Send-Outs Getting Rejected

Every send-out that doesn’t get an interview is sourcing, screening and writing that brings you no closer to a placement fee.

Few interviews means a thin pipeline, and a thin pipeline means the search drags on.

The client starts to judge you by your hit rate. Let it slide far enough and your candidates drop to the bottom of the pile, behind the other recruiters on the search.

A send-out is the hiring manager’s first impression of your candidate, and you’re the one who shapes it. You get one chance to set it.

The hiring manager forms that impression by comparing what you sent to what they’re looking for. If that was never agreed with you, they’re screening against criteria you were never given: a must-have that isn’t in the job description, a dealbreaker nobody mentioned, a priority that outranks everything else.

Your send-out answers the job description. The hiring manager is reading for something else. Good candidates fall short of a bar you couldn’t see.

You’re being measured against a standard nobody wrote down.

• Most of your send-outs to this client never get an interview.
• Candidates who meet everything in the job description still don’t get past the first look.
• When you do get a reason, it names something the job description never asked for.
• The few candidates who get interviews share something nobody told you to look for.

• The send-out didn’t make the case. The candidate fits, but the write-up didn’t show why in a way the hiring manager could act on.
• The candidates really aren’t right. The search is pulling the wrong profile, and the rejections are fair.