yourself some time and figure out the answer to the question.”
“Ok, possibly stupid question but how do you find serious work on Reddit? How do you look for candidates?”
“I've got some old resumes floating out on the interwebs which occasionally still get a cold email from a recruiter looking for a bite. I understand for this type of fishing a huge net is cast. Bait is too expensive so a lure is used instead. Usually money or a hybrid/wfh option. My resume does include the words "assembly" and "assembler". As in, IBM High Level Assembler Language (HLASM), awa x86 assembly, etc. You know. Dinosaur tech skills. I just got an email to see if”
“The problem is the is the job market for tech became saturated over the past 5-6 years. There are too many people in the field now. But jobs are out there.”