This question came up last week at an event I spoke at in New York: I shopped my resume to a few recruiting firms and have gotten very different responses. One calls with 2-3 opportunities to tell me about, while I hear nothing from the others. Why is that?
Inventories differ from one agency to the next; this is why is pays to be on the radar screens of more than one recruiting firm.
Following are a few factors that can determine who has what listings – and why you may or may not be getting calls:
• Retained searches are typically exclusives, meaning only one firm will be working to fill that particular job.
• Some firms work primarily on senior executive positions; they may occasionally fill other positions, but are less likely to have those types of listings.
• The tighter the economy, the less likely companies are to hire recruiters for jobs they feel they might be able to fill themselves. As a result, search firms may get more highly specialized, difficult-to-fill assignments – which are less likely to match the skill sets of the vast majority of candidates.
• Some firms might specialize in various subsectors of your industry – say, for example, an agency that works in the cable industry but tends to focus on positions having to do with emerging technologies.
It all comes down to timing. If you’re a qualified candidate, the firm will be interested in you. That said, they may not have any current assignments that match your skills and/or your requirements. (Remember – the recruiter doesn’t work for you; he or she is being paid by hiring companies to fill positions for them.)
That’s why it’s important that you keep your name in circulation and make sure a variety of headhunters know about you.
Just because you haven’t received a call from Company Z doesn’t mean it’s a substandard recruiting firm. It simply means they don’t have anything that’s a match for you right now.
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