I love my career. For 25 years I've been involved in staffing, primarily as a recruiter. While the industry I service has changed a few times - my dedication to the people I'm serving has not. And by "people I'm serving" - I mean the candidates. Of course I care about the clients, their needs and their satisfaction, but my focus has always been, and will always be on the person I am helping to navigate the employment process.
I've noticed over the last 10 years that while my dedication to people has remained strong, my interest in diving into every little niche area of the market, reading endless amounts of data, and belonging to hundreds and hundreds of groups/publications/chapters etc etc etc has lost its appeal.
Staying current is important, and I find that my best source for the most up to date information comes directly from the people I'm interviewing on a daily basis. I enjoy those conversations, one might even say I thrive on them. I like engaging with people, learning about them, their experiences, their career objectives, and their passions. I find satisfaction in helping those people. Helping them doesn't always mean placing them in a job, it may mean showing them how to update their resume, or providing tips on video interviewing, or passing along their information to an industry colleague if my company doesn't have an ideal opportunity.
I read about some concerns recently over candidates receiving rejection emails on a Saturday. I can empathize with their concerns. Sadly - it seems like just about everything has lost the element of a personal touch, including the career search process. Some recruiters go as far as to use an automated system in the company database to send canned rejection letters to their candidates. Personally, I'm not a fan of that option. If a candidate has taken the time to interview with me, and I felt they were strong enough to be submitted to a job opening, I will always send a personal email letting them know if they've been rejected. Often, especially if it's been a long, arduous interview process, I'll pick up the phone and call them to let them know. Even if all I did was review the resume and determine they were not a fit for the job at hand, I'll still send a quick email. The only caveat to that process would be resumes that are wildly unqualified for the job at hand. If I'm recruiting for a CIO and the resume shows 3 years of experience as a cashier at Piggly Wiggly, I'm sending a canned response. Not that there's anything wrong with being a cashier at Piggly Wiggly mind you.
I don't like to toot my own horn, because honestly - I'm extremely uncomfortable with it - but I've had many candidates over the years tell me how much they appreciate my follow up because they rarely if ever receive regular communication from recruiters. That makes me sad. Sure recruiters can get busy, but that is no excuse. Sending a weekly email update to the candidates you have in process should be the rule, not the exception.
This all brings me back to - maybe I'm no longer relevant? Maybe the "old way" of recruiting has gone the way of the fax machine and snail mail? Possibly in 10 more years AI will have completely taken over my industry and the human, compassionate element will be gone entirely. By that time I'll probably be ready for retirement anyway.
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