If Recruiters are Reaching and I'm Not Interested, Should I Respond?

Welcome to roadmap to the executive suite podcast, a place where we talk about accelerating your careers all tailored to the ambitious woman. We're here to have fun, feel empowered and get actionable steps to get you closer to your dream job and salary, no matter where you are in your career. I'm your host, Claudia Miller, Athena, career coach and corporate trainer who helps ambitious women get the jobs they want, almost getting them up to $100,000 in salary increases. I've been featured in Forbes MSNBC, and Business Insider put me there Top Global list of top innovative career coaches, and the creative 90 day job offer program where I teach career driven women like you my proprietary strategy on how to land a job you love in less than 90 days, all while getting 30 to$100,000 in salary increases, no matter if you're just starting in your career, or you're ready to pivot into the executive suite. My clients have been able to move to the next step in their careers, successfully pivoted into new industries without having to take a pay cut and broke it into management without any prior experience. I'm coming to you with a new episode every week on Thursdays with mindset job search, interview skills and sound negotiation advice with actionable strategies you can implement today to help you get ahead in your career. Now let's get started with this week's episode. I'm excited to talk about today's topic. And this is something that I get asked a lot from clients or people that I get on calls with, or they're currently job searching. And it's it because you're reaching out to me, I'm not interested, should I respond? And the answer is, it depends. And I personally need that answer. When I ask a question somebody tells me Well, it depends. Well, I'm actually going to break it down and tell you why. It depends and and how to identify if the situation requires a yes or no. So again, it's if recruiters are reaching out to you, and you're not interested, should you respond. So when I say depends, it's because there could be a varied responses or how they approach it when it comes to that possibility. So let's just say that you are a manager of operations, and they call you or they're trying to contact you to see if you're interested to become a call center services rep. Maybe tomorrow, you did, you know 510 plus years ago, and you're already three, four levels removed, and this person did not clearly do their research, then yes, do not respond. They didn't do their research. So they're probably just trying to see throw things out there and see what sticks, that person hasn't done their due diligence, and probably is not best to even interact with them. So that's a case where you would just not respond or ignore or just delete the message. Now, if a recruiter is reaching out to you, perhaps for a role that you're one level below, and or one or two levels below, and you may potentially be interested, but honestly, you're currently not because it sounds like it'll be a lateral move, and you're not interested in a lateral move. That's when I would recommend to communicate to them. But I just quickly want to make a side note, if a recruiter is reaching out to you for a lateral position, or a position one level below where you're currently at, then that has to do more with your branding. It's how you're branding yourself on LinkedIn, the biggest mistake I've seen jobseekers make is they are branding themselves for the role they have not for the role they want. What I mean by that is on their headline, it'll say, manager of operations, and it talks about their manager of operations responsibilities. And they're frustrated because they're trying to find a director of operations role. And they're wondering why are they not getting interviews or approach or paying for director of operations role? Well, it's because you've branded yourself as a manager of operations, I can't see you as a director while you're screaming manager all over your LinkedIn, and your resume. And usually a resume or LinkedIn is a good reflection of your resume. So if you have manager, manager, manager, and you don't talk more about yourself as a leader, you're talking about director level responsibilities that you might already been doing, manage about the magnitude of the work that you have, then I don't blame them of why they're reaching out to you for those lateral positions, you know, brand yourself or come across as a director or leader, why should I approach you for Director leader roles? So if that's the situation, that's an easy, quick fix, work with a professional, I also you know, I have done some tutorials here on LinkedIn where it's free, or it's also part of my 90 day job offer program, which is a career coaching program where talks about how to brand yourself for the role you want not only your LinkedIn profile, but also on your resume your cover letter, and even throughout the whole interview process. That's just a side note, I just want to share with everyone. So to go back to the conversation, if they're reaching out to you, let's just say for a manager of Operation throughout, but you're really interested in director of operations role, I would reach out to them and well, first, I will look at their LinkedIn profile, I want to see their activity. I want to say that this person has been on LinkedIn, at least for two to three years. And you can easily go to someone's LinkedIn