It may seem to you that you are still a relatively unknown person in a relatively obscure job. Are these friendly-sounding recruiters genuinely interested in engineering a job change for you, or are you merely a pawn in some game that you are bound to lose? Either possibility could be true.
Like any other field, recruiting is populated mainly by honest professionals, but it also has its share of charlatans. For your protection you should know and understand the way recruitment works. A search firm may work either on a retainer or on a contingency basis. A recruiter on retainer is hired to fill a certain job or group of jobs--and, much like an attorney is paid a stipulated fee plus expenses, regardless of whether the search is successful. A recruiter working on a contingency basis receives his or her fee when the search is completed; the fee is commonly figured as a percentage of the recruited individual's compensation.
Either way, however, the fee is paid by the company. It is never paid by the new employee. This is the first thing you should know about recruiters. In today's business world, no bona fide recruiter will ever ask you to pay a fee.
You should also be wary of any recruiter who wants you to travel somewhere but doesn't offer to pay your expenses. This is a sign of a recruiter who is trying to mass-market candidates. He may have a number of contingency assignments with companies scattered around the country. He may know little or care little about any given company or job. Instead, he counts on sheer numbers to earn him a living. If he can get enough people like you to travel at their own expense for interviews with his clients, some will land jobs and he will collect fees.
Unless a search firm offers you full travel expenses, go nowhere. A reputable recruiter doesn't mass-market people in that way. Instead, a sign of careful recruitment is the amount of work that goes into each search. A reputable firm is unlikely to ask you to travel anywhere until you have been subjected to long, close scrutiny.
Recruiters use many sources of information to locate qualified candidates. If I were asked to identify an engineer specializing in robotics, for example, I might begin by determining if there is a professional society devoted to that particular engineering specialty.
I would then obtain a copy of the society's membership list. I would also go through trade or professional magazines in the field, looking for news items or articles by or about the kind of engineer I'm seeking. I would check lists of speakers at engineers' conventions. And of course I would seek word-of-mouth recommendations. I'd phone people who might be in a position to know the kind of engineer I want, and I'd ask over and over again: "Do you know of somebody who ... ?"
The preliminary sweep in such a search can yield hundreds of names. A careful and competent recruiter does not simply submit this long list to his client, however. A long winnowing process now begins. Each name on the list gets a letter or phone call asking for preliminary information. More calls follow to those who are interested and seem to have the right basic qualifications. The most promising of these may be invited to one or more personal meetings with the recruiter. Finally a select few--very few, perhaps only two or three candidates--are invited to visit the client company for interviews. Their travel expenses are fully reimbursed.
If you are contacted by a search firm that wants you to go through a round of interviews, the chances are you are in good hands. The long, slow process shows care and professionalism. If a recruiter seems to be rushing the process, however--wants you to visit his client for an interview before he has even seen you--then you should be wary. This kind of recruiter may be playing the odds at your expense. He figures that if he can deliver enough warm bodies to his client, sooner or later one will get hired, and he will collect his fee without doing much work,
With those general points in mind, here are the specific strategic moves I would advise when recruiters call you:
Take time to respond carefully. Some recruiters make the initial contact by letter, which gives you time to do the necessary checking and thinking. Others prefer the phone--which doesn't give you time if you get flustered.
As soon as the recruiter has identified himself or herself, say apologetically that you can't stay on the phone as you're late for a meeting. Get the recruiter's phone number and offer to call back as soon as possible--or, if you prefer, suggest that the recruiter call you at home on a designated evening.
Whatever you do, don't try to respond right away to this initial contact. Insist on moving slowly. You need plenty of time. You have a lot of thinking and checking to do.
Check the recruiter out. It would be useful if there were one master list of recruiters, separating the reputable ones from the fly-by-nights. Unfortunately, there isn't. Therefore, you will have to do a certain amount of checking and sleuthing to assure yourself that you have been contacted by somebody who really has the potential to do your career some good.
One excellent approach is to question the recruiter closely the second time the two of you talk. Ask many detailed questions about the job being offered: questions about the company, the nature of the work, the reason why the position is open, the compensation, perks, and opportunity for growth. If the recruiter seems to know little, that could be a sign that you are being mass-marketed. A reputable recruiter gets to know a company and a job thoroughly before going out to recruit candidates.
Also question the recruiter about his or her own firm. How long has it been in business? Who are its bigger clients? Does it work on a retainer or contingency basis? Don't feel you are being too inquisitive. After all, it's your career and security that are at stake. Talk to other people, too. Find out what is known about this firm, if anything. Be wary about talking to people in your own company, however. As we are going to see, this can be hazardous. In preference to that, talk to people outside the company who are in work similar to yours. Perhaps you belong to a professional society, for example, or know somebody who does.
