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Think about how you’re presenting yourself to headhunters and recruiters before complaining about their lack of response, says Rodolphe Mortreuil of MKMC Ltd.
It’s true to say that people sometimes have good reason to be unhappy with the way they are treated by recruitment professionals and failure to respond to emails is one of the big gripes.
However, I would like to show the other side of the coin, through an experience that happened to me over the weekend, when I received the following email:
“Hi,
I understand you are an executive search company but was presumably you are looking for candidates to fit profiles as well.
I have just had a final round with [company One] for an associate client advisor position and have a final round with [company Two] and [company Three] coming up … I just wanted to see if any of your clients had any current requirements for someone like me who is looking for an associate client advisor level where training is provided etc
Kind Regards
[Name removed]
[Mobile phone number and email address removed]“
That’s it.
It may not be the worst email I have received, but it comes close, and this is why:
1) It is much too informal for a piece of business correspondence. How can I take the sender seriously if he/she opens with “Hi” when we don’t know each other? Email is not Instant Messaging. I can only decide how a candidate will perform in front of my client on the basis of his attitude and behaviour with me. You have to be as professional and focused with the headhunter as you would be with the firm you are hoping for a contract from.
2) It is not written in proper English. So either the sender doesn’t speak English as a native language (in which case that should be mentioned and explained) or he/she doesn’t care. That is a question you certainly do not want anyone reading your CV/cover letter to ask him/herself.
3) There is no information whatever in this email concerning what makes the sender a potential candidate. Skills? Education? Experience? Even if you elect not to make your CV available immediately (which, in my opinion, is the right choice), you should at least tell me why I should work with you.
4) The one piece of information that email actually does give me is why I should not work with the sender. He/she already has one offer and is hoping for one to two more in the near future. Yet he wants me to risk my name and reputation to my clients, getting him even more offers, so he can what? Turn them down? Why would I be willing to do that?
Because I do not like the sometimes bad reputation the recruitment industry has – any more than my colleagues out there do – I did send a polite answer to the email. But I am glad I don’t receive this sort of message often. I wouldn’t want to answer too many of them.
Rodolphe Mortreuil is founder and managing director of McKinsey Mortreuil Clarke (MKMC) Ltd.
Note from the editor: Sorry if you were one of the many people who left a comment which didn’t immediately materialise on this post – we’ve been having a few issues with our comments system…
Scary times as no one has heard of your firm and you need to resort to posting tat on the eFC pages. I am surprised people actually e mailed you cvs direct considering MKMC sounds very much like it should be selling bathroom accessories.
Many thanks for the article, very much in the recruitment consultant league and definitely not a head hunter
yours truly
As a hiring manager, the worst examples of English I have in my inbox are, without exception, from headhunters trying to place candidates for interview in my team. Real life xamples: “He is now working as a XXXX where is regularly implementing YYYY”, “I have interviewed a very string candidate…”. And I regret to say this is far from unusual in the emails I get from headhunters, it’s not just one or two.
Give me, and the candidates themselves, a break.
Rodolphe, I think you’ve over-reacted. There is nothing wrong with “Hi” it is certainly more appropriate that “Dear X” which is rarely used in email communique. The market is tough for you recruiters at the moment but you’ve still got to realise that making a candidate’s potential employer pay a headhunters fee reduces the candidates chances of getting hired so you have to add-value to the process. Not defending his writing style but perhaps the guy sending you the email is very good. Either way, can you afford not to find out? The candidate has strong interest from other clients (so is clearly competitive) and your client might need someone that has the skills of the candidate. He might also perform very well in an interview.
As a hirer, I am always interested to hear about candidates that might “fit” within my organisation and I would hope that any search firm I use would examine candidates more thoroughly. Time to add-value….
This article sums up the recruitment industry perfectly.
Stuck-up, uneducated, baffoons waffling on about how they are treated by clients. Perhaps if they treated the jobhunters with some respect, the jobhunters would send them more than the odd, badly-worded email asking what was available or if they had any feedback on an application/interview.