profile, look at their activity and see how far back does it go? Is it normal for them to three years do they post a lot? Because there tends to be an increase right now in recruiters are technically spammy, they'll ask and they'll get your resume. And some of you have your address in there your phone number, what have you worked at before? And that's how they're seeing a lot of people's informations. So I would do my due diligence and try to do a little bit more research on this recruiter, how long have they been working at their current company? Is this a company that's connected and has other employees working there? If they have a company, and there's only five employees working there, and this company started about three months ago, that sounds a little sketchy to me. But if you are approached by recruiters that maybe been doing this for three to five years, and then the company they're working at has over three 5000 employees. And you can look at this recruiters LinkedIn profile and they have over two, three years worth of data, then that makes me feel a little bit more confident in giving my personal information if we were to continue having this conversation. So I do want you to be cautious when speaking and communicating with recruiters because there is a spike right now with recruiters or people posing as recruiters. And it's really them being spammers, and just trying to get your contact information, and then they ghost you. And then you hear from them. And all of a sudden you see an identity theft alert. So do be cautious, please, especially if it's from a company that's like maybe a staffing company, or recruiting company, as opposed to someone in HR within the company in itself. So I do want you to be careful with that. But let's just say that this recruiter does have a lot of information, we think they're legit, it's at a really company that we know, or it has a lot of employees, and there's been a lot of activity for more than two to three years, I'm gonna continue having this conversation, I may respond with no, thank you so much for considering me for the manager of operations role, but actually looking for Director of Operations for all, I've been already in the industry for 50 plus years. And I'm now looking to move to the next step in my career. And, you know, by far like I've been able to manage over a group of 10 or 12 people and currently my personnel budget is around the 5 million mark. If you have any opportunities more geared towards the director of operations role, I'd be happy to have a conversation. Or if you could point me to the right person, I can definitely have a conversation with them as well. Because recruiters work in different ways, sometimes they can be very role specific. They can be industry specific. And sometimes they do a little bit of everything. So they might not have any opportunities. But they might have like their coworker that sits next to them that's actually looking to hire for director of operations role. And they might just say, You know what, I honestly only deal with health care. But my colleague does hire director of operations role, and specifically within the tech industry, I'd be happy to connect with you, or here's a contact information, you can feel free to reach out great. And, you know, that could be a conversation, it could lead to an opportunity. Now, even if you started to let you say you just landed a job. One of my clients actually just got a job at a really big fortune 500 company. And guess what? A big company like Google came to them. And they said, Hey, we will love to interview you for this role. Now, mind you, it's Google. And she felt like she couldn't say no to Google, like Google was crazy enough to say no to Google. But you know, at the time, she really just started a job at a really great company that she was excited about, she moved on to a lead team role. And she even though it was Google, it just would have been nice if she had gone through the interview process before she accepted this offer. But at this point, it just didn't make any sense. And because we did our research with the market check she responded with, you know, thank you so much for the opportunity reaching out. Honestly, I just started this role here at this company. And I want to make sure that I at least give it another year or two a chance to work at this company. But if you come up or you see a manager because she was a team lead at the time, but if you have another role or a manager role, or something along the 200k salary mark, I'd be more than happy to continue this conversation. So she went from making 75 to 90 in one year. Then she got approached by another company and now was making around 150 The so unless Google came in offering her at least 200k, for this role, she just wasn't going to consider it just because she already had gone through the interview process, already accepted the offer and was already working at a great company that she truly enjoyed and was excited about it. Now, you can say no to Google, it'll be fine. There will be other opportunities. Now they came back to her and said, Actually, that's a little bit outside of our budget at this moment. But thank you for letting me know. Four months later, they said, You know what, we can meet your budget or your salary requirements? Are you still interested in potentially interview for this role? So then, because it was worthwhile for even her to consider it, she went through the interview