“Either I don't fit into any position, or everyone keeps this database and no one opens it.” Do recruiters return to candidates after they've been saved in the database?

Communications manager and copywriter Viktoriya Borysenko asked the LinkedIn community if recruiters had actually written to anyone after they were "saved in the candidate database"? Because she personally had no such experience.

"Either I don't approach any position like that, or everyone keeps this database and no one opens it. No complaints, just curiosity. Maybe there are recruiters who can explain this paradox?) Well, maybe I'm the only one like that, and they answer everyone? Share your experience in the comments. It's really interesting to find answers for yourself," Victoria wrote.

And although many IT professionals responded that they did not have such experience and some perceived this as a gentle rejection, several IT specialists said that recruiters did indeed write to them again after some time.

Stories of IT workers who were returned by recruiters

Developer Mykola Dolynsky: "I had 2-3 recruiters who actually got back to me with offers. And 2 recruiters chased me for 3-4 positions for different clients at once. But overall, this is 1% of all recruiting contacts. And 80% freeze after the first contact."

UX/UI Designer Anastasia Holoborodko: "She came back to me somehow. After 2 years, they knocked on my telegram, like, 'Are you still looking for a job?'"
I was very surprised and asked how they knew about me. They said that I had sent them my CV once.”

Hardware/Firmware Engineer Dmytro Onyshchenko: "A recruiter once came back to me after these words. Then the company was ready to make an offer, but due to an internal crisis, they closed the hiring. And when they resumed, they really came back (I even worked there). But this situation happened only once. Considering that I had a lot of interviews and similar messages, the statistics are so-so. Especially when you see on DOU or Djini that they have open vacancies."

Upwork Expert and QA Consultant Kostya Krei: "Once in a lifetime. I was shocked, that's what HR said."

Senior Full Stack Developer Mikhail Kolomoytsev: “They wrote to me after the interview, after six months — they called me back.”

EdTech & L&D Leader Anna Hnybida: “Once, I was contacted twice by the same company. First, for a higher position, there were two interviews - with a recruiter and with the owner. After which I was rejected. And the second time, for a lower position, but from another recruiter of the same company, who didn’t even realize that I had already communicated with her company. Which made me laugh a lot))
"And the last time I got a rejection and a message about saving it in the database, because they already liked me, which is terrible, but they decided to continue with another candidate. And after that, I see another, more suitable vacancy from the same company, but unfortunately, I never got a message from the recruiter, nor did I get a letter from Hogwarts."

Product Manager Daria Pyven: "Once they wrote to me, about 1.5 years have passed since I failed a final interview with a certain company. They told me this phrase and after 1.5 years they actually wrote and offered me a vacancy."

QA Engineer Natalia Molotko: "At my last job, they found me like this. I applied a year ago, then they wrote again because a vacancy appeared and I was hired."

What recruiters say

In the comments to Victoria's post, many recruiters and HR professionals wrote that they do indeed return to candidates from the database they had previously contacted from time to time, and explained how it works.

Career Manager & Mentor Viktoriya Pecentii : “I wrote to candidates from the database, all recruiters return to it from time to time.”

Talent Acquisition Manager Tanya Mayer : "I wrote to the candidate, but she already had a job. Actually, because of this, recruiters rarely return to the base, because the probability that the person is still open to offers is small, and it is more rational to spend time on those who are definitely looking."

Recruiter Lana Kompani : "Of course they come back, I'm going back to the conversation with two of you today. It's just that if it's an agency, there's a better chance they'll get back to you faster, because they have a lot of vacancies. If it's an in-house recruiter, it might take longer. Don't lose hope."

CEO of HR Agency Yulia Pashchenko : "I will say as the owner of a recruiting agency: if they really save it in the database, and not just write it as an excuse, then our recruiters, for example, really come back, because we have many different, sometimes similar vacancies, for different companies. But if this is a veiled refusal, then, to tell the truth, they are unlikely to come back."

HR Manager Maria Khodakova: "It really depends on the company. As a recruiter, I constantly work with the database, see notes from colleagues, sometimes 2-3 years ago, contact them, ask what has changed during this time, how the communication went last time. For several months, I worked with similar vacancies, for example, Sales Manager, so I returned to candidates who did not pass the selection for the previous vacancy. So from my recruitment experience, "we will leave your resume in the database" works.

HRD Natalia P.: "I am the only person in the HR space who not only forms separate folders by search directions, but also the one who first of all reviews the saved archives and returns to each resume when receiving a search request, because it is a treasure. For each resume/direction, a table is kept, where I write my impressions after a telephone conversation and a face-to-face meeting, I also indicate the date. Because everything that is kept in the CRM of employers is good, but personal archives have no value, because they are priceless."

Recruiter Valentyna Voskoboynik: "Looking at the company. If it's small, the chance that the same vacancy with the same requirements (because the tasks can also change) will appear quickly is low. If it's a holding company, of course, the chances are high. I've done this with candidates many times.
Not only that, I maintain my network and when changing companies, there are candidates that I hired 2 or 3 times."

Recruiter Daryna Shved-Smolkina: "Yes, contacts are really stored - for example, in systems such as PeopleForce, Hurma, etc. Often, candidates are marked "reserve" or tags are added for future search. This is not a fiction, but it all depends on the internal culture of the company and the workload of the recruiter. If there is no automation, they may simply not have time to return to the "reserve" or forget. So, unfortunately, the answer "we will save in the database" is not always a guarantee of follow-up.

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