The truth about employment agencies

By Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter

EP 3080 Have you ever sent your resume to an employment agency, only to be met with a frustrating silence? This feeling of being ghosted by a recruiter is real and frustrating, leading many job seekers to wonder if these agencies are legitimate. This episode delivers the “aha moment” that changes everything: the core misconception that institutions you. The fact that employers pay agencies a premium to fill specific positions means The employer is the customer and you are the product. This financial reality explains the cold, hard business calculation behind the specter—recruiters can’t waste time on candidates who don’t exactly match the client’s current needs (e.g., project manager resumes were thrown away when they needed a senior Java developer). Understanding this truth is your new superpower. Learn the new playbook: How to make your resume an undeniable match, stop being personally silent, and engage with recruiters in a way that greatly increases your chances of getting a response. It’s about being smart and effective, using your recruiter as a tool in a comprehensive job search toolbox.

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Well, let’s talk about something that almost all of us have dealt with. Employment Agencies. If you’ve ever experienced that stinging feeling of sending out your resume only to hear nothing. Well, this explainer is for you. Let’s get started. You know the feeling, right? You spend hours perfecting your resume, click the apply button, and then crickets. It’s so frustrating and it makes you wonder what the hell is going on. This frustration leads us all to ask ourselves the big question: “Are these places legit, or am I just wasting my time?”. Well, here’s the thing. Yes, they are legal, but, here’s the big ass, they may not be what you think. The point is not whether they are legal. It’s about understanding who they really work for. I mean, it felt so real. It’s like you sent your resume down a cosmic black hole, never to be seen again. You just wonder if a real person has seen it.

This is demoralizing, to say the least. The root of all this frustration really boils down to a huge misunderstanding of what an employment agency is actually supposed to do. Most of us went with an assumption that turned out to be completely 100% backward. That’s what we all think, right? I mean, it seems logical. They were an employment agency, so their job must have been to find me a job. We view them as services built for us, the job seekers. When you act with this belief, silence can be confusing. It feels really delicious. It felt like a personal rejection. You wonder: “What happened to these people?”. But the whole feeling comes from a completely flawed starting point. What if we look at this whole thing the wrong way? So, let’s get right to the point. To truly understand why recruiters do what they do, all you need to do is ask a simple but powerful question. Who are their real customers? Prosperity is here.

It was the aha moment that changed everything. On the left, this is our hypothesis. But on the right, this is reality. Agencies are not paid to find you a job. Companies pay them very, very high fees to fill positions. This means you are not a customer. The employer is. Honestly, if you only remember one sentence from the entire explanation, make it this one. Let’s understand this. They won’t work for you. They work for the company that pays the bills. You are not a customer. In a way, you are the product they are trying to sell. It really boils down to following the money. You didn’t pay them any money, right? On the other hand, if the employer finds the right candidate, they will pay them a hefty fee. This financial incentive means they remain 100% loyal to their paying customers. OK So once we accept this basic truth, that frustrating, angry experience of being ghosted suddenly starts to make a lot more sense.

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Let’s connect the dots. Ghosting makes sense once you realize they’re not for you. It’s not personal. It’s just a cold, hard business calculation. For recruiters, time is literally money, and they can’t waste it on things that don’t serve their clients. Think of it this way. A recruiter receives a new job order from a client. They need a senior Java developer with 8 years of experience in the FinTech industry. OK? So they scan mountains of resumes looking for these keywords. Did they find a near-perfect match? Amazing. They called that person immediately. Is your resume a project manager? It was thrown away. It was discarded. No Step 3B Let’s have a nice chat with this mismatch. So, from their perspective, if your resume doesn’t exactly match what they need right now, taking a minute to respond to you is a waste of their time.

They can spend their time finding the right candidates for actual clients. I know this sounds harsh, but this is pure unfiltered logic from a recruiter. If you’re not qualified for the specific job they’re hiring for, then why on earth would they contact you? To them, it’s just business. Okay, all of this may seem a little depressing. I get it. But actually it’s quite the opposite. This knowledge is your new superpower. Now that you know the true rules of the game, you can completely change the way you play it.

Exactly. Instead of blindly throwing your resume into practice and hoping for the best. You can have a strategy now. You can engage with the recruiter in a way that truly aligns with their goals, which is also key and can greatly increase your chances of getting a response. So, here’s your new script. First, think of a recruiter as someone who provides a service to their client, the employer. This means your role is to provide the perfect, easy-to-sell solution to your customer’s problem. You have to make your resume an undeniable, screaming match for the position they need to fill. Don’t worry when you fall into silence. Don’t take it personally. This is simply a business signal that you are not a good fit for that particular job opening. Remember, they are just one tool in your job search toolbox, not an entire strategy. That’s really the biggest takeaway here. This is not to be cynical. It’s about being smart and effective. Knowing that recruiters are there to fill vacancies, not find you a job, will make you a candidate they can’t ignore. So, the question I leave you with is this. Now that you know the rules, how do you play the game differently? Thank you for joining us.

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