process. Now, again, she was able to set that in her own terms. Or she could have easily said, No, I'm not interested. But instead, we turned that into an opportunity. And maybe not right now. But maybe in the future. And when they know, what are your requirements? Or what you're looking for, it makes it easy for them to come back to say, actually, yes, we can meet this our requirements, or yes, now we have a manager or director available that you might think might be a great fit, would you be interested in interview. So those are conversations that have opened up just because they responded and they communicate? Now, one thing I would say is that it could also be, you know, maybe a manager role. It's a lateral move, but maybe you're currently working domestically, and you want some more global experience to eventually become a global director? Well, then you can ask them, you know, I would only consider a ladder move. If it's more on the global operation side, does this role have anything? Or do you have anything similar to that they may have something or they might not have something. But again, they don't know if you don't communicate? Now, I would say that there are three different types of recruiters or business models that I want you to be aware about. There are companies that are staffing companies, where companies will come to them and say, Hey, I need a director of operations. For whatever reason, we can't seem to hire someone. And it's a very niche specific or specific tool. And we've been job searching, we just can't find anyone, can you help us find someone. So this recruiter working for a staffing company, we're present multiple companies all at once, they can literally have 50 companies that they're looking to fill in roles. So if I, you don't seem to be a good fit for this company, maybe you're a good fit for my other 40 roles that I have available within different companies. So they are looking to make sure that they fill these positions. Now, the great thing about it is sometimes they get paid 20% of your salary, so it doesn't take away money from you. But let's just say you get paid 100,000, well, then the company will pay this staffing company $20,000, and you still get your 100k. So nothing comes out of your pocket. But it is in the best interest of the recruiter to get you the most salary because that increases their commission and their payout. So staffing companies can be great, but you do have to do a lot of follow up work, they are managing a lot of roles, different companies. And now imagine if you're hiring for 25 roles. And on average, that could be anywhere between 100 to like, sometimes 300 applicants for that one roll, and you're managing about 25 of this, it just tends to be a lot. It's a lot of project management. And I know some of you may have already been feeling frustrated with working with recruiters, you're tired of them reaching out to you, and then ghosting you and everything. But just know that they also have a lot of roles to fill in. And you want to make sure you communicate it does became labor intensive at times, but it can also be part of your job search strategy that can help you accelerate. So staffing recruiters and you can ask, you know, do you work for the company? Or do you work for a third party company that's looking to hire for a separate company, you can ask those questions. And you want to be able to share with them than what you're really asking for. Or you can even say, hey, you know, for someone in my background and my expertise, based on the role that I'm looking for, how much do you think I can ask for in this role, and they may want to go on the higher end because their pay out of commission is going to be higher. Again, they get paid 20% of whatever your salary yet, so it's in their best interest to make sure you get the highest paid salary. And the other thing it could be it could be someone in HR within the company itself. So like companies like Target, Walmart, Amazon, they have their own HR or technical or recruiters in the company in itself. So they represent only one company. They want to go in and they want to make sure they find the right role. Now for them, it's not like they get paid out 20% of your salary. They usually just get paid like a salary maybe bonus or commission if they hit their KPIs or metrics. It's not really in their best interest to make sure you get the most it's more of like making sure that they're able to extend the offer for the right person and they're able to To accept it, and you know, we can close that out. And then I can continue filling out the other roles. So that's someone internal, it's over there represents just one company. And again, that's when you want to make sure you do your research. And you can they ask you for a salary, and then you can move forward unless you share the salary with them. And that's when you can give a range. And you want to make sure you do research. And if you're like, I don't know how much I can ask for, try to see if it's a big company try to see for similar position in Colorado, because Colorado just passed the law that they have to share the salary. So Colorado does tend to pay more than other cities and states, depending where you live. So for example, I'm from Chicago, if I'm looking at this director of operations role in Colorado, and let's say that in Colorado, I get paid 170, well, then I probably want to ask around for the Chicagoland area 150 to 170. Who knows, and