In today’s candidate-driven market, reaching great talent is becoming increasingly challenging. The talent acquisition community is facing a growing trend of uninterested candidates who ignore the advancements of recruiters. When seeking niche candidates specifically, recruiters play a cat-and-mouse game with candidates who are already difficult to locate. As these scenarios grow more common, experts wonder: Why aren’t candidates interested in great opportunities? And how can recruiters effectively reach them?

Why Do Candidates Ignore Recruiters?  


Businesses have realized the many benefits of partnering with a recruitment firm for their talent acquisition needs, and the recruitment industry is steadily growing. As firms continue to permeate all sectors and facets of recruitment, talented candidates are frequently contacted and frankly, are displeased with the common practices of large firms focused solely on filling positions quickly. This awareness causes candidates to ignore the advancements of recruiters out of indifference or annoyance. However, good recruiters contact candidates with valuable opportunities that would be worth their time to learn about. To break through and reach talented candidates, we must first understand what has diminished their trust in recruitment firms.

Repeated, Scripted Messages and Phone Calls

Although scripts save time and guarantee consistency, they are a quick way to make a candidate feel ordinary—like just another email or scheduled phone call. Be human, speak candidly, and connect with candidates on a personal level. Building trust and developing relationships with every candidate, even if he or she isn’t interested in the job, is always worth it. They may have a great referral or be perfect for a future job.

Unsuitable Job Opportunities

Candidates lose trust in recruiters when they receive information about a job that is not related to their skills and experience. It gives the impression that the recruiter sent out a mass email or was working their way down a list of phone numbers—this is a waste of time for both parties and gives recruiters a bad reputation. Recruiters should spend time learning about the position and the background of the candidates they intend to contact, so they are well-informed about why each candidate would be an excellent fit for that particular role.

Recruiters Lacking Knowledge

One bad experience with a recruitment firm can cause a candidate to ignore recruiters for the rest of his or her career. Before informing candidates of opportunities, it is vital that recruiters do extensive research on the company and position to earn the candidate’s interest and trust. Transparency and honesty are key factors to the conversation as well—it is okay not to have all the answers. If stumped by a question from the candidate, don’t make assumptions and risk sounding unintelligent. Simply find the answer and get back to the candidate as soon as possible.

Constant Spam

The recurring point is that candidates desire personal connection. Meaningless spam job alerts in email form rarely, if ever, result in valuable connections with talented candidates. Although digital recruitment techniques are often helpful, recruiters must avoid losing their personal touch.

How Can Recruiters Earn The Trust of Candidates?

As the unemployment rate decreases and the job market grows more competitive, recruiters must focus on doing their job well and building meaningful relationships. It can be easy to fall into the trap and practice any, or all, of the above mistakes out of desperation—but that only drives good candidates away and leads to them avoiding recruitment firms at all costs.

For highly sought-after candidates, recruiters must get creative in attempts to reach out. Personalized messages with enough information to peak candidates’ interests will be much more welcomed than a basic template.

While it is vital for recruitment firms to leverage social media, technology, and data, those resources should only be used to enhance traditional recruitment methods. Contacting a group of candidates with an opportunity that may be relatively related to their fields is lazy, inappropriate, and turns candidates away from recruiters. In order to build personal connections, recruiters should spend the extra time searching for valuable candidates who would genuinely be interested in the opportunity at hand.