Quick Tip – Always Take the Call

Recruiters will remember – Issue #52

As I’ve said before, you build your career on a foundation of relationships. Successful careers rest on powerful foundations that you continuously develop and maintain. 

Weak careers often suffer due to neglect. Ignoring your professional development, letting your online presence go stale, and neglecting your relationships. 

This neglect is almost always unintentional. When you’re busy with your job, the thought of taking additional time for your professional development seems overwhelming. It’s easy to put your personal website, portfolio, Linkedin profile, and social media on the back burner.

After all, you already have a good job. Why should you invest in finding another one right now? There’s no need.

Similarly, when someone has a great job, and things are going well, the last thing they want to do is talk to recruiters or hiring managers in other companies. Why should they? They aren’t looking for a new job now.

This is a big mistake.

You shouldn’t treat relationships like a fast-food restaurant. When you’re finally ready to seek that next great job — or you get fired or laid off — you can’t pull up to the window and say, “Hey, old friend! How have you been? I need one of those jobs now. Can you hook me up?”

People remember when you ignored their messages or refused to take their calls. Believe me, recruiters remember, and they talk with other recruiters and hiring managers. 

I’ve had more than one conversation about a potential candidate that went something like this:

I pulled a resume from the pile, “This person looks interesting. What do you think?”

The recruiter looked at the name, “Oh, this guy. I remember him. Kind of rude, and he never returns my calls.”

“Ok, let’s move on to the next one then.”

As I’ve also said before, this whole job search process behaves like a flywheel. It takes a lot of time and energy to spin it back up again. 

However, if you keep investing in it, it will maintain momentum and help you land a great job much more quickly when the time comes. 

So, I don’t care if you’re happy with your job, or you just started in a new position. Unless this is your very last job, you’re heading into 100% retirement, and you’ll never need to work again, keep investing in yourself, your online presence, and your relationships. 

Respond to those messages. Return those calls. It only takes a few minutes to be polite and keep relationships healthy. Later, you’ll be glad that you made the time.