HACKER Q&A
📣 throwaway8365

Do recruiters purposefully ignore you after a rejection?


There are valid reasons to want to talk to the recruiter after a rejection. For example, you might not have passed the bar for a certain seniority level, but might be willing to re-apply for a lower level. Or you might want to ask the cool-off period they expect before attempting to apply again.

I've had a couple of rejections now and asked just those things, but got crickets in response.

The naive in me thinks that "recruiters probably have massive inboxes clogged with inbound applicants and didn't see your message". The cynic/tinfoil thinks "there's probably a 'reject' button that once pressed sends the canned 'thank you for your time' email while setting up an email filter to send your messages straight to the spam folder".

I guess reality must be somehwere in between. What are your thoughts? Is there any industry standard in this, or is it really up to different recruiters in different companies at different times do different things?

  👤 gregjor Accepted Answer ✓
Recruiters (the good ones) spend significant time finding candidates and putting them in front of employers. They have relationships with the employers, sometimes exclusive placement deals. After an unsuccessful interview the employer usually (in my experience) talks to the recruiter about why the candidate was not suitable so neither party wastes time -- the recruiter can use that information to send candidates more likely to get hired, which is the only way recruiters get paid.

Recruiters will put a candidate to the bottom of the pile if they flunk multiple interviews, or badly bomb one. That embarrasses the recruiter -- they lose credibility with their actual customer (the employer) if they keep sending unqualified candidates and idiots who show up for interviews late in gym shorts and a Metallica t-shirt who don't know what the company they're interviewing at does (actual experience I had). A good recruiter will tell you how to do better next time. They probably won't send you back to the same employer for another try right away, though. A good recruiter can prepare candidates for the interview, the bad ones just throw mud at the wall to see what sticks.