then that's when I can give an easy range. Now I have other strategies to actually figure out exactly how much we can ask, along with not only salary, but benefits. And if you're interested in how to really attain a true market value of how much you can charge without leaving money on the table, then I recommend you check out my 90 day job offer program where I show you step by step on how to find the salary for a job. So that's a quick strategy you want to use if you're quick on time, or maybe they caught you off guard, you can do a quick search. Now, also, there are companies that are executive recruiters are industry specific. Again, it really depends on the business model. There are recruiting companies out there that only hire for multiple healthcare companies. And that's it. Sometimes they have different departments. I manage healthcare, somebody else manages financial services, another person manages tech industry, another person manages manufacturing. And then there's this other person that only hires four chief technology officers. And this person only hires for Chief Marketing Officer roles. So again, it can be slice and dice in many different ways. And it all depends on what type of recruiting company and staffing company this is. So that's something to keep in mind on understanding the business model, because it would depend on how you can leverage and use them and how transparent you can be with your salary and what your needs are. So now that you know the different business models out there, when it comes to recruiting and staffing companies in just overall HR people, then that's when again, you can have those conversations and let them know, what is it that you're looking for. I actually had a client that got approached for a manager, I think of logistics role. And they were interested in moving more towards a manager of I think supply chain management. And they were looking for a salary of a 130. Now when he got approached, it said like, Would you be interested in a team lead logistics role? And you just said, You know what, I really appreciate it. But I'm really looking for a manager logistics role. Do you have something that's a little bit more similar. And if you come across any opportunity, feel free to continue considering me, that's something I'm interested in, I have over 15 years of experience. I've already been a team lead for this long. And currently I manage a team of five. Well, then they came back a few weeks later saying actually, we do need a manager role, we were just first looking for that individual contributor, but we will want to consider you for the manager role. Now we can't meet you at your salary. But maybe we can work something out haba we go to the enterprises see if we can work again, talent out there. It's very competitive in this industry trying to find good talent, especially when it's so niche specific and everyone wants logistics and supply chain people at this point. Why? Because we're all having supply chain issues with everything happening. So it was very in demand, started having a conversation. through the interview process. They also realized that my client had some background in operations as well. And they were looking to hire a different manager for operations and a different manager for like supply chain management. And it was a somewhat smaller company, startup SNB. So that's when they actually told him you know what, we're not able to pay you the salary looking for for the manager supply chain management. But what I think we can do and it sounds like you have both strengths, and you have experienced within both haba we create a senior manager role, where now you're managing the operation side and the supply chain management side and that way you can create a streamlined process between false and then we won't be able to we won't have to hire two full time employees will only hire you and that we were able to meet you at your salary requirements. Would you be interested in that opportunity? Yes, actually, I will love that. And that's when they started having conversations and they were able to negotiate that opportunity. But again, that would never have been possible had they not communicated with the person from the beginning. Actually, I'm only interested in this role. And if they really want to know, here's at least my minimum salary requirements, but honestly, it's negotiable. based on the needs and responsibilities of the role, I will need to know a little bit more information, before I can give you more of an exact number 10 conversations, combined two rolls into one got the salary he wanted. And the company was happy, they still saved because they're not paying two different salaries, or had they paid around $200,000 Because I think they're offering 100. And my client was looking around 131 2130, they're able to meet the company saved another 70k. And my client now gets to say, like, manages the operation side and the supply chain management side, and everyone's happy. Now is every situation going to be like this? No, not always, I'm not going to make that promise. But it all starts with communicating and having that conversation, sometimes they will be your advocates, they want to make sure that they find the right person for this role, because again, it sets them up for success. That's how they been measured. And also, they have so many positions to fill. So that's one less position to worry about. And if you're in the right role, then of