The Odds Of Getting A Job With A Recruiter

Posted by • February 14th, 2011 • 33 Comments

“Many are called but few are chosen.”

The business of matching people with jobs is horribly flawed, loaded with waste and abuse and impossible to navigate. While you may have heard about headhunters actively recruiting people from their current assignments, it’s a relatively rare thing. Fewer than seven percent of the workforce is ever contacted by a recruiter.

The odds are one in 12 that a recruiter will contact you, on average. In reality, the odds are way worse than that for most people. Recruiters work in markets where there are shortages and/or high demand. Most people work in occupations where there is relatively low demand. If you remove the seven percent who actually get calls from headhunters, the likelihood becomes infinitesimally small.

But wait, it’s worse than that.

Most headhunters work on a pure performance-based commission structure for compensation. The very nature of their pay forces them to focus on the jobs and skills that are most in demand. Since there is no sustained cash flow, most recruiters work in operations where capital is in short supply. Cash is king in the recruiting business.

Contingency headhunters plow through an enormous number of connections and gate keepers in their search for a candidate who feels like the right (and salable) package. They take on more assignments than they can fill (closing one in eight or one in 10 deals is normal in the business)

In order to complete a single search, a recruiter may review as many as 300 resumes, culled from a variety of sources, none of them submitted by the candidates. That pile is sifted into a short list of approximately 10 resumes through a series of telephone calls and decisions. Those 10 people are heavily evaluated before being presented to the customer.

So, assuming that the headhunter you’re talking to closes 12% of the positions she tries to fill, the odds are:

  • 1 in 12 (8.5%) That a recruiter will ever call you
  • 1 in 30 (3.3%) that you will make it to the short list
  • 1 in 10 (10%) that you will be selected
  • 1 in 8 (12.5%) that she will fill the job she is talking to you about

In other words, the overall odds are about 1 in 28,520 (.0035%) that your conversation with a headhunter will land you a job.

You are better off buying scratch-off lottery tickets.

Guest Blogger John Sumser, a member of the Glassdoor Clearview Collection, is the founder and editor-in-chief of HRExaminer, a weekly online magazine about the people and technology of HR. Widely respected as an independent analyst, Sumser has been chronicling and critiquing the HRTechnology industry for eighteen years. During that time, he has consulted with more than 100 HR vendors on matters of strategy and positioning in the market. Prior to his involvement in the HR Technology industry, Sumser was a senior executive in Defense Technology. From large scale software development to naval architecture, he was the leader of tech development teams in a broad variety of settings. His passion is the intersection of people and technology.

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  • MikeRamer

    This post is horribly flawed. Where is Mr. Sumser getting his data? Has he ever worked in the recruiting field? I have been recruiting for twenty years and training internationally for almost ten. For the value of “What Great Recruiters Do For You”, please see my post: http://bit.ly/euUG76

  • Milt Spain

    The author is correct that recruiters (whether contingency or retainer firms) focus on the positions they are trying to fill. It is not their job to promote the careers of canidates who might want their help. That said, if clients work with recruiters that only shuffle paper they are working with the wrong recruiters. Good recruiters know their clients very well, are the best sales persons for the clients' organizations places to work, and have built their own database of potential candidates before the client has an opening. Often times good recruiters will place candidates 2-3 years after their first contact with the candidate, having kept up communications with the candidates who fit the profile s their clients are looking for. Good recruiters, like good real estate agents, are always in the market, good or bad, and are successful because of their contacts and the fact that they know their market. My advice to people searching for new positions is to use every tool at your disposal and that includes recruiters. Just make certain to know the recruiter and insist that your resume not go anywhere without your knowledge and consent. A good recruiter will honor that request and will maintain contact with you althought that contact might be infrequent.

  • http://temphunting.com Amir Lehrer

    Yes, the chances of a recruiter needing to fill a job, calling you, short listing you, getting you an interview and you ultimately getting a job is pretty slim but why not work the odds in your favor? Speak to many recruiters, research the companies that they are hiring for, network, build your skills and your resume. There is so much that you can do to increase your odds of getting a job.

    To get ahead in this world, you must be proactive. If you wait for one person to do anything for you in this world, you will be waiting a very long time and might as well start buying lottery tickets.

  • Peggy McKee

    At first I felt like this article was negative.
    And then….
    I thought about it. We recruiters only get paid when we find something that others can't find.
    So – if you don't have an accomplishment, an experience, a contact or a skill that is super and rare, you won't get the call.
    Want to improve those odds? Accomplish something most can't, throw yourself into an experience that most won't, develop a client or contact that is super powerful, get a degree that is really in demand or sharpen a skill set that others won't.

    I want to admit something here that most do NOT know. I have a chemistry degree for one reason only – most won't do the degree because it is too difficult. I could have majored in a life science, molecular or biology (and that would have been somewhat unique). But a chemistry degree is rare. Combine such a rare degree with communications skills and you get = job offers.

    Now I have to go call those few that are lucky. And my odds for filling the job are better than 1 in 8!
    Peggy

  • http://www.staffingadvisors.com/jobs Bob Corlett

    As the owner of a retained executive search firm, I think John has done a real service to job seekers with this post. John's math may be provocative, but fundamentally he's also right – your personal odds of getting a job thorugh a recruiter are slim – that's just reality.

    I'll leave it to others to debate the math here. Of course your mileage may vary – depending on your skills, your geography, your industry, and the search firms you are working with. But the message is simple – if you are hungry for a new job, take ownership of your search, and don't leave it to chance that a recruiter will come along and do it for you.