The call you're supposed to ignore, and why the smartest women always take it

At 11:40 on the morning after the strongest quarter of your career, your phone lights up with a number you do not recognize. You decline it. The voicemail is from a recruiter whose name sounds familiar, offering a role she will not spell out on a message. You are 50, running the operation as chief operating officer without the title, in the stretch of time you spent ten years working toward. The board backs you. The CEO relies on you. The plan is delivering. Your gut says to erase the voicemail, which is exactly what you did with the three before it.

You understand what the call truly represents. Recruiters are testing how much the market values you. What matters is whether skipping that answer would cost you more than hearing it.

Option A. Let it ring

Erase the message, then get back to the strategy you were working on. The cost builds slowly. Recruiters keep their own lists, and after three polite non-responses your name drops onto a different one, the list they stop calling. Those who can really see your contributions are the ones who determine what you are worth. When nobody from outside is calling, it usually means nobody is paying close attention. The year you are winning is the year your price peaks, and you have just chosen not to learn what that price is.

Option B. Take the call for information only

You phone back and say the sentence that commits you to nothing. "I'm glad where I am, and I always take these conversations. Walk me through the role, and if it isn't a fit for me, I'll point you to someone who might be." The price is half an hour, plus the small chance you hear something you like. What you gain is a figure, a title, and a read on how the market sees you, which often sits a level above what your own company has put on paper.

Option C. Run the full process

You move through the interviews in the middle of your best year, inside a company where someone will sooner or later notice the afternoons you are missing. The cost is attention you cannot spare, a loyalty problem if word gets around, and a real chance of an offer you will have to decide on. The payoff is leverage, along with a clear answer to a question you have never said out loud: what would it actually take to get me to leave?

Guidance from seasoned leaders

Leaders who have run large organizations, including several here in the Las Vegas valley, say it without hesitation: always take the call. You are not obligated to leave, yet answering costs nothing and can teach you a great deal. In Deloitte's 2025 study of 7,500 women, just 5% said they plan to remain with their present employer beyond five years. Those who departed amicably had never been unsettled to begin with. Long before any offer arrived, they had already pinned down what they were worth.

They also point out that a recruiter will tell you something your manager never will: where the market places you. If the search is for a chief operating officer and your company still lists you as a senior vice president, that is not an offer. Think of it as a recalibration you can apply at your desk in Henderson or Summerlin without ever handing in your notice.

The verdict

Option B, no exceptions. Nobody is truly forcing a choice on you here. It is a half-hour market check, and women who take it are never caught off guard by their own value or by anyone else's estimate of it. Pick Option C only in the case where the figure stops you in your tracks.

Your vote

What is your reply? Ignore the ringing, pick up, or follow the workflow through. Cast your vote below. Next week we'll share what we found, including the number that had many of you reaching for a chair.