Should I contact potential employers that I've postponed the job hunt?

Question

The past few months I've been at the edge of graduating, so I'd begun the job search. I got a vacancy in my mailbox daily, more or less and I'd saved a couple. Some of them even sent out a somewhat personalised e-mail. Think along the lines of 'Hi X, we found you on LinkedIn and thought you might be a good match for $fairlyInterestedJobVacancy

Now in the end I decided I'll probably only start working in another year or maybe half a year. (post-graduate courses) Do I contact them to let them know about this? Or do I just ignore it for now, maybe save their credentials for the future?

I think they exchange tens, if not hundreds, of e-mails for this particular job and they'd probably wouldn't even remember my name, unless they specifically saved it somewhere. For the record: All of these vacancies were sent to me a few days up to a few weeks past. I haven't replied to them yet, so there hasn't been any talk about an interview or a good mutual match.

Do I send e-mails to them to let them know my jobhunt is postponed? Or do I just ignore them and save the company name for future use?

Answer 1

I think you should reply them. Most of them are agencies, but some might be sincere and you might want to leave a nice impression on them.

You can reply to them saying:

Dear XYZ,

Thank you for reaching out.

But, I am currently not looking for any employment opportunities, but I would surely reach out to you when I start looking for an employment opportunity.

regards, XXX

So when you start applying after a year or so, you would make a nice impression on them, as they check out your previous messages, and this would always be a booster when it comes to landing an impression.

Most of the recruiters (and not the recruiting agencies) send these mails after a careful profile analysis, so you might want to stay in contact with them and leave an impression on them; so that it would help you later when you resume your job hunt. So, as they already have your profile details and the position which they think you are a fit, resuming the conversation would be easy for both the recruiter and also you.

And so, when you start your job hunt again, your mail to the recruiter would not appear as a cold mail, but it would appear as if you are resuming a conversation you've had some months back. And the latter is far more better than plain, cold mails.

So, ignoring the mails is not a nice idea in my opinion.

Answer 2

It sounds as if these are from agencies. Just ignore them. They are not that personalized. The just bung in your name into a standard email.

Just take yourself of job boards etc.

Answer 3

"Hi X, we found you on LinkedIn and thought you might be a good match for $fairlyInterestedJobVacancy."

Avoid these, right now. I received about 5 a day of these when I was looking for work, as soon as I saw 'we took a look at your CV' and 'you look like a good fit' I close the email and move on. You won't find a nice job that way, I guarantee you. On the other hand, if you're desperate and have lots of free time, go ahead. Just learn that it got to the point for me that I stopped answering my phone and emails because of this. I even took down my information on LinkedIn/Job sites.

Think of it as fishing for candidates, most of the time you'll just give them your information so they can chuck you into a database and never see you again, or maybe they need to fill the 10 candidates for that position they are tasked with.