RecruiterBashing!!! Have you ever felt frustrated by the constant negativity towards recruiters on social media? 🤔
It seems like everyone has an opinion about our profession, whether they have experience in the field or not. So, when you come across these recruiter-bashing posts, how do you react? Do you take them to heart, fire back with a response, or simply brush them off with a laugh?
Here are some ways to navigate the murky waters of online recruiter criticism:
- Educate: Share posts or articles that shed light on the importance of recruiting and the challenges faced in the industry.
- Engage: Start a productive conversation with those who criticize recruiters, listen to their concerns, and offer insights into the recruitment process.
- Ignore: Sometimes, it’s best to ignore the negativity and focus on the positive aspects of your work.
- Improve: Use the criticism as an opportunity to reflect on your own practices and continually strive to be a better recruiter.
Let’s turn the tables on recruiter bashing and promote understanding and appreciation for the vital role recruiters play in connecting talent with opportunities! 💼✨ #Recruitment #HR #CareerAdvancement
I never take these to heart because they are not aimed at me because I know I’m good at my job. But I will say that the people who bash recruiters are usually F candidates when you check out their profiles so…
I read them so I can understand the candidate experience, it shows me hot buttons people have and behaviors I can avoid etc. Use it to get better.
One friend told me to my face one day “my tech job is making me use too much of brain, I want something where I don’t want to work my brain or use my intelligence, what do you suggest about be getting into recruiting, it is very easy right ?” 😡
About LinkedIn , I scroll past , I don’t even read.
I feel bad for them. People making a post bashing recruiters/engaging with said post are generally not doing well in their career. (If they are that probably raised more questions.)
“I don’t care what you think of me, as long as you’re thinking of me”.
Been at this ro-de-o for a while and Ive gotten somewhat unfazed because its usually someone that isn’t a good candidate or isn’t in my vertical. Ill admit that my ego doesn’t like negative criticism and wants to fire back … however, that’s just what they want so I just move on.
I dont take it personally. Humans tend to judge entire groups of people based on very limited individual experiences.
Plus most complaints about recruiters also apply to candidates, we just cant bash them publically.
A lot of it also comes down to a misunderstanding of what recruiters do. I cant say how many complaints I’ve seen that say “It seems like they just care about filling a role and not actually finding the best job for a person.”
And its like, yeah, that’s our job. I’ve had people mad at me that I wasn’t going to help them with a job at another company and kept putting my company’s roles in their faces. Or people upset that I wasnt willing to interview their bf/gf who doesnt have relevant experience but is a fast learner.
I feel like a lot of people have no idea what we deal with from our end. A lot of the time, the things they’re complaining about we’ve also experienced. We don’t like that shit either. We push hiring managers for timely feedback, a reasonable interview process, etc., and we’re usually blamed for decisions and processes we ultimately tried to avoid.
We have the unique perspective of both sides. So I just shrug it off because I understand they’re frustrated, I understand the job market is a fuckin’ mess, and things are tough, but obviously I also know we’re usually not the problem in the big picture, because I’ve been there.
I do feel bad though that they’re dealing with some sort of bullshit. Things are tough out there.
You have to move on. Looking for work is incredibly stressful on people. They are frustrated, and they also don’t really understand the role of a recruiter.
This is how I see it:
At this point, the recruiting function exists to fill roles, not to get candidates a job. However, I don’t think candidates don’t realize this. They think the recruiter should be getting them a job. So when they don’t get a job with a recruiter, they will become very frustrated in general for not getting the job, and they will sometimes take those frustrations out on the nearest human (the recruiter).
Even if the candidate makes it personal, you can’t take it that way. Just move on.
I don’t pay them any attention. They don’t say anything I don’t already say about myself daily. I wake up, get ready in the bathroom, calling myself a dirty little worm before I slither off to go try to fill the positions.
Both, depending on my mood. I think I’ve been banned from recruitinghell for breaking their rules, whatever the fuck they were. Hard to believe that sub has *any* rules the way they talk about recruiters there. The vitriol on that sub is beyond lunatic level at this point. It used to be a useful place where I could send people, like hiring managers, so they could see examples of the BS candidates justifiably hate dealing with. Now, if they don’t get a free massage and happy ending with every application, they’re encouraged to “name and shame” the recruiter and company.
The entitlement has gone through the roof, and most of the time I just ignore it there and elsewhere, but sometimes I feel like responding. Especially when they blame the apparent Skynet/Terminator level ‘AI’ we’ve supposedly been using since the early 2000s to automatically reject every single resume, because reasons. It can’t possibly be because they weren’t the best applicant. *No…*
It was the Evil AI in the ATS in cahoots with the Evil Recruiter that did it, and it’s got nothing to do with the fact that they applied to a C level role requiring a ton of experience and they just graduated high school, but some influencer told them to shoot their shot, and now we ‘owe’ them a free resume rewrite and detailed ‘feedback’ on why, with no education and little to no experience, their application for a senior role running a department of 300 was rejected.
