Be a recruiter for a bit :P or any sales job, really.
Best advice I can give is treat every "no" like a probe from the other side to learn more. They're not saying no, they're saying "I don't know enough about this to want it." Obviously use common sense to avoid harassing someone, and don't waste your time where no opportunity exists (Mark Cuban reacted to the infamous "sell me your pen question" with "Do you need a pen? No? Ok, have a nice day.")
So every "no" has a response -
1. "No, you don't have enough experience."
Response: "I understand that this role requires the right experience. I applied to the job because I'm confident I have the experience you need. What about my background makes you feel otherwise? Do you have a coding challenge I can complete to demonstrate my ability?"
2. "No, we've had issues with bootcamp grads in the past. "
Response: "Hm, I can understand why having an experience like that would make you wary about bootcamp graduates. Was there something specific about why that grad didn't deliver? (choose response based on further information gathered, then: ) Hm, that does sound challenging. I think that my x y or z demonstrates why that issue wouldn't arise with me / I would love to demonstrate via a code challenge why I wouldn't x y z / If you go to myproject.calebjay.com you can see that I have quite a bit of hands-on experience with x y or z, so I'm confident that a b c wouldn't be an issue.
I'm remembering now an old sales training "no" breakdown:
1. Acknowledge the concern. Make the client feel that their concerns are valid, do not challenge or attack them, but at the same time avoid perfectly validating their belief that this is a harbringer that all similar solutions warrant "nos." So: "Yea, it is quite frustrating when recruiters send candidates that aren't even close to a good fit. You should see some of the resumes we people send to us when we open a job!" === good. "Oh man recruiters are so annoying, yea I would definitely never use them" === bad (when you're a recruiter trying to sell your services. Also, "psh, recruiters never act that way, you must have done something to annoy them" === bad.
2. Information gather. Always good all the time anyway. Usually the first "no" gives very little information and you could make some bad assumptions. "We've had bad experience with recruiters in the past" tells you literally nothing. The answer they give you can lead you straight into one of the fifty sells your company has drilled into your head. "What happened with the previous agencies?" "Well, they were sending bad resumes." --> "Oh, we get some hilariously off resumes. We like to think of ourselves as a filter for our clients, so we get maybe fifty resumes for a posting which allows us to hand-pick the best 3 for our clients." "Well, they would have three or four recruiters constantly calling us." "That is frustrating, we decided two years ago to only allow a single recruiter point of contact for our company because of that exact feedback from our clients." Etc.
Best advice I can give is treat every "no" like a probe from the other side to learn more. They're not saying no, they're saying "I don't know enough about this to want it." Obviously use common sense to avoid harassing someone, and don't waste your time where no opportunity exists (Mark Cuban reacted to the infamous "sell me your pen question" with "Do you need a pen? No? Ok, have a nice day.")
So every "no" has a response -
1. "No, you don't have enough experience."
Response: "I understand that this role requires the right experience. I applied to the job because I'm confident I have the experience you need. What about my background makes you feel otherwise? Do you have a coding challenge I can complete to demonstrate my ability?"
2. "No, we've had issues with bootcamp grads in the past. "
Response: "Hm, I can understand why having an experience like that would make you wary about bootcamp graduates. Was there something specific about why that grad didn't deliver? (choose response based on further information gathered, then: ) Hm, that does sound challenging. I think that my x y or z demonstrates why that issue wouldn't arise with me / I would love to demonstrate via a code challenge why I wouldn't x y z / If you go to myproject.calebjay.com you can see that I have quite a bit of hands-on experience with x y or z, so I'm confident that a b c wouldn't be an issue.
I'm remembering now an old sales training "no" breakdown:
1. Acknowledge the concern. Make the client feel that their concerns are valid, do not challenge or attack them, but at the same time avoid perfectly validating their belief that this is a harbringer that all similar solutions warrant "nos." So: "Yea, it is quite frustrating when recruiters send candidates that aren't even close to a good fit. You should see some of the resumes we people send to us when we open a job!" === good. "Oh man recruiters are so annoying, yea I would definitely never use them" === bad (when you're a recruiter trying to sell your services. Also, "psh, recruiters never act that way, you must have done something to annoy them" === bad.
2. Information gather. Always good all the time anyway. Usually the first "no" gives very little information and you could make some bad assumptions. "We've had bad experience with recruiters in the past" tells you literally nothing. The answer they give you can lead you straight into one of the fifty sells your company has drilled into your head. "What happened with the previous agencies?" "Well, they were sending bad resumes." --> "Oh, we get some hilariously off resumes. We like to think of ourselves as a filter for our clients, so we get maybe fifty resumes for a posting which allows us to hand-pick the best 3 for our clients." "Well, they would have three or four recruiters constantly calling us." "That is frustrating, we decided two years ago to only allow a single recruiter point of contact for our company because of that exact feedback from our clients." Etc.
3. Close. Of course.