A couple reasons, but I think it’s mainly incentives and attention span.
Agency recruiters like me make our living by placing people. It’s how the business works. If each person placed means they can pay rent or their mortgage, you’d better bet they’ll manage and control every step and variable possible. There’s too much at stake. And that makes it puzzling why some will ghost or not be as hands on with the process (that’s another story!)
That I feel is a huge benefit to candidates Find someone who is a pro and is hungry, and they’ll be the biggest advocate for you around. You’re actually forming a team that works together to benefit each other.
Internals don’t exactly have that motivation. It’s different. Most are paid on a regular base salary. While they do need to fill roles, much of their incentive is to manage workflow and relationships. They’re often more tied into the managers and teams and part of what they do is to make it a wonderful experience for people like referrals or current team members to manage their way upwards in the organization.
The differing “incentive” between the two is not GOOD or BAD. It should just change the way you approach things.
Well, how do you get around that?
A lot of the comments I see on places like LinkedIn are about “how can I fix my resume” or “I’m qualified but don’t get callbacks.” One thing I think makes it tougher to get in with internal recruiters is that there’s so many candidates coming at them from all different angles. It’s attention span, time management, and a really outstanding focus on serving their own team.
Internal recruiters manage job postings, they have their own database, they do outbound searching, they have referrals coming in, and they manage the upwards career moves of current team members. It’s a lot!
Guess which ones often take priority? Team members and referrals.
That makes sense. Skimming through job posts is hard and time consuming. Referrals and promotions are your perfect warm lead. They nurture their pipeline with people that are known. And unlike the agency recruiter that is incentivized by getting new people in the door – this makes a TON of sense for internal recruiters, and they’re often fantastic at giving the “white glove” treatment. In my limited time in the internal world, each and every referral got a conversation.
Now, which way are you going to try? Send a random app, or work on being a referral?