The call you're supposed to ignore, and why the smartest women always take it
Just after 11:40 the morning following your best quarter to date, an unfamiliar number appears on your screen. You decline it. When you play the voicemail, a recruiter whose name you recognize says she has a role for you but declines to spell it out. You're 50, functioning as chief operating officer without the formal title, in the middle of the year you spent a decade working toward. The board values you. The CEO relies on you. The plan is on track. Your common sense says to erase it, and you have already erased the previous three messages from her.
You grasp the true purpose of this conversation. The job market wants to know what you are worth. What actually matters is whether you can afford to remain in the dark about the answer.
Option A. Ignore it
You clear the voicemail and refocus on your agenda. Its price is subtle and builds up over time. Recruiters maintain lists, and after three polite silences your name drifts to a list they don't bother calling. Your market value is determined by people who can see you. Silence from the caller means silence from the watchers. The year you're succeeding in is the year your price is highest, and you've just chosen not to learn what that price is.
Option B. Take the call, information only
You return the call and say the sentence that costs nothing: "I'm happy where I am, but I always take these calls. Tell me about the role, and if it isn't right for me, I'll point you toward who it is right for." The cost is thirty minutes and the slight risk that you like what you hear. The benefit is a number, a title, and a clear sense of how the market sees you, frequently a level above what your own company has in mind.
Option C. Run the process
You sit through interviews at the height of your best year, in an office in Richmond where someone is bound to pick up on those Tuesday afternoons away. What you give up is focus you can hardly spare, a question of