You can file this one under “tips for working with recruiters” – the advice that we post with the goal of helping you get the most out of the recruiter / candidate relationship. Our tip today revolves around candidates meeting with a recruiter upon first connecting, and it’s a pretty simple message:

Unfortunately, as recruiters, we can’t meet with every candidate who wants to meet with us.

Let me explain: we hear from candidates in Supply Chain, Procurement, Operations, and Planning all the time – people we don’t know and don’t have existing relationships with. While we pride ourselves on our existing network, and our ability to represent candidates across their careers, new candidates are still our bread and butter. There are always new people getting into the field (and more than ever). Hearing from new candidates keeps our network relevant, and expands that network, giving us more options when companies – our clients – come knocking.

We’re always happy to hear from a new candidate in the field. If your experience is applicable to what our clients are looking for, the recruiter will have a chat with you over the phone to assess your career goals and experience. And if we’re working on a job opportunity that matches, if we submit you to a client and you get an interview, excellent: our recruiter will meet with you for an extended meeting where we can assess your communication and interview skills, and make sure you’re a good fit for the job.

Here’s the thing: a lot of new candidates want their first contact with a recruiter to be an in-person meeting, and while we’d love to make that happen, it just isn’t always practical for our recruiters.

The reason is that we hear from a lot of new candidates, and if we took time to book in-person meetings with every new candidate we heard from, we wouldn’t have enough time to do the work of recruiting that actually places our candidates in jobs. Our recruiters are too busy securing new business (more jobs to work on), putting together profiles for candidates, assessing resumes, and conducting research to have the time to meet with every new candidate that approaches Argentus.

It isn’t a bad thing to want to meet with a recruiter, not by any means. It makes sense to want to put a face to the name of the person who might be representing you for a job opportunity. But a lot of candidates also think that, by meeting in person, we’re more likely to think of them when a job opportunity comes through. And rest assured, we’re very motivated to put the right person in the right opportunity, so if your experience seems right after we read your resume or have an initial phone call, you will be hearing from us. That initial meeting will occur once you’re put forward for a role, if the client is interested in you interviewing. But meeting with us in person at the outset is almost always unnecessary, unless you’re a VP-level candidate or above who we’re looking to market.

So please don’t take it personally!

We should say that if you’re a candidate in Supply Chain or one of its related areas and you haven’t connected with Argentus, we want to hear from you! Reach out to us today. But please don’t be offended if our recruiters aren’t able to have a face-to-face meeting until the right opportunity comes along. 

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