Another way to get a handle on a caller is to find out whether he or she actually has an office. Suppose the pleasant-sounding woman from XYZ Associates gives a San Francisco phone number. Your indicated move; call San Francisco phone information and ask for the number of XYZ Associates. If the operator tells you no such company is listed, or if there is such a company but its phone number is different from the one you've been given, then you can suspect the woman who called you may be using her home or a phone booth as an office.
That doesn't automatically mean she lacks good qualifications. Ward Howell founded the recruitment profession from a New York City phone booth after World War II. But the profession has matured a good deal since then. If somebody lacks a permanent office, you should at least be wary.
Also be wary if you receive a letter with no return address but a post office box. That, too, could indicate the lack of a permanent office. Check with phone information to find out.
Also check street addresses in the same way. Suppose you get a letter on elegant stationery from XYZ Associates, with a New York phone number and a Fifth Avenue address. It is very impressive. However, the address may be nothing but a mail drop, and the phone number may be a disguised answering service. The phone information operator will tell you if there really is an XYZ Associates at that Fifth Avenue address, with that phone number.
Be pleasant and cooperative even if you don't want to change jobs. Once you have determined that the person who has written or phoned you is genuine, be friendly and cooperative. Do this even though you aren't interested in the job the recruiter is trying to fill--even though, at this particular time, you feel happily married to the company you're with and are not contemplating a change. Don't be curt or rude. Make a friend.
You never know how your situation will change in the future. A time may come when you may desperately need a new job. If and when that scary time comes, it will be comforting to have an active, well-regarded recruiter as a friend.
The worst mistake you can make with a recruiter is to wait until you are in desperate need and then send him or her your resume. Every active recruiter gets a steady stream of unsolicited resumes. In difficult economic times, they get buried by them. Some are accompanied by letters suggesting hurry: "It happens to be in New York next week . . , but even without such a letter, the tone of fear comes through. So does the whiff of incipient failure. Every one of these unsolicited resumes says, "This is a person on the way out."
I know it's unfair. So does every other recruiter. Not all resumes are from people on the way out. Some of the resume--writers may simply be testing the water. Others may be in career trouble through no fault of their own. All the same, an unsolicited resume always has that look of trouble. And a recruiter's first questions are: ''Why is this person in trouble? What guarantee do I have that the same trouble won't repeat itself next time around? Am I safe in recommending this person to my client?"
Given two people of equal qualifications, one of them solidly established in a job and the other in a panic, a recruiter will always lean toward the solidly established person.
So take advantage of your happy situation now. A recruiter contacts you and tells you about a job opening in another company; you aren't interested; you're perfectly content where you are. Fine. But don't just send the recruiter away. Take time to talk about your career, where you've been, where you hope to go. If the offered job does interest you, go ahead and visit the recruiter's client company for an interview if invited. You gain even though you end up staying where you are.
You gain two things. One of them is knowledge. This contact with a recruiter and perhaps a client company is bound to give you some new insights into your job and yourself. The experience will help you arrive at answers to some of the job world's more baffling questions. What am I really worth? Does my job have a higher or lower market value outside my own company? How does my personal growth compare with that of others of my age in my field: am I ahead or behind? What kind of future can I realistically expect?
The second great advantage of this experience is that you gain a contact or several contacts. The recruiter has come to know you at a favorable time in your life, a time when you have a secure job and felt calm and confident. A time could come in the unknowable future when this happy situation changes: your job gets abolished in a budget cut, perhaps, or you get squeezed out in a power play. At such a time, with your world crumbling, you will need all the friends you can get. And there will be your friend the recruiter, ready to listen to you. Instead of being just a name on an unsolicited resume, you will be somebody known and admired.
Visiting the client company for an interview could also have happy results. The executives who interview you at this calm and prosperous time of your life may be favorably impressed. They may remember you for a longer time than you expect. Several years from now, perhaps, their company will undergo reorganization or a reshuffling of management, and they will need a new financial vice-president. While they are sitting around at lunch, wondering whether to promote from within or conduct an outside search, somebody will say: "Hey, remember that cost accountant who came down here for an interview a few years back? You know, the one we all thought was so outstanding? ,.
Tell your boss about all such contacts with a recruiter. Whenever a search firm approaches you about a job you don't intend to take, find a casual way to mention the fact as soon as a good opportunity presents itself.
There are two excellent reasons for doing this. One is that it makes you look good. Your boss thinks; "Oho, this person is in demand from outside, it appears! Maybe we've got a more valuable employee here than we thought." The second excellent reason for letting your boss know about recruiter contacts is that it is hazardous to hide them, or to seem to be hiding them. It upsets the average boss to learn or suspect that a subordinate is quietly looking for another job. One of the most damning accusations that can be thrown at anybody in the business world is: "He's interviewing!"
With some quick-tempered or jealous bosses, secret interviewing is a firing offense. "Now I know why your work is so poor!" the boss will say. "Instead of paying attention to what you're supposed to be doing around here, you've been spending half your energy looking for something else. Well, far be it from me to stand in your way! From now on you can spend all your energy looking….