When I was using agencies a few months back, I found the sheer attitude and agression of some consultants was the sad, but true, reflection of why they often had no roles available and no-one to fill them with.
How about treating people who are leaving/looking for 40k, 50k, or 100k jobs with some respect… At the end of the day, youre the one on a 20k basic, maybe you should have tried harder.
The attitude of recruiters’ is counter cyclical. You can’t get off the phone when you’re not looking and things are good. Then when there are more applicants than jobs they show their true nature.
What do you need to be a recruiter again?.. hmm, similar qualifications to that of an estate agent or a used car sales man. Must master the art of bull.
woooahhh – it was just a “yes” or “no” type – questioned email. Big deal. No damage done, apart from the candidate uncovering some positions that are open still (but that’s to your benefit).
This doesn’t come close to the many problems we have with headhunters, problems that can put a guy in a seriously bad position (e.g. HH CV spraying, badly researched roles etc etc )
I see nothing wrong with “Hi”, it’s modern english. Next you’ll be asking people to write you letters… Quil pen anyone?
Are you sure the problem isn’t with you, rather than the applicants?
1) He didn’t start the email as formally as others might. Still, your overblown reaction to that says more about you than it does about him. How he addresses a headhunter says nothing about how he would interact directly with a potential employer.
2) The email is clear and to the point. Even though the English isn’t perfect, he may well speak five other languages too.
3) Perhaps he wanted to check whether you are the right headhunter for the job before wasting his time writing out all his qualifications and experience (without submitting the CV right off the bat).
4) Your reading comprehension needs work. The sender indicated that he is interviewing with a few firms, and just finished a final round interview with one of them. He did not say he had an offer from any.
Please get over yourself. That act alone would at least be one very small step forward for the reputation of the recruitment industry.
I find it amusing that an individual with such a ridiculous bio on his website can write what he has above, a real head-hunter should be heard but not be seen to glorify themselves, an embarrassment to our profession – SPECIALLY LOVE THE QUOTE “He typically gets involved with more complex projects such as team moves and very senior appointments.” ???????????????????????????????
Rodoplhe – You should call him. Someone else already has him out on final round interviews. The best people I deal with send direct and lazy e-mails. This is an enquiry, not a formal job application…
Although I agree in principle, I think it is important to consider other aspects. I would have thought the fact he had an offer on the table would suggest he is a candidate with high value and therefore of interest to both you and potential employers. The fact that he has an offer, but is still looking indicates he is not happy with the current offer, surely a bit of proper recruitment will dig out his real need’s so you are only then putting him forward for jobs he is interested in and would accept and therefore not ‘risking’ your reputation. Finally, I wouldn’t give a ff what the candidate called me as he has just given me 3 new potential client’s which are hiring.. But that’s just my 2p.
I agree the need to be attentive to a candidates skillset, but to dismiss him/her for sending a short email with a quick intro is pure snobbery !
One can only assess when they have met a candidate and part of our job is “find out” their skills and experience
Headhunters are OK. It’s the so-called ‘recruitment consultants’ who I be dissin’!
Rodolphe Mortreuil is absolutely spot on. Another common error of candidates is to apply to jobs which they are totally inappropriate for because they lack the minimum skill requirements specified for the role or do not possess the qualfications required for the role. Its very frustrating for a recruiter to have to read through masses of what is almost spam or junk email from inapropriate candidate applications. This is particularly the case these days with internet advertising. Its fairly obvious when this happens the candidate has not read the advert properly and if they have, do not understand plain English. So as recruiters how do we classify such candidates?
Executive search person who cares about their reputation?? My God, few and far between.
Thank god you’re not my head hunter
The title says it all. Recruiters/headhunters usually have incredibly inflated opinions of themselves. You have to flatter their egos to get them on side. Some like being called in the first instance (and wont respond to emails), others vice versa. It’s a bit pot luck I’m afraid. I must admit, whoever wrote the email to Rodolphe (quoted above) is a complete plank!
