How long to wait before re-contacting a candidate

Sooner or later every recruiter meets a name they have messaged before. A new role opens, the search runs, & there they are again. Write too soon & you look like a bulk sender who keeps no notes. Wait too long & someone else hires them.

The date of your last message matters less than how that conversation ended. Silence, a polite no & a firm no are 3 different answers, & each deserves its own wait.

The short answer

The rest of this post explains each row, so you can apply it to the cases the table does not cover.

Why each wait is what it is

No reply after 1 follow-up: 90 days

Silence is not a no. The message may have landed in a busy week, or the timing was simply wrong. But a first message & a follow-up is enough. A third message in the same month reads as pressure, & it teaches the candidate to ignore your name.

90 days gives their situation time to change. The exception is a clearly different role: a different function, a different level or a different kind of work. That is new information, so 30 days is fair. The same title on a different team does not count.

"Not now" or a date given: their date, or 6 months

A not now is the warmest answer on this list. The candidate told you they are open, just not today. If they gave a date, such as after a launch or after a review cycle, write on that date & say so in your first line. It shows you listened.

If they gave no date, wait 6 months & set a reminder the day they reply. A reminder you set later is a reminder you forget.

Not interested in the company: 12 months

This answer is about your company, not the role, so a new role alone will not change it. Give it a year. Companies change in a year: new teams, new products, new leaders. When you come back, lead with what changed, not with the role.

Wrong fit: 30 days, only for a role that fits

When a candidate says the role is too junior, the wrong stack or the wrong kind of team, they have told you exactly what would fit. Use it. Come back only with a role that matches what they said, & quote their reason back to them. Another role of the same kind, however soon or late, is the message they already turned down.

In process: no new messages while active

If a candidate is interviewing with your team for any role, nobody else on the team should send them new messages. A second message from a second recruiter tells the candidate your team does not talk to itself. Route any new idea through the recruiter who owns the process.

Rejected by the hiring team: 6 months

Give the candidate time to grow & the bar time to move. Before you write, read the feedback from the last process. If the reason was a skill gap, check whether it has closed. Be open about the last outcome: pretending it never happened is worse than naming it.

"Don't contact": never

This is the only row with no wait. Treat it as permanent, across every role & every recruiter on the team, & record it where everyone will see it before they write.

Make the rules hold across the team

A table only works when everyone can see the history. Most accidental re-contacts happen because the last conversation lives in 1 recruiter's inbox & the new search runs in another's. A few habits close the gap:

• Keep 1 record per person, not per recruiter or per role.
• Log how the conversation ended, not just when. "Replied" is not enough; "not now, try after the summer" is.
• Set the reminder when the candidate replies, with the date they gave.
• Check the record before every send, not just before the first.

What to write when you come back

The wait gets you permission to write. The message decides whether they answer. A good re-contact message does 3 things:

1. It names the last conversation, briefly & honestly.
2. It says what is different now: the role, the team, the timing they asked for.
3. It makes it easy to say no again, & means it.

Skip the fake familiarity. "Just checking in" after 6 months of silence reads as a template, because it is a template.

How Skosh handles re-contact today

The waits in the table are a guide for the moment you decide to clear someone. They are not a timer that sends on its own: the decision to write again stays with a person.