r/Recruitment

this is not a job post, I am seeking advice

I’m 57, have zero interest in retiring, and just discovered recruiting as a career.
I met a recruiter while on holiday in Jamaica and after hearing what he actually does for a living, my first thought was: Where the hell has this career been my whole life?

I’ve worked at Air Canada, worked in construction, and started/run three small businesses. The part I’ve always loved most is sales: finding clients, building relationships, negotiating, closing, keeping clients happy long after the deal, and turning those relationships into referrals.

Recently I took a side sales role for a friend’s appraisal company. It was my first proper “sales job” working for someone else, and I crushed it. It made me realize I want to see how far I can actually take this skill set.

I’m personable, extremely persistent, have thick skin, understand client acquisition and sales funnels, and I genuinely enjoy talking to people and maintaining relationships. I’ve also hired/recruited people informally through my businesses, although I have no formal recruiting experience.
I’m not looking for an easy second career. I want to become a killer biller.

If I wanted to eventually build toward $500K–$1M+ in annual commissions/billings, what would you tell someone like me to learn first?
What niche would you enter today?
Agency recruiting? Executive search? Retained search? Finance? Construction? Healthcare? Tech? I am not one of those guys looking for advice, given it and doesn’t act. Nope… I am motivated and won’t settle for less. Life is too short and I am used to high pressure & comission work.

And if you own an agency: would you take a chance on a 57-year-old “rookie” with a strong sales/business background?

If recruiting is sales, matchmaking and getting professionally ghosted, perfect….I’ve been in sales long enough to have mastered abandonment issues. lol

I’m genuinely interested in hearing from people who have built $500K+ desks. Tell me what separates the average recruiters from the absolute killers……

what path of approach would you advise for getting into this given my story?

Not really sure how this post will do, but I thought I’d give Reddit a shot.

I have around 6 years of experience in recruitment. Over the years, I’ve worked across product companies, service companies and consulting environments, hiring across different technology and business functions. I’ve pretty much been involved in everything from sourcing and screening to client management, interview coordination and closing candidates.

For the last year, I’ve also been running my own recruitment company. I currently have a 3-member team and we’ve done real hiring and placed candidates, but honestly, the market has become extremely difficult. Requirements aren’t moving, clients are delaying decisions, and right now the business isn’t giving us enough stability.

So I’m making a slightly uncomfortable decision: I’m looking for a full-time recruitment job again.

At this point, I’m looking for something around ₹8–9 LPA. I’m not looking to join for a few months and leave. I want something stable where I can actually contribute, grow and stay for the long term.

The one thing I’m very confident about is recruitment and sourcing.

So rather than asking you to believe everything I’ve written here, here’s my offer:

Give me a difficult requirement.

Let me work on it. Let me source candidates, shortlist them and try to close it. If I’m able to deliver, then you can decide whether you want to hire me full-time.

I still have some financial runway left, but I’d rather use this period productively and prove what I can do instead of just asking someone to take a chance on me.

If anyone in Bangalore is hiring for a recruiter / talent acquisition / recruitment lead role, DM me.

And honestly, even if you’re not hiring, a referral would mean a lot right now.

I’m curious how this actually works behind the scenes in an ATS.

I’m a protected veteran, and I also have anxiety that could lead me to answer “Yes” to the voluntary disability self-identification question. Sometimes I select “Yes,” and other times I’ve considered selecting “I prefer not to answer.”

I understand these questions are supposed to be voluntary and separate from the hiring decision. What I’m trying to understand is what actually happens technically.

Can recruiters or hiring managers see whether an applicant selected:

• Protected veteran: Yes
• Disability: Yes
• Disability: Prefer not to answer

Can any of those fields be used in ATS filters, screening rules, reports, ranking, or automated knockout logic?

The reason I’m asking is that I’ve had several applications where I get through the initial recruiter/screener call, the recruiter tells me the next step will be an interview, and then I receive a rejection instead.

I’m not claiming discrimination. I’m trying to determine whether I’m looking in the wrong place for the cause.

For those who have actually worked in recruiting, HR, or configured systems like Workday, Greenhouse, iCIMS, Taleo, etc.:

What can the recruiter actually see?
What can the hiring manager see?
Are those self-ID fields technically isolated from candidate-selection data?

And does choosing “prefer not to answer” behave any differently behind the scenes than answering yes or no?

I’d especially like to hear from recruiters, HR professionals, or ATS administrators who know how these systems are configured rather than speculation from the applicant side.