Don’t care at all, I’ve had so much shit happen to me over my career with stakeholders and candidates that it just rolls off my back at this point.
One of the best skills you’ll ever learn in this or similar professions like sales is the ability to not take things personally.
I always love to see the posts that claim recruiting is super easy, 99% of these idiots would never survive in an agency let alone become successful.
But at the end of the day, that’s why they’re wasting time bitching about it on social media vs channeling that energy into something productive.
Like the other guy said it’s almost always the bottom of the barrel candidates that do this so just know while it may be annoying to read, they’re not doing well in life, at all.
It’s the internet. People bash everyone because they can. Go to the Realtor sub and read what people think about them. Go to the Noctor sub and see what Physicians post about NPs. I don’t take it to heart because I care about candidate experience in my little corner of the world, and I know full well there are a lot of shitty recruiters out there that earn their bad reputations.
At this point I don’t pay attention to them… I used to respond and try to offer a different perspective but I learned that rarely are the people who publicly bash an entire profession want to understand what’s happening or why. It’s just corporate rage bait.
Candidates in this market take everything so personally and usually the gripe is actually with the hiring manager and not the recruiter. It’s annoying to see but I’ve never had a problem scrolling by
IMHO – If it’s too hard to follow up with candidates and tell them thanks but no then you chose the wrong profession. I have 0 sympathies for recruiters who don’t close the loop with candidates.
Depends what happened. I do hate the ones they blame the recruiter for not getting hired and also ghosting them.
The ONLY time I’ve ever acknowledged recruiter bashing is when it was by another recruiter. They were relatively new to the profession and going off on how she was going to be “different” and “do better.” I REALLY hate the whole “I’m going to change the model” trope by people who have never actually done the job. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, quite successfully, and have yet to see someone who is anything but talk in this regard.
I will often reflect on my process and see if there is anything that could/should be adjusted
Easier for candidates to blame the recruiters than the sackless hiring managers or executives who cause them to go fast then stop or hold.
I just had someone post about me today! Exactly the reason we don’t give feedback…I sent a polite decline, she asked if she could have done anything better & I said no, the candidate they selected had very close, relevant experience. She responded: “Just a little advice to you as well that could help spruce up your responses to applicants cause you are not the be all and end all for job seekers.” And then posted about how recruiters think they’re gods 🙄 clearly she’s not open to feedback, and I hope that post made her feel better because it’s only going to be a red flag for future recruiters.
Thats a dumb thing to do in a culture where one must learn to kiss the individual ass of every recruiter they encounter. Especially since every recruiter has their own special, secret way they like to have their ass kissed. I’m sorry, i hope this is formatted correctly.
No of course not. If you aren’t completely unbothered by everything you will not last in this business.
I don’t respond and don’t take them to heart. Very often I go to the person’s profile if they’re being completely over emotional and see their posts and comments and it makes sense they’re unhireable. Like use your brain, if this is what you put out on public “professional” platform – do you not understand employers can see the hysteria and opinions often taken out of your ass that you post and comment?? People need a scapegoat because it’s easier to blame everything on the process. They also don’t see what recruiters see on their side – unhinged candidates, poor interview prep, lying on resumes, candidates who have been interviewing for months but still can’t grasp the first impression matters and don’t put any effort into the first couple of minutes whatsoever, yes/no answers, etc etc… it also seems like most vitriol is saved for agency recruiters. I’ve also seen posts like AvOiD ReCrUiTeRs ThEy ArE ScUm and like … baby you’re a grown person please use. Your. Brain. Most large companies have a… RECRUITER! Impossible to avoid. So no, I will see your application and go to your profile and see this is what you choose to put out on the platform that is a perfectly good tool to get employed. All in all, people are people.
I don’t understand people who use LinkedIn for a platform for anything. I couldn’t give a damn what people on there say about recruiters, I barely care about what they say about themselves until we can talk and do business together.
I also understand that recruiting has a low bar to entry and there are plenty of shitty recruiters to complain about. I’ve worked with them. I’ve been one! I fell into this job by accident almost a decade ago. I can’t feel slighted if someone doesn’t take it seriously, I almost didn’t
I keep keep scrolling. IDGAF.
I’ve come to realize that the loudest ones are actually resume writers farming for customers through outrage. That’s why you hear about the “Secret job boards” and such, just a marketing ploy to get money from desperate job seekers
There is definitely some truth to bad recruiter behaviour, so I take it all with a grain of salt. That said, it’s mostly inexperienced recruiters talking to shite candidates (because goos recruiters don’t waste their time with mediocre candidates).
So as I always tell people, when you start having good conversations with recruiters, it means you’re having conversations with GOOD recruiters, which also means you’ve arrived at a point in your career where you’ve piqued the interest of people who are conservative with their time.
Gets engagement because “hahahaha recruiters”. Candidates think they’re in control when they’re not, so love to poke fun when they see a shit rec doing shit rec stuff – gives them back some of the power.