Why Recruiters Don’t Call Back – 7 Reasons Why You Didn’t Land That Job

Since you’re here and reading this article, you must know what it feels like to send in your resume and wait endlessly to get a callback. It’s all the more disappointing when you’ve followed the best resume formats out there and really worked hard on putting your best foot forward. We’ve all been there, and we know that feeling far too well.

If recruiters are not calling you for interviews in spite of your best efforts, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something wrong. We spoke to some recruiters in the software engineering industry to understand why they sometimes don’t call applicants back. 

In this article, we will discuss seven main reasons why recruiters don’t call back.

1. Mismatched Qualifications

Every job comes with a set of requirements. If your qualifications seem too good i.e. if you seem overqualified, recruiters may not call you. They may assume you will get better opportunities or that you applied by mistake, leading them to not take your application seriously. So if you apply for a job that doesn’t need your level of qualifications, you should let recruiters know.  

On the other hand, your qualifications may be insufficient for the job. Sometimes, your résumé may not justify your claims that you can pull off the job. It would help to read the nitty-gritty of the requirements and send in evidence to prove you can do the job at hand. 

2. Exaggerated Qualifications

We all know that first impressions are lasting impressions. If you exaggerate your qualifications and your recruiter finds out, they’re not going to call you—for obvious reasons. The recruiter calling your bluff is a bad first impression, and it’s probably got them thinking about the other things you may have bluffed about. You would do a whole lot better playing honest and real, and cut the frills in your application.

3. Recruiter’s Priorities are Different

You may be actively looking out for a job, but the recruiter might just be passively collecting possible candidates for a job. Recruiters often scout for profiles only to build a network of potential to turn to every time there’s a sudden requirement. They may simultaneously be busy hiring for an unrelated job that needs to be closed immediately.

4. Something You Said or Missed Out On

Recruiters look for specific keywords when they’re evaluating profiles. Every job description you see, no matter how vague or comprehensive, has a set of keywords at its core. The right profiles are those that contain as many of these as possible. You won’t necessarily find keywords highlighted because a part of your appropriateness for the position includes your ability to figure that out.

If your profile contains the right keywords for a given job, you’ll get a call. But in case you miss out on the keywords or say things that indicate you may be wrong for the job, recruiters are unlikely to call you. To avoid this, read the job description carefully, try to identify the core keywords, and make sure you use them in your application.

5. Annoying Follow-up Calls

It’s difficult to embrace the thought of rejection and brave outcomes in our stride. The truth is, nobody likes the thought of rejection. Oftentimes, a silent waiting period feels like a rejection, but that isn’t always the case. Recruiters themselves struggle to keep us with everything they’re expected to do. Unabated follow-up calls can really annoy recruiters in these circumstances, causing them to delay seriously analyzing your application. The simple solution is to be calm and patient and allow things to fall into place.

6. High Competition

Darwin’s law of natural selection goes for the job market too. Indeed, the corporate world is hungry for talent, and when we say talent, we mean the best talent out there. With competition so high, there’s a big difference between a ‘great fit’ and a ‘perfect fit’. Chances are that recruiters have received such a huge number of applications that they only have enough time to contact the ‘perfect fits’. So, being a ‘great fit’ may not be enough.

7. Poor and Messy Resume

You have a limited number of minutes to catch the recruiter’s attention. If your application isn’t following a clean resume format, the recruiter may not go the extra mile for you. 

Look through resume formats, ideal resume templates, or resume samples on the internet. You could simply fill in a resume template if you don’t feel up to creating your own from scratch. Just ensure that recruiters don’t have to search through a page to find the relevant details. Keep your application clean, neat, and to-the-point.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, there could be many reasons why a recruiter hasn’t called you back. Keep calm and learn how to write a great résumé. Don’t take silence to mean rejection, and don’t take everything personally. There are things you can do to ensure that a recruiter has a good reason to call you back. Focus on that.

Consider signing up on Talent500, where you don’t have to actively apply anywhere. You can use the profile we custom-make for you, take a test to prove your skills, and let Fortune 500 companies come to you. It takes away the pressure of making a great-looking résumé and waiting to get calls from recruiters.

At Talent500 by ANSR, we are redefining job searching for India’s best software engineers. We represent Fortune 500 companies who are looking for the top 10% talent. Our dynamic skill assessments and machine learning algorithms match talent to the right opportunities.
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