As a recruiter with 20+ years of experience I’ve heard the phrase “no thanks I’m very happy where I am at now” more times than I can count, and as recruiters all the world over know this is the equivalent to the brush off “no thanks….I’m just looking” that many of us use with retail sales people. However, what I’m finding as I recruit now is that that very few (and I mean VERY FEW) people bother with such comments as more now prefer to get more details about the job/career path/projects/location & money before making any quick career decisions.

So the good news is that even while they are gainfully employed these passively active candidates are willing to engage a recruiter in a conversation to better ascertain if this could be a better option for their career. The bad news, especially for those recruiters & companies still relying on job boards, is that they still don’t look at job boards, still aren’t actively pursuing jobs and still need to have a better job/opportunity showcased to them to actually recruit them.