Responding to Recruiters

In the flow of your busy day, you get a LinkedIn notification that someone has InMail messaged you. It’s a message from a recruiter you do not know.

“Yeah right,” you think. “I’ll get to that after I clear my inbox, catch up on Slack, and sit through all these Zooms.” You never get to it.

If you’re not even looking to change jobs, ignoring a cold message from a random recruiter might seem like the obvious approach. But hear me out, because, as a recruiter for the last 28+ years myself, I have another point of view.

A message from a recruiter is an invitation to start up a relationship. You may not need to talk to a recruiter now — and, in fact, you may be annoyed about the intrusion.

Not so fast. Take a moment to consider just who it is that is contacting you. If it is a tenured recruiter with years of experience in your industry and/or discipline, it make sense to at least start a dialogue. Even if it is just a response saying “Hey – thanks for the note but I’m good for now.” I can absolutely promise you that someday the situation will change. One day you might find yourself really wishing you had a relationship with a recruiter with whom you can discuss current market conditions.

At the very least, a cordial response can set in motion the wheels of networking — never a bad idea.