Hello all, specifically looking for some feedback from recruiters.

I was laid off from a job after 15 years.

My situation is that I worked for a company for 15 years. My last role with them was Director of Product prior to that I had been in a few other mid management roles and started in project management.

I do not want to go back into a director level role. I enjoyed doing the work versus directing it. I have submitted about 120 resumes for individual contributor roles and I’ve only gotten two hits. I get through the screen and then never hear back. I did ask one of the recruiters for feedback but she did not respond. She did ask me during the interview why I left my company and why I was looking to take a step back and I thought I did a good job answering both.

On the way, I left was honest, and I said it was a reorg, and as to why I didn’t do you want a director role was because I like to be more hands-on in delivery.

That being said, what do you think is hurting me the worst? I am getting really down about the whole process. I’m feeling like I may never get another job. Everything is writing on getting reemployed at this point.

Do you think that they think I am a flight risk once they hire me and the market gets better? Do they see me as a loser because I got laid off? Do they think I can’t do the job because I was a director and not a doer.

I’d appreciate any feedback and anyone that is an expert would love your thoughts on my résumé and how to tackle these hurdles.

Any feedback is welcome, I don’t mind if it’s rough or not just let me have it bluntly.

Small in-house recruiting team here. Trying to decide if a full ATS is actually worth it, or if I'm better off with something lightweight and bringing in specialists for the tougher roles. Our easy hires run fine. The specialized technical and ops roles are where it falls apart, because we don't have the sourcing network for them. Has anyone found one tool that covers both, or is it always going to be two separate approaches?
Any type of help would be appreciated .

I was job hunting for 1 month.I did interviews with 3 different companies and one of the companies went faster and offered me which I accepted right away. Everything looked good and I liked the offer. Now just recently received a message from one of the other companies to have a second interview. Is a large company I think it could be interesting to meet the people in the interview at least. However I doubt I will accept going there. What do you advise me? Should I proceed with the interview with the purpose of networking? Or should I say on the beginning of the interview I just accepted an offer? I really want to network with people in that company just in case. I’m not sure what is the best. Please advise recruiters

On my resume, I currently list my recent experience as:

Freelance consultant - 9/2024 - present

Contract job - 6/2025- 6/2026

• (description notes an initial 6 month contract was extended 6 additional months)

Prior job - 1/2024 - 8/2024

• (description notes I was impacted by layoffs)

Is there a better way to present my recent experience or anything I can do on my resume to overcome the fact that my last full-time, permanent role ended 2 years ago? Anything I should say or address or add on my resume so recruiters or ATS doesn’t automatically reject me? How much would a recruiter be concerned by my recent employment history and is biggest concern to address?

Any advice is welcome! In the last 4 months of job searching, I’ve only been asked to interview for two positions though they were both good salary and I got several interviews in.

Context -

I have 10 years of experience with 2 3-year tenures and a 2 -year tenure before my last permanent job. I was laid off from that job in August 2024 after only being there 8 months. Then I was unemployed for 10 months while doing some freelancing and certifications and searching for a job. Then I took a full-time contract job and they told me they wanted to convert me to permanent but ultimately couldn’t get the budget due to a hiring freeze. That ended in May and I’ve been searching for a full-time, permanent role since then (4 months) while freelancing some. All my roles, including contract role, have been with top, brand name companies and I went to a good school.

not too crazy of a story but it's the first this has happened to me so had to share lol.

i'm a corporate recruiter. two days ago i reached out to a candidate on linkedin who is currently a lead BD manager for a major US telecoms company. he told me he was available every day this week 4pm - 5pm CT to talk about the role. i confirmed in our inmail chat that i'd call him today at 4pm CT. he sends his resume over, so figured he was actually interested.

well 4pm today arrives and i call him. he answers...well, not really answers. literally just yells "WHAT?!" into the phone so loud to where i actually thought my eardrum was blown out for good. i barely was able to say "hi (candidate name), this is (my name) from (company name)-" before he hung up.

granted, he probably thought i was a cold caller trying to sell him something, which i'd understand if i was calling out of the blue. but also a major red flag if he leads business development and is answering calls from unsaved numbers like that. for all he knew, i was a prospective client or a client he currently has. i considered sending him a follow-up message on linkedin to let him know it was me who tried to call, but i don't think i can confidently present him to the hiring managers after that interaction. maybe in a few days he'll realize his mistake but doubt it. never a dull day in corporate TA!