A simple life lesson in a world filled with opportunities learn from mistakes occurred to me recently. This has to do with a technology gain meant to offer improve screening against unsolicited phone calls trying to get you to spend time on unproductive things. A recent discovery has led me to reevaluate my approach to this practice.
My mobile phone is the primary way to get in contact with me. Some choose to sends texts while others call on the phone. While this might prompt some folks to roll their eyes with the notion of getting with the notion for how people communicate these days, my thought was that anyone legitimate appearing as ‘potential spam‘ would leave a voicemail should the purpose of their call be legitimate. I recently found the assumption of leaving a message through the manner you tried to contact somebody isn’t always correct.
In my specific case, I had a recruiter with a position that she was motivated to fill for a customer she works with on behalf of her employer. It was about three hours after the attempted phone call that my email server delivered a message sent there, shortly after the potential spam call. The written message referenced the trying to reach out regarding the position; the request was to let her know the best time to call. I responded to the email and called, leaving a voicemail when the recruiter wasn’t available. My instinct right then was to pick up ‘potential spam’ callers during my efforts to land my next position, so as to make the best possible impression regarding my responsiveness. (We’ll come back to this momentarily).
What is interesting is what happened when this recruiter called me back. It was only when the recruiter and I physically talked on the phone that she realized I had been out-of-work for more a period longer than she considered appropriate. In fairness, that gap has proven to be a red flag for some potential employers. The follow-up response to this really left me in the cold.
The recruiter’s response to my clarifying that she in fact had my most current work history, and that there in fact was this gap, prompts me to not work with that firm again. She said, “Oh! I’ll have to ask if I can submit your resume for this position.” Nothing more was said. There was no offer to work with me on other positions, or talk about the skills that prompted her to contact me in the first place. I wasn’t asked how I was working to improve myself while not employed, or what my individual circumstance was. Simply, “Oh!”
This was a professional example of a recruiter hanging up on me. The feeling of not being heard or seen was bad enough; rudely being offered no further assistance makes it easy to move on from this firm. While my case wasn’t a quick and easy resolution to the objective in front of her, the point of my engaging with a recruiter wouldn’t be for the quick and easy answer for them. The compensation of my landing a contract is the reward I was willing to offer. My willingness to here constructive feedback on how to present myself better was the service I requested. None of these were on this recruiters mind.
Among other things, I now comeback to the question of whether or not I should answer phone calls marked as ‘potential spam’ while looking for work. While my initial thinking was to be more open to the possibility of taking what mostly amounts to solicitations for things I don’t want, the exchange above does not convince me that I should be changing my approach. Should I open myself more to making that first solid impression? My instinct currently is no, as I owe myself the dignity that was missing from this recruiter’s interaction.
Matt – Friday, July 22, 2022
Matt Lynn Digital 