For every sob story, there’s always another point of view.
As a recruiter, I often hear when things go wrong in their employment situations. Even people I won’t be placing tend to tell me their tales of recruiting woe! They can’t get a job even though they’ve sent out hundreds of resumes or they can’t keep a job when they get one because employers aren’t flexible about their family commitments or… you name it, I’ve heard it. I call them sob stories because for every legitimate story of a candidate struggling in troubled times, I hear four others stories from people who really need to take a long, careful look in the mirror.
Here’s an example that I came across recently on social media (altered to protect the innocent!):
I have been unemployed for three and a half months and it’s not because of a lack of effort. Every single day, I search online, I cold call, I show up at companies with my CV, ready and willing to do an interview then and there. I also have several recruiters looking on my behalf and yet… not one interview. In three and a half months! I say I’ve had recruiters looking on my behalf but honestly, I’m not sure what they really do except tear candidates down: they want to know all about my last job, how much I made and why I was terminated instead of sitting down and looking at my skills to see what might be a good fit. For a while, it really depressed me but I’m back and ready for more! I know the perfect job is out there for me!
The comments were surprisingly supportive, given that it was a public posting on a widely used social medium—a fact that tends to bring out the trolls en masse! In fact, not one of the comments I skimmed through seemed to notice her line about recruiters wanting to know about her last job and more interestingly, why she was terminated. Yet that was the first thing I noticed.
Well, that’s to be expected: you’re a recruiter! Maybe. In my experience, I have learned to see both sides of any issue. When a candidate is deemed unsuitable, there is a reason. It might not be a good one, but there is always a reason. This person complained that the recruiters wanted to know why she was terminated, as if that particular fact wasn’t relevant. Of course it’s relevant!
I have had candidates who were reluctant to share what happened in their previous position, or even in the last several positions. And I’ve had others who were more than happy to tell me what they thought was wrong with the company they’d been with before. But even with that kind of straight talk, it’s only one side of the story and that’s the crux of what a recruiter has to get into before they can solidly place a candidate in a new role.
I’m sure if I was her recruiter and was to call her last company and speak with her manager, I would get a different story. Most companies are actually quite careful about keeping solid HR records: they are protecting themselves in the event that a candidate who was let go returns with a wrongful dismissal lawsuit in hand. So while it’s entirely possible that the last company she worked for was a bad fit, if this is a recurring pattern over several of her previous roles, I would want the candidate to learn from these situations and see where she had a part to play in her dismissal. It’s almost never a one way street, except in the case of theft or some other major breach, like sexual harassment or assault.
As a recruiter, it’s important that I have all the information about a candidate, their previous roles and any complicating issues. The fact that you have a family is not an impediment to getting a job. The fact that you can’t come in to the office before 9:30 a.m. might be, depending on the job. It’s not always fair to blame the company when that job doesn’t work out! Be straight with your recruiters and work with them to see what’s been going wrong and how you might contribute to fixing the problem. After that? A candidate with good qualifications shouldn’t be on the market long!
At AGENTC, we dig deeper beyond the resume keywords and job titles. We want to be sure that you are happy in your new job… for years to come. We want to be sure it is a fit, for both the employee and the employer.
