The short answer? Because they don’t know you.
Last week, I spoke to a group of MBA students at a local University about how to use social media in their job search. At one point in the workshop, a young gentleman raised his hand requesting permission to ask a question that was “off-topic”. Since I’m always up for a good off-topic question, permission was quickly granted, and he continued.
The student shared that he wasn’t very fond of recruiters in general (present company excepted of course), because they only view him based upon his past experience, not for what he wants to be – or can be. Since he currently held a sales position in a hot industry, recruiters were very interested in talking with him about similar roles, but not about the career move he wants to make – a leadership role in another industry.
“How do you get a recruiter to pay attention to you when you contact them because you want to make a career change, or change industries?”