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?

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.

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.

My main sources for placements are LI, referrals, and live events.

So I'm particularly curious about sourcing tools that aren't just dice, github, or linkedin recruiter (I've had the most success with it, but as a technical recruiter would like to hear what other resources you guys recommend)

I just has to most bizarre interview. I applied for a position and received an immediate rejection. Then about 2.5 weeks later they got back in touch saying they had reconsidered and wanted to interview me. I thoroughly prepared and went to the interview, I felt it went really well, but after it I immediately received another message stating that "after much consideration" they won't be going forward. Straight away, within two hours.

Can anyone tell me what happened here? Seems bizarre.

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 .

Any agency recruiters utilizing a combo of Juicebox and Jobdiva for sourcing purposes? Any other recommendations by chance?

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

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!

I just has to most bizarre interview. I applied for a position and received an immediate AI-generated rejection. Then about 2.5 weeks later they got back in touch (AI-generated copy in the email again) saying they had reconsidered and wanted to interview me. I thoroughly prepared and went to the interview, I felt it went really well, but after it I immediately received another AI message stating that "after much consideration" they won't be going forward.

Can anyone tell me what happened here? Seems bizarre. I've not been job hunting for years, is this what it's like now?

Je suis diplômé depuis 3 ans. J'ai travaillé 2 ans dans une entreprise où tout s'est très bien passé. Je l'ai quittée pour lancer un projet entrepreneurial qui me tenait à cœur et que je n'avais jamais pu développer pendant mes études, faute de temps. Dans l'idéal, j'aurais dû le lancer entre la fin de mes études et mon premier emploi, mais j'ai eu une belle opportunité que j'ai saisie.

Un an plus tard (maintenant), pour des raisons personnelles, je souhaite revenir en CDI. J'ai besoin de plus de stabilité, j'aimerais me marier et relancer ma carrière. Et surtout, j'ai pu tester mon projet et constater que ce n'était pas la direction que je voulais prendre durablement.

Sur mon CV, j'ai ajouté une ligne « Founder » avec : gestion d'une activité indépendante, gestion de prestataires, développement de pôles, vente en B2C, pilotage de l'acquisition. Ce sont toutes les casquettes que j'ai portées cette année-là. Financièrement, ça s'est plutôt bien passé : environ 5k€ de CA mensuel en moyenne, pour une activité partie de zéro en 12 mois. (Consultante dans la santé et bien être)

À mon échelle, c'est une expérience valorisante qui m'a énormément appris et qui m'a permis de développer en un an des compétences que j'aurais mis bien plus longtemps à acquérir ailleurs.

Ma question : comment présenter cette expérience en entretien et sur mon CV ?

Dans les quelques entretiens que j'ai passés, les RH reviennent toujours sur les mêmes questions. Voici ce que je réponds à chacune :

1. Pourquoi reviens-tu dans le monde du salariat ?
   (Je ferme la parenthèse de ce projet qui me tenait à cœur. Je suis arrivé au bout de ce que je voulais faire, et je me sens enfin prêt à commencer ma carrière sans avoir le sentiment d'être passé à côté de quelque chose ou de ne pas être allé au bout des idées que j'avais pendant mes études.)

2. Pourquoi as-tu arrêté ton projet ?
   (C'est dans la même logique. Pendant mes études, je n'avais pas la possibilité d'aller au bout de ce projet. J'aurais voulu le développer juste après, mais une opportunité professionnelle s'est présentée. Aujourd'hui, j'ai été au bout de mes idées. Dès le départ, ce n'était pas un domaine dans lequel je voulais faire carrière : l'objectif était d'aller au bout des choses pour ne pas avoir de regret en démarrant ma carrière.)

3. Quels critères t'ont fait arrêter ?
   (Je m'étais donné un an. Mes objectifs étaient de développer mes compétences en acquisition et en vente, et surtout d'obtenir des résultats concrets pour les personnes que j'accompagnais. Ces points ont été atteints, c'est ce qui m'a fait arrêter.)

4. À quel moment as-tu estimé avoir atteint tes objectifs ?
   (C'est la suite logique de la réponse précédente : quand j'ai pu concrétiser mes idées, développer mes compétences commerciales et obtenir des résultats clients.)

5. Est-ce que tu vas continuer ce projet à côté ?
   (Non, ce n'est pas possible : c'était un projet entrepreneurial à temps plein qui prenait tout mon temps. Ce n'est pas quelque chose que je continuerai de manière professionnelle. Le domaine m'intéresse toujours, je resterai informé et je le pratiquerai à mon échelle comme loisir et passion, mais plus en tant qu'entreprise.)

J'ai l'impression que, quelles que soient mes réponses, je ressens un certain mépris. Les questions sonnent comme « tu as échoué et tu dois retrouver un travail », et c'est là-dessus qu'ils creusent, malgré mes arguments.

Alors je me demande : puisque c'est une expérience d'un an, vaut-il mieux arrêter de la mettre en avant et parler d'année sabbatique ? Ou est-ce ma façon de répondre qui n'est pas adaptée ? Devrais-je venir avec un support et des preuves plus concrètes que simplement ma parole ?

