Is It Rude to Ignore Recruiters on LinkedIn?

 If you have a LinkedIn profile, then you might be contacted by a recruiter. That’s the purpose of a LinkedIn account.

LinkedIn is a professional networking service, not a social networking service to be used like Facebook or Twitter. Of course, you will see a lot of pointless social posting on LinkedIn, which is a topic for a whole other conversation.

However, if you are contacted on LinkedIn by a recruiter, do you have to respond to them? Is it considered rude to not respond to them?

Are there any repercussions to ignoring recruiters who contact you about jobs?

In most cases you can ignore a recruiter, however, it does sometimes pay to connect back and let them know you are not interested right now. Let’s discuss this further and see why it’s often a good idea to let people know what your thoughts are.

Should You Always Respond on LinkedIn?

I always suggest responding to LinkedIn messages, unless they are not personalized and are advertisements or sponsored blasts.

If someone contacts you on LinkedIn, it doesn’t hurt to respond back. Think of it this way, you might in the future need that connection for something and that ten seconds you spent responding to a recruiter might pay off.

It’s unlikely that you are going to have to deal with daily recruitment pitches, unless you are a Registered Nurse.

The average person, especially in corporate environments, is not heavily recruited to the point where their inbox is flooded with messages.

So, it is polite to always send off a quick response, even if you’re not interested in the role.

In order to understand this, it’s important to understand how recruiters work. While that’s a bit too extensive to go over here, the basic idea is that a recruiter is on a time crunch to find a candidate. If you let them know you’re not interested or you are, it provides them with valuable information for their job.

What If You’re Not Interested in the Role Right Now?

If you are not interested in the job currently, but the recruiter looks like they work for a reputable organization and not some outsourced firm that handles mass recruitment for low skilled work, then you should make the connection.

Even if you are not interested, you should reply unless the recruiter is an overseas recruiter who is working on sub contracted roles and is suspicious in their message.

If the recruiter is local to your area, or even if they are from another market you should let them know that you’re going to pass on it.

Be polite, but give them information so that they can close out your profile as a lead.

If you let them know quickly, it helps them in their search. Now, that doesn’t mean anything to you, but suppose you want to get a job in the future and that recruiter might be of assistance?

Well, if you were fast to reply to them they will remember, especially because most recruiters are slow. The recruiter will remember people who are fast to respond on LinkedIn.

If you’re not interested in the role that the recruiter is working on, then simply state that at present you’re not interested but thank them for reaching out and that you’d be happy to connect with them in the future. If you want to message a recruiter in the future, then it's a good practice to keep in good relations with them.

That’s it. It’s that simple. You don’t have to say anything else.

Burning Bridges- When Not Responding Goes Wrong

One of the important things that I suggest doing is to always think of the future when responding to a LinkedIn message.

Sometimes it will come through as a connecting request. In that case, you can accept the recruiter’s connection request and then message them back that you are not interested currently but will reach out in the future if there’s any change.

If you do know of someone who might be interested in the role, you could certainly mention that to them in the message and then connect your friend with the recruiter.

What you don’t want to do is be rude to the recruiter. Why? Because they will take note of it and should you ever be on the job hunt for a new role, you don’t want to have bad blood with someone.

If you happen to be annoyed for some reason and send off a rude not to a recruiter, realize that they will take offense to this. And they will make a notation in your file in their ATS system. That travels far beyond a single recruiter.

Being rude might very well end up costing you a future job opportunity. You might want to reach out to a recrutier in the future and find that they won't respond to you.

Don’t Be Rude, Be Professional

It’s not professional to respond with a nasty message. But also, it’s not necessary that you respond.

It isn’t unprofessional to not respond to a LinkedIn Recruiter request. Especially if the recruiter is an outsourced recruiter who is working overseas on bulk job orders, many of which are probably fake.

However, it is a grey area when a local recruiter contacts you. If the recruiter is in your market, and they are sending you a personalized message, not one of the cheesy templates that LinkedIn sends you, then it’s something you should respond to.

Think of it as a small investment of time that can only pay off in the future. There’s no downside to responding quickly and clearly to the recruiter. That way if in the future you need to use them for any reason they will have a positive memory of their interactions with you.