Why Don’t More Recruiters Meet Face to Face with Job Hunters?

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

I love this question from what I would guess to be a relatively junior individual. Are you going to go to the recruiter’s office? Do you expect them to come to you? Whichever way, there’s a problem.

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter here with another question from someone that I’m going to address. And this question is “why don’t more recruiters meet face to face with job hunters?”. Now when this question was originally formulated, he was geared toward why don’t more software engineering recruiters meet face-to-face or in person with potential job applicants, but the fact of the matter is people have this question not just simply about software engineering recruiters, the people in all fields.

And here’s the fact of the matter: why do you want to meet with them face to face?. Are you the one who’s going to go to their office because that’s gonna take you time to get there, sit in the reception for five minutes, do the interview, time to get back?. What are you hoping to accomplish that can’t be done over the phone or over FaceTime, Zoom, or some other manner?. You want to meet with this person in order to develop a relationship with them. That’s nice. They’re not in the relationship business at this point; they’re in the evaluation business and they’re trying to figure out whether or not you fit a client requirement that prompted them to reach out to you.

Now if you’re going to flip this around and say they should come to you, well from their standpoint you’re not paying them to do that. What they’re being paid to do is to fill jobs where corporations want to pay a substantial fee to them if they’re successful and you work there for a period of time. Over the course of working together, you’ll develop the relationship, rather trust them or don’t, and can figure out whether or not they’re really helping you or helping their own pocket or both.

So the reason to meet someone from their standpoint is pretty small because remember if you expect them to go to you, you’re the only one that they’re focused on and they’re traveling to you. And then if you’re a waste of time because you have unreasonable demands or you’re absolutely incompetent – and trust me a lot of you are – then what they’ve done is taken away from their opportunity to get the other people and to work on multiple people concurrently which they can do in a 20-minute phone call. They can evaluate you in a 30-minute call and you’re asking them to travel to you. So, there’s nothing in it for them early to meet with you that they can’t do over the phone. Now, later on, as you get closer to an offer stage that’s different. Maybe they see the value of it but when people ask a question like this, normally they’re thinking about the initial assessment. It makes no sense.

Jeff Altman here, I hope you found this helpful. If you want to subscribe on YouTube, click the little icon in the lower right-hand corner; you can get notices whenever I release something new. Also, I want to mention, give this a thumbs up on YouTube and there’s a lot more on my website which is TheBigGameHunter.us. Go to the site or the blog. There are thousands of posts there about a whole host of subjects that will definitely help. And, if you decide that you’re interested in my coaching you, I’ve got various options on the website. You can see them on the home page. You’ll see a button that says “Schedule”. Schedule time with me for a free discovery call or dive right into coaching. Obviously, I’ll transfer it from my advice. Have a great day and take care.

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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, all as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the producer and former host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 3000 episodes.

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