[brudgers]

If it is a company you want to work for then keeping in touch with the recruiter might make sense -- with the caveat that the recruiter is a company employee not a third party. If the recruiter is a third party then the process smells like common recruiter waste your time horseshit at best and a potential scam at worst.

The waste your time horseshit with third party recruiters runs along the line of using a potential candidate as the basis for negotiating a contract for placing them that contains a nice fee. If the company does not agree (and that may be by policy based on having in-house staff or existing contracts with external recruiters) then the candidate is told they did not get the job (or the job was not funded).

There are good recruiters and the best of them get retained contracts (paid to search). The next best get contingency contracts (paid to place).

Most recruiters have no contract. They scan help wanted ads on the internet, email people based on their resumes, and then pitch various candidates for positions with the hope that a company will bite and agree to their fee. The business model is more or less the same as email spam: the low cost of making contact makes high volume feasible and the high volume makes low conversion profitable.

Again, if it was a first party recruiter and you want to work for the company, then keep in touch because something else is likely to come up. But in any event, the best advice I have is to move forward.

Good luck.