By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
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If a company rejected me when I directly applied but after a few months an employment agency calls me for the same role, should I go ahead and apply again or tell them that I applied with the company before but was rejected immediately?
Three Principles to Apply When Considering a Career Change
“If a company rejected me when I directly applied, but after a few months an agency calls me for the same role, should I go ahead and apply again or tell them that I applied with the company before but was rejected immediately?” I like this question because, number one, I have the opportunity to say to someone: don’t cheat the agency out of their fee. And that’s what you’d be doing by going directly to the employer at that point. You didn’t know the job had reopened because that’s probably what’s happened after a few months. You didn’t know that job was there without them. And the person who contacted you is someone who’s got a wife, husband, or partner, may have kids, a mortgage; they got, minimally, got to pay the rent, right? They’ve got bills, and you’re taking food out of their mouth. You’ve taken money out of their bank account by applying directly, having taken their information and used it to your own advantage.
I know people don’t like recruiters, but you know, they have a reason not to like a lot of you folks too. What do you mean? Because a lot of you think this way—like you’re going to save the company money and they’re going to want to hire you because of that. No, doesn’t work that way. Maybe in the 1970s it did when I first got into search, but not anymore. So let them do their job and tell them you had applied directly a few months before and got rejected and you want to give them the courtesy of letting them know.
“Why were you rejected?” “I don’t know, I got a rejection letter.” At some companies, you know, because the system is automated, they may have to apply through the applicant tracking system on your behalf and they may say, “Do you have a different email address than the one that you used to apply for this role?” And the reason they’re doing that is to get around the block the company may have about accepting a referral from them. You see, one of the simple ways that these systems track a previous referral of a resume is by your email address. So what you want to be prepared to do is to give them an alternate email address that may forward to your real one and thus allow them to resubmit you. So don’t go directly; don’t do that kind of stuff. It’s not the right thing to.
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, all as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2000 episodes, and is a member of The Forbes Coaches Council.
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