A CV won't tell you why they turned the last job down.

There are several very different ways to say no

Take a candidate who turned down a site manager role. Their experience hasn't changed. The outcome field says 'declined'. That tells you almost nothing about whether your new vacancy is worth discussing.

Perhaps the commute was too long. Perhaps the salary didn't cover the extra travel. Perhaps they liked the company but couldn't move until a project finished. Each explanation points towards a different conversation.

That history is what we mean by candidate context. It's the information around the CV that helps a recruiter understand why someone might take a role, why they might not and what needs asking again.

It includes your side of the relationship too. If a colleague promised to call after the candidate's contract review, you should be able to see that before introducing yourself as if the agency has never spoken to them.

The difference shows up in the first question

Imagine the old role needed five days on a site two hours away. The new one is closer to home. A message about 'an exciting opportunity' wastes the most relevant thing you know.

You could instead say: 'When we spoke about that last role, the travel was the sticking point. This one is based in [location]. Is that still what would make the difference for you?'

You're giving someone a reason to respond and checking whether the earlier concern still holds. You aren't assuming the detail is current simply because it's written down.

Don't let an old conversation become a permanent rule

There's a trap here. Once a useful detail reaches a structured field or an AI summary, it can look more settled than it was in the original conversation.

'Preferred local work in March' can gradually become 'won't travel'. A recruiter then rules someone out of a role they might now consider. The agency has kept the conclusion and lost the circumstances.

Preserve when the conversation happened and where the detail came from. If two notes disagree, read both. The newer one may reflect a change of plan rather than a mistake to clean away.

The best question may be the simplest: 'Is that still the case?' A past preference gives you somewhere useful to start; it doesn't answer for the person today.

Ask what the summary leaves out

A readable AI summary can save you time. But fluency isn't the test that matters when you're deciding whether to call someone. Can you find the conversation behind the sentence? Does it say how old the information is?

Try it with a record you know well. Look for a preference that changed, a role that nearly worked or a promise still outstanding. See whether the summary preserves what another recruiter would need to understand the situation.

If it flattens 'not for this role' into 'not interested', the tidier record has become less useful. You still need to be able to get back to what was actually said.

Write the note you'd want before making the next call

You don't need a transcript of every conversation. Keep the few details that would change the next recruiter's approach: the reason for a decision, the trade-off the candidate cared about and what you said you'd do next.

Before saving 'not interested', ask yourself whether a colleague could tell what to do with it. If the answer depends on something you remember but haven't written down, add that sentence.

That's where context starts to earn its place in the working day: someone makes a better call because they can see what the agency already knows.