course, the higher a KPI metrics, success rate that they get to show because of it. So I highly recommend to always communicate, let them know if it's like a had to start at my role, I wouldn't even consider anything less than that, let them know, they can come back to if they can't, or they'll just say you know what, we don't even come close to that we're offering $65,000. For that, that's fine. I've also had times where they'll say, we're looking for a manager role. And my client would say, Well, I'm looking for 150. Minimum, I'm not taking anything less. Sorry, this role only pays up to 100k. We don't have any opportunities coming back. Well, they're going through their job search, and they're realizing for the talent and skills they're looking for, we're gonna have to turn this into a director role and then pay the 150. That's when they'll come back to you and say, You know what, we actually changed this role, the responsibilities turn into a director role, and we'll be able to accommodate the salary you're looking for. Great. And then now you can have those conversations and go through the interview process. So my biggest recommendation for you is to communicate, but you want to make sure you do your research, you want to make sure how much do you want to make? What kind of roles are you looking for, if you're making a ladder move? Well, it needs to come with this. Like I said, maybe you've only worked in domestic and you're looking to expand to a Director of Operations, or director role that may touch both domestic and at a global level, where maybe you need to make the latter position into that global position to give you that exposure, and give you that skill set that in the next few years. Now you can apply for that director global role. So again, it has to be strategic and intentional. And you have to ask yourself, what do I want to do? What am I trying to achieve? Where do I want to be in the next five to 10 years? And how can I get there? The fastest, most efficient way possible? And that would answer your questions on what is next for you and what you need to be asking for. So I gave you some really quick strategies on how you can have these conversations, how you can quickly do research and identify someone have a salary range, and how to approach this conversation. And of course, do your due diligence, make sure that you're speaking to someone, and then you do a little bit of research before just responding to any recruiter. Like I said, there's been a lot of spamming scamming going along, nowadays, especially since there's a lot of job seekers. So just be wary of that. And if you're like Claudia, this sounds like a lot. I don't even know where to start, can you help me? Clearly, I'm getting approached for roles that are way off from what I'm actually doing. And I just keep getting approached for these specific roles. And I'm trying to move to the next step in my career. But I just don't know how to get any bites. I don't even know how to sell myself. I haven't updated my resume over 810 years. I don't know where to get started, then don't worry, feel free to reach out to me. I have my proprietary career coaching program called 90 day job offer where I walk you through every step of the process. It's literally like me holding your hand throughout everything won't have to be alone in this journey. It can sometimes be discouraging impact your confidence especially, or depending on where you're currently working. If it's toxic, if you've been keeping getting passed up for promotions, if you know you've been writing but you just haven't been given the opportunity and you're currently just feeling unfulfilled and not valued at work. Well then it's time for you to find the job. There's multiple jobs out there. You can find that fulfilling job while getting a huge salary increase my client get on average 56% and salary increases. And I just had a client reach out to me telling me that she received $120,000 In salary increase that's $120,000 in earn additional income in her pocket. So yes, it is possible. So if you're interested in, you know, needing help with your career search, having a little bit more help, even in, you don't have that much time to apply two to 300 jobs out there, then reach out to me because with my program, you're not going to have to apply to that many jobs. Usually, within 90 days or less, you'll already be negotiated multiple job offers without leaving money on the table, and being able to negotiate with confidence. And then you get to choose what company what role do you want on your turn. So feel free to reach out. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you have any other questions you want me to talk about, please feel free to connect with me either on LinkedIn or Facebook or my other social media outlets. And just let me know what questions do you have and I'd be happy to do a quick livestream video on it and tell you a little bit more. All right, well have a great rest of your day. Did you know I have started 100% free Facebook group dedicated to make a job searching easy for career driven women and help them master their interviewing, networking and start negotiation skills. And we're doing free weekly trainings, covering everything from how to sell yourself to increasing your salary by 30% minimum. Plus, you'll be in there with a network of other ambitious women. So make sure to join us by texting us the word join 284499515 to three and we'll see you there