Why is it so hard to talk to a recruiter?
The Problem With “Apply Anyway” Career Advice
Recruiters sit between hundreds of applicants and a limited number of hiring opportunities. In a specialist executive search environment, that is only part of the picture.
Every day, we are also approached by hundreds of unsolicited job seekers, many of whom are looking for advice, market insight, resume review suggestions, or simply “a quick chat” about their next career move.
In our boutique firm alone, we can each spend around four hours a day responding to HR professionals seeking new career opportunities. We do this because we understand how difficult a senior job search can be, and because we believe that people deserve to be acknowledged rather than simply disappearing into an automated recruitment system.
But those four hours have to be juggled with our core responsibilities in helping our hiring leaders fill current vacancies. The rest of our time is spent finding and assessing people against the specific skills, experience and criteria our hiring clients have asked us to identify. We then guide candidates, clients and other stakeholders through what can be a complex process involving interviews across multiple time zones, references, compliance, negotiation, travel arrangements and, ultimately, the goal of a successful job offer and hire. Somewhere in the mix, there are all the operational responsibilities that come with running any business.
Fourteen-hour days can still feel remarkably short.
We understand why executive leaders want to speak with recruiters. They want market intelligence. They want to know who is hiring, what roles may be coming, and where their experience might fit. Sometimes, they simply want to know that someone has seen them and understands what they have to offer.
In an ideal world, we would have unlimited time to speak with everyone.
But there is a difficult question we keep coming back to: how do we preserve meaningful human connection while making that connection sustainable?
Perhaps that question becomes even more important when we look at some of the career advice being given online.
“Apply anyway.”
There is a growing body of advice telling job seekers to apply for roles even when they don't meet the advertised criteria.
On the surface, it sounds positive. Be bold. Don't self-select out. Let the recruiter decide. Your transferable skills are valuable and should be recognized.
And there is some truth in that.
Transferable skills absolutely matter. Job descriptions are not always perfect, and occasionally someone who doesn't appear to tick every box on paper can be exactly the right person for a given role and company.
But there is a significant difference between having genuinely transferable experience and simply applying for anything remotely connected to your career history.
Within our own specialist firm, we can receive ten applications for ten very different positions from the same HR professional, despite the fact that their background does not align with the skills or experience we have specifically highlighted as essential for those vacancies.
That “spray and pray” approach for us, isn't necessarily demonstrating ambition. Sometimes, it demonstrates a lack of positioning.
If someone applies for a manager level local HR Analyst position describing themselves as the best expert in the field, and then applies for a global VP of Talent position making exactly the same claim, what are we supposed to conclude?
That they are exceptionally versatile?
Or that they haven't stopped to consider what they are actually best qualified to do?
The irony of being on the other side of the HR hiring desk
There is a disconnect here that I find particularly interesting.
Many of the people now experiencing the frustration of having their own experience overlooked are people who, when they were hiring leaders, were absolutely reluctant to recognize transferable skills in candidates for their own teams.
They wanted specific experience.
Specific sector knowledge.
Specific leadership capability.
Specific technical expertise.
They understood that a candidate being “generally good at HR” wasn't necessarily enough for a highly specialized role.
Yet once those same hiring leaders enter the job market themselves, the expectation can change.
Suddenly, the transferable skills should count.
The criteria should be flexible.
The recruiter should be able to see beyond the job description.
And sometimes, of course, they should.
The point isn't that people shouldn't stretch themselves or pursue roles that aren't an exact match.
The point is that there needs to be a credible story connecting your experience to the role you're pursuing. Which is very different from applying indiscriminately and hoping somebody will work out the connection for you.
So what should I do as an experienced HR leader seeking new work challenges?
I would argue for a more deliberate approach.
Before applying, ask yourself:
Am I genuinely qualified for this role? If not, which of my skills or experiences genuinely transfer? And most importantly, can I clearly explain why those transferable skills make me credible for this particular position?
If the answer is yes, then absolutely make the case. If the answer is no, another application may simply add noise rather than increasing your chances of being considered.
And there is another consideration that rarely gets discussed: your reputation with the recruiter.
A candidate who applies selectively and thoughtfully can be much easier to get to actually speak with a recruiter, than someone who applies for everything.
If recruiters understand what you do exceptionally well, where you want to go, and what kind of organization is likely to benefit from your experience, they have a much better chance of thinking of you when the right opportunity comes along. All this of course is conditional on you having the type of professional profile that any recruiter usually hires for.
That is the value of the human connection.
Perhaps the answer isn't to automate responses to job seekers
I don't have a perfect answer to the growing demand for our recruiters to provide unlimited career conversations while simultaneously delivering the highly focused executive search work our clients engage us to do.
AI could certainly. Automation clearly would serve a useful role. For some recruiting firms, better hiring criteria, information to candidates, and more transparent recruitment processes could help too.
It pains me to think the answer is to eliminate the human-to-human connection. Instead, perhaps the answer is to make that connection more purposeful.
For candidates, that might mean moving away from the advice to “apply anyway” and instead becoming much clearer with yourself and others about where your experience genuinely adds value.
For recruiters, it might mean finding better ways to acknowledge people without creating an expectation that every unsolicited approach can result in a 20-minute conversation.
And for all of us who have spent time on both sides of the hiring desk, perhaps it is worth remembering one simple thing:
The experience of being assessed for a role feels very different when you're the person being assessed.
I'd be genuinely interested in hearing how others think we can preserve that human connection without making it impossible for recruiters to do the work their clients have actually engaged them to do.
About the Author
Jordan Smith-Randall is the latest addition to the Carter Morris team - with a keen interest in what makes people “tick”. With a history of social justice advocacy, she’s a natural fit to our insistence on fair and ethical recruitment practices to drive diversity in HR leadership hiring.