You ever heard of the “beige flag” in dating? There are red flags, of course. We’ve all heard of the red flags: prior conviction as a stalker. Passive aggressive tendencies toward ghosting and then blaming it on work and asking for “a second chance”. Passing judgement on what you order for dinner on the first date. You know the type.
A beige flag isn’t an outright red flag, but it is the kind of thing that has your best friend raising her eyebrows and saying “ooookkkkkkk….” There are going to need to be a whole lotta green flags to overcome a beige flag…. but it can be done.
Example? Wearing footie pajamas to bed as an adult.
No, wait. That’s a straight-up red flag.
Oh! How about mildly bad table manners? Not, like, super disgusting, dodge-or-you-will-get-sprayed (red flag), but the kind where other people need to politely avert their eyes every so often (beige flag).
Do you know what a major beige flag is to a recruiter? Well, a lot of things. I guess that doesn't narrow down the topic of this post at all, so let me just tell you: when a recruiter recognizes your phone number. It's never a good sign when a recruiter recognizes your phone number.
I shall explain.
I use several different programs, websites, etc. for my job on a daily basis. One such program deals with phones. We get a notification at the bottom of one of our computer screens when someone calls into the office. The phone number pops up (caller ID! novel!), and we can pull whatever file is tied to that phone number in our system so we know to whom we are speaking and can document the conversation accordingly.
Anyway, it's a sad day for your budding career if your phone number pops up and the recruiter recognizes it without needing to pull your file. That means you've called way too often. I am granting this situation “beige” flag status because – rarely – there are legitimate issues that crop up and you may end up adding your neighborhood friendly recruiter to your Christmas card list based on the number of times you two chat over the course of a job hunt. But those times are rare, and you better be swimming in green flags.
In general, though, if a number pops up and there's an immediate thought of, "Shit, what do they want now?" or "Good Lord, again?" …Yeah, not great for you.
[Sidebar: Interestingly, this situation is tied to me sitting in front of my computer with the notification box popping up in the bottom right corner. I don't have the phone number memorized. As I'm typing this blog post, could I rattle off a number for you? No. If it suddenly pops up on the bottom of my screen, would I recognize it and know exactly who's calling? Absolutely.]
My most recent recognizable number is for a lady who is ineligible for every single one of our jobs except one due to a particular charge on her background check. Wouldn’t you know it, that one position was for my client, lucky me. Now, I had attempted (several times) to get her started at the one job for which she is eligible, but every one of the four times that I attempted to get her started, she called in with an excuse as to why she was not able to start. I finally DNU'd (Do Not Use) her.
Anyway, she called in recently looking for work. I told her that she was currently ineligible for our positions based on her background check, but if she'd like to discuss that with our HR department, I would gladly transfer her to them to go over the details. She wanted to be transferred. I transferred.
Five minutes later, her number popped up again.
And again.
And again.
I kid you not, her number popped up on my screen no less than at least once every five minutes for the next hour and a half (yes, I decided to keep track after the second time I saw it come up because that is Yours Truly for you). I refused to answer by this point, so I went through her file later and saw that she managed to speak to every single person in the office. Thankfully all of them consistently stuck to the “we do not have any positions for which we can or will consider you” message that I sent out previously.
I have no doubt in my mind that she will continue to call periodically for the next six months until she manages to find another agency that is willing to work with her.
I don’t understand what people don’t get about ‘no.’ This is an employment agency. This is not a case of pitting mom and dad against each other until one of them wears down and finally says “yes” to whatever you know damn well should be a “no.”
You can call all you like, but when we say no, the answer is…still no.
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