The recruitment industry has a bad rep because it is warranted… A couple years back I tried to enlist the help of this particular headhunter writing the article as I wanted to get into the wealth management field and I have to say he, like the vast majority of headhunters (not just specialised in PB, but in other fields as well), was not a least bit helpful so he should apply some of the critical preaching to his own practice. At the time I had a couple years of M&A and fixed income sales and trading experience within a major bank, but the feedback via email, with no meeting, was that in order to have the pretention to apply to a wealth management role I needed to gain experience within the wealth management department of my own bank , and that without experience it was quasi-impossible to have a chance to interview with another wealth management specialist. The issue was that the bank at the time I was working for was not hiring at the time. Needless to say that a couple months later I was working for a major swiss wealth manager as an investment advisor as I had been able to land interviews through my own personal network… no additional comments
Here is my two-cent take on headhunters in general… 19 out 20 are absolutely hopeless
- The vast majority can’t tell the difference between roles in front office / middle office, or sub-fields within IB vs. Sales, Trading, and Research
- The vast majority tell you they are going to speak to so and so about you, but never bother getting back to you with feedback
- Don’t take the career advice/guidance of headhunters too accurately if you work in a bank, you already have access to first-hand information regarding career-related issues
- Precious few are headhunters with real contacts across the banking industry and know what they are talking about … and hence driving Maseratis
The most striking aspect of my dealings with headhunters over the years is that so many of them have zero product knowledge. I don’t expect great expertise, but how can they sell me to a client when they don’t understand my CV or the role they are trying to fill.
Please write a similar article advising headhunters to exercise the same level of professionalism when contacting candidates. I’ve lost count of the number of emails I’ve had with terrible spelling and grammar. If you do not proofread your emails to me, you probably won’t proofread your emails representing me to a company, and that will leave a terrible impression.
Any recruiter who calls me at work or anyone who sends my CV out without first telling me automatically gets a black mark, and I will never work with those companies again. Not to mention the ones who show zero insight into what I’m actually looking for. Not to mention the ones who try and badger me into using them instead of going through a personal connection that I may have with the company.
I can think of only three out of the ten or so companies I have worked with whom I would recommend. Unfortunately, my experience seems to indicate that the bad impression that many people have of recruiters is justified enough that if I am introduced to a new recruiter, s/he will have to prove to me that s/he is not like that, rather than the other way around.
Genuine Executive Search Consultants are paid to fill positions, not get people jobs. There is a marked difference. They are also not on 20k basics like most of the jumped up settlements clerks and post room boys that have time to post vitriol on this board.
To the guy who moaned that when he got feedback, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear -I feel sorry for the recruiter who had to work with you….give him a break, he has got back to you and tried to give you some direction.
What a strange article though, this guy has done the industry no favours…
Give me a break…in the immortal words of Eddie in Ab Fab – ‘drop the attitude, you only work in a shop you know…’
Unfortunately I have to agree with many of the negative comments. The industry knowledge of most Rec Cons is appalling, and as a result CV spraying tactics happen all too often.
It’s simple, if you don’t know your 2nd year Corp Fin Analyst from your Nomad, stick to office and secretarial. You give those of us who actually know what we’re doing a bad name.
mr i’m not a salesman on 14k a year – i’m in recruitment on a 22k basic and i’m a member of the bar of england and wales – a qualified barrister to you so I reckon I tried pretty damn hard hey, bl**dy jumped up barrow boy and I chose this career over law! how much you earn NEVER was, is NOT and NEVER will be a representation of a person’s intelligence or worth as a human being and certainly NEVER EVER a resason to command anyone’s respect!!!! what an utter fool you really are! one of my very good friends earns around 20k a year campaigning for a human rights charity. Presumably this is the sort of person you’d step over on your way in to the Light Bar….?!
Idiot!
It’s understandable: if you receive tons of emails, you are bound to classify some as lower priority. People who can’t present themselves professionally, can’t spell, don’t take 2 minutes to write a coherent sentence are likely to end up in that pile.
Well spoken Mr Im not a sales man on 14k a yr; most of the recruitment agencies behave the way you have just described above and the funny thing is that they seem to forget time is of the essence/an important asset to jobseekers.