When should I talk to my recruiter about my “dealbreakers?”

08.24.2018

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If you’ve never worked with a Recruiter before, you might not feel like you know how to talk about things you consider to be “dealbreakers” when making the decision to start evaluating your next opportunities. For instance, a dealbreaker might be that your current commute is killing you and you really want to stop driving across town two times a day. You might be asking yourself when you should discuss that with your Recruiter.  Our Recruiters at Ambrion would say they want to hear about this early and often when they’re building a relationship with you. Not all Recruiters or firms take the same approach to relationship building, so we’re going to focus on our process at Ambrion.

 

If you get a call or a LinkedIn message from a Recruiter at Ambrion, and you decide to meet with us, the Recruiter will not assume that you hate your job and you’re ready to leave now, rather, you could agree to meet with us for a number of reasons. One of the goals when an Ambrion Recruiter meets with you for the first time is to figure out where you are in your career, and what might cause you to consider a new opportunity. This conversation will also likely include digging into what you like about your current role, responsibilities.  This discussion will also include other intangible, yet important factors, like your commute length and favorite manager you’ve worked for. This would also be the time to bring up your “dealbreakers.” After your initial meeting, your Ambrion Recruiter will have a better feel for what you’re looking for in your next role, and even if you’re not actively pursuing another role right now, your Recruiter will ask if it’s okay to contact you if a role seems like something you’d enjoy.

Let’s say that six months after your initial meeting, you receive a call your Ambrion Recruiter with job that seems to meet the goals and avoids the “dealbreakers” you discussed. Just because you call your Ambrion Recruiter back, it doesn’t mean they’re expecting you to say that you want to interview, or that you want to be considered right now. Of course, our Recruiters would love to present the perfect job to every candidate the first time, but if you have to call back and explain that the job doesn’t seem like the right fit, that’s equally valuable information for your Ambrion Recruiter to have. This would also be the time to talk about any changes in your “must haves” or “dealbreakers.” Life happens. And what you need out of a job can evolve as you grow in your career or your personal life changes. This is what we mean when we say that our Recruiters want to hear about what’s important to you in a role early and often.

 

Your Recruiter knows you are busy, and he or she really will only want to contact you if there’s something that aligns with your career goals and objectives. The more open, honest and specific you can be about what you are looking for in your next role, the more likely your Recruiter is to understand what he or she should present to you. At Ambrion, your recruiter will almost always want to talk live with you about a role. We know that your resume doesn’t tell a hiring manager the whole story about the person you are, just like a job description can’t tell you everything about a job and a company.  We believe it is important to talk through all the good and bad points about a job, most of which will not be contained in a job description.

 

Not every candidate an Ambrion Recruiter meets with will end up being placed by our team, but we hope that all our candidates get honest, useful career advice that will help them find the next step in their career, whether that’s as a result of our network and connections, or the insight we give candidates on how to navigate their job search.