5 Ways to Lose a Recruiter's Interest

By Vicki Salemi

Remember that Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey movie, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," in which Hudson purposely did wacky things to ditch McConaughey in the spirit of article research? You might be similarly self-sabotaging your chances at a job. If you follow these quick and easy steps, you too may put the kibosh on your candidacy before you even had a shot:

1. Leave a voicemail without saying your last name. Bonus points if you also don't leave your phone number. In-house corporate recruiters are extremely busy managing relationships with countless hiring managers, not to mention internal employees as candidates, systems concerns for compliance purposes and meeting their numbers. Yes, they work closely with candidates, but the number of them could hike into several dozen.

When you leave a voicemail with a recruiter, speak slowly, say your entire name, and while you're at it, leave your phone number. Even if you've been speaking frequently with the recruiter and think he or she recognizes your voice and has your number on speed dial, provide it anyway.
Or you can do the alternative: Mumble, omit pertinent information and wonder why you never got a call back.

2. Every day, follow up via email regarding your status. You should indeed follow up if you haven't heard back, but every day? Too much. You start crossing the line to stalker when it's on a daily basis (add some phone calls without leaving a message, a tweet here and there and LinkedIn profile view, and you've reached scary status.)


Instead, be assertive and professional. Follow up a week later, and if you don't hear back, ping them again a few days later. It's actually a good gesture, because it's like saying, "Hey, remember me? Eyes over here." Especially when a recruiter's eyes are here, there and everywhere else.

Ways 3-5 and the complete article



Vicki Salemi is the author of Big Career in the Big City and creator, producer and host of Score That Job. This New York City-based career expert and public speaker possesses more than 15 years of corporate experience in recruiting and human resources. She coaches college grads individually with an intense Job Search Boot Camp, writes and edits the MediaJobsDaily blog on Mediabistro, and conducts interviews as a freelance journalist with celebrities and notable names. BlogHer named her one of the country's top 25 career and business women bloggers worth reading.