Even if it doesn't go that far, it can seriously set back your career to be caught looking around. People then assume you have lost interest in the job you now hold. Concluding that you won't be with the company much longer, management people stop thinking about you as a person with a possible future; your name quietly vanishes from lists of those being considered for future growth.
There are some cases, it's true, in which a different scenario occurs: a highly valuable employee is found to be looking around, and the company, frantic to hold on to this indispensable person, offers a monumental salary increase plus a stock option, and use of the company limousine. However, this kind of outcome is much more common in novels and movies than in real life. Very, very few employees are that valuable. To count on it or even hope for it would be foolhardy.
So be sure to let your boss know about recruiter contacts. Dealing with your boss, you should carefully
avoid any appearance of doing things in secret. It would be bad for you, and could be disastrous, if your boss were to hear about your recruiter contact from somebody else. Right away your boss would think: "Interviewing in secret!"
Don't let that happen. Wait until a relaxed, natural moment and say, "Oh, by the way, I had a call from a recruiter--wanted to talk to me about a job with a Chicago bank. I wasn't interested, but I was surprised to learn the bank has more employees overseas than in Chicago..."
But keep a recruiter contact secret if you want the job that has been offered. This is the one situation in which I would advise you to hide your moves from your boss.
I offer this advice reluctantly, for it is always risky to do things in secret. But in this case you have no choice. It is a gamble you must take.
The gamble begins when you tell the recruiter, "Yes, that sounds like a job I could go for." It doesn't end until the recruiter's client company says, "You're hired." In the period between those two events--a period that can last for months--you are at high risk.
During this period you must do a certain amount of tiptoeing around: talking to the search firm, visiting the client company for Interviews, and so on. You cannot avoid this tiptoeing, for you cannot land the offered new job without it. If you are caught at it, however, you could lose your current job or set back your career with your present company. That will be no tragedy if you do in fact get the offered new job. If you don't get it, then you might be in big trouble.
So think long and hard before electing to take this gamble. How badly do you want the offered job? Does it represent a significant boost in income or opportunity or both? Or are you just looking at grass that seems greener on the other side of the fence? Consider these questions with the utmost care. Talk over the dilemma with those outside your company whose judgment you trust. Don't make a move until you are sure the potential prize is worth the risk. If you decide it is, the recruiter will do much to help you preserve the needed secrecy. Competent recruiters are fully aware of the problems involved. If you request that all phone calls about the offered job go to your home rather than your office, any reputable search firm will honor that request. The search firm will also be helpful in getting you to the client company for interviews without breaching secrecy.
I recall an airline executive who was approached by a search firm a few years ago. The firm was trying to fill a job in a competing airline. The executive liked the sound of the job, but he was terrified at the possibility that he might be caught talking to his company's competitor. He refused even to travel to the competitor's head quarters city. Instead, the search firm finally arranged interviews in a hotel suite in a neutral city.
That is how far recruiters and clients will go to preserve secrecy. You may not need to be as nervous as the airline executive was, but you should certainly be cautious--especially if the company offering the new job is a competitor of your present company.
Give the recruiter names of others who may want to hear about offered jobs. This will give you added help in making a friend of the recruiter-and it can also win you friends elsewhere.
A recruiter will often make the initial contact with you by asking for a recommendation. Instead of asking whether you are interested in such-and-such a position, the recruiter asks, "Do you happen to know somebody who...?" This very common approach is really nothing more than a delicate courtesy. It gives you leeway: you can recommend somebody else, or--if it turns out that the job does interest you--you can of course propose yourself.
In other cases a recruiter, after getting to know you, will mention offered jobs that aren't likely to interest you at all. "Say, listen," the recruiter will say, "before we hang up, there's a job I'm trying to fill... I don't think it's anything that would interest you. The pay is below your level, for one thing. But maybe you know someone. I'm looking for a person with an M.B.A...
In either of these situations, when the job being talked about doesn't interest you, do your best to think of somebody who might want to hear about it. Your cooperative attitude will make the recruiter happy, of course. And it could also make a valued friend of the person you recommend.
When a recruiter asks you for such a recommendation, your response should be: "Sure, I'll do some thinking. I'll call you back in a day or so." Then cast about in your mind: whom do you know, or whom do you remember from some past job or association?
As soon as you think of a likely candidate, give that person a call; "A search firm asked me if I knew anybody with these qualifications ... I thought of you, but I didn't want to give anybody your name without your permission. Are you interested?"
You've made a friend even if the man or woman isn't interested. And think what might happen if he or she does go for the job and gets it. You have been instrumental in giving a career a boost. This person is not going to forget you. Years from now, perhaps, raised into a position of power, your grateful friend could be in a position to repay you handsomely.