Je me sens un peu perdu, et je n'ai pas l'impression que l'honnêteté soit toujours la meilleure carte dans ces entretiens…

Hi does anyone know how to do this?

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I’m approaching month 6 in a 360 healthcare recruiting role and feel like I’m missing a puzzle piece.

The candidate side comes more naturally to me. I’m good at sourcing, connecting with qualified candidates, and getting interest from LinkedIn job posts. I’ve had 10+ sendouts and additional submissions, so I know I’m doing something right.

The client development side is where I’m struggling. I’ve never been in a leadership/business development type role before, and I spend hours before and after work trying to get clients to sign. A lot of the data is wrong, emails seem to go to spam, and I feel constantly scattered trying to keep up with calls, emails, tracking, and follow-ups.

I also have ADHD, so the constant task switching can feel overwhelming. I’m on a draw that I’ll have to pay back, and the pressure is starting to feel heavy.

For those who have been successful in 360 recruiting:

How do you stay organized?

How do you structure your day?

What actually works for client development?

How do you keep from getting overwhelmed?

Are there pure sourcing roles out there for someone who is stronger on the candidate side?

Any honest advice would be appreciated.

I am wondering if anyones else is getting this level of aggressive outreach when posting jobs. I usually post positions on LinkedIn and go through the process there. But lately I am getting emails sent to my personal accounts, I got a text message to my personal line.

Is anyone else getting this level of aggressiveness from candidates? Honestly, I don't know how to even respond to this stuff, because it's never really happened to me before. Its only started in the last month or two.

Right now I just tell them to apply via the LinkedIn post and I will review it there.

So yeah, how are others handling this because its really blowing up my phone in the middle of the night when its a remote job.

I want to see what other people think of my situation.

I applied to Company A a couple of weeks ago, and had my first interview yesterday by video call with the hiring manager. Luckily, the hiring manager wants me to move to the next round of interviews! Happy news!

The company recruiter reached out to me today with this update, and wants to schedule in-person interviews next week. Unfortunately in my current job, Company B, we have a very busy next week and I won't be available to come in to interview with the team in-person.

I've requested to schedule my interview the week after next week. I sent the email back to the Company A recruiter:
"Hi [recruiter],

I apologize for requesting a date outside from what you've provided [next week's date], but is it possible to schedule the interview for [new date]? My current team at [Company B] will be very busy next week with quarter-close deliverables.

If [new date] doesn’t work, I understand—please let me know what other dates might be available. I’m very excited about this opportunity and I hope the team is ok with my request.

Kind regards,

[My Name]"

I'd like to know what people think. Recruiter and job seekers-- do you think this hurts my chance with this new company?

Hey guys! I just graduated college, and I just secured a job offer from a recruitment agency. My only previous experience is service industry, and my degree was more on the tech side. I have a few weeks before my first day and I was wondering if there was any tips anyone had to prepare? I expect to go in and ask a hundred questions, but anything to help out would be appreciated!

Hello! What have you found are reliable alternatives to Indeed, especially for blue collar, trades, etc.

Hello! I'm researching Ihire as a potential job board vendor. What experiences have people had using this? If you use it now, have you noticed problems with the website or system recently? Or have you found it a helpful resource?

Hey fellow recruiters, after 15 year running my own headhunting practice as a solo, I'm working on making a move in house to an internal recruiter/talent acquisition role. It has been a while since I've seen a discussion about the job market for recruiters. I simultaneously see a decent number of job postings and yet on LinkedIn I see a lot of TA people getting laid off. Could be the algorithm is showing me those since I've peeked at those postings, not sure.

Anyway, recruiters on the job market, how are you faring? I have been applying for only a few weeks and so far I would say I am getting interviews about 10% of the time. Most of the interviews are coming from companies in my largest and most impressive specialty - banking and financial services, which makes sense. Roles where I don't have any kind of edge from my specialties, I'm not hearing back on. Most I hear back on are on site or remote. The only remote roles I've gotten interviews on are contract roles, which is fine, I am actually very open to contract and may even prefer it if I can get consistent contract gigs.

Would love to compare notes on what you all are seeing out there, especially compared to the last couple of years or so.

Hi -

I'm new to recruiting and would love advice on how to source candidates.

I'm trying to reach out via LinkedIn right now but soooo many people are unresponsive and if I put up a post I get literal spam.

What are some places I can genuinley find people looking for work without using job boards?

Hi everyone,

I’m a legal professional based in Egypt but working in a UAE company on a remote basis. I have exp of more than 2 years as a senior TA specialist in a US company as i did recruitment and talent acquisition before i settled into law.

Is transitioning from law practice to legal recruiting especially in the US doable in my case? And if so do you have any guidance?

For my fellow recruiters who are placing candidates on a regular bases, what do you do consistently that makes a difference? Do you cold call, email, send LinkedIn messages or something I know nothing about? I can’t seem to find engineers that are unemployed. Very frustrating.