Recruiters have MANY MANY words in their vocabulary. 

Just ask a recruiter about how things are playing out in their market and most of us have the bad habit of using 100 words when 10 will do. This comes from an in-bedded fear that all recruiters have, that if they we're not talking, we're not in control. 

Another fear that us recruiters generally have, is that we HATE to disappoint clients. 

Weather it be not delivering on time or when a candidate simply cant make the one interview time the client has left in their diary, we will generally try to package bad news in a positive way so as not to bare the brunt of the clients disappointment. 

One of the most common things that a Recruiter can't resist is simply telling a client that they cant help on a particular situation. 

In our ever more saturated industry, turning away a job feels like committing KPI suicide, however, consider it from the other perspective... the clients. 

They have a situation that they need your support on. You've been great at supplying them with experienced candidates in the past, so they call you with a left field role that they need some strong CV's for. Now the decision comes. 

Do you take the job and hope that your resourcefulness that has served you well all these years, comes through for you and you manage to cobble together some candidates? OR, do you say no? Something like this...

 "No, I'm really sorry Mr/Ms Client, I can't work on that for you, I don't have the network for that. I could take a look at it for you, but I would only be wasting your time, I don't specialise in that field. I'm very much a specialist in (XYZ) and that's where I'm going to be at my best to support you." 

SHOCK HORROR! Surely the Client will lose all faith that they had in you?!?!?! 

But wait... hang on a minute. What you have actually done there, is saved yourself from devaluing your brand, shown that you have the confidence to stick to your own specialism and advertised the fact that you don't need to jump every time that you are flung a bit of business. 

Not only have you managed to shift a bit more of the power into your court, but you will actually find that clients appreciate nothing more than someone being totally honest with them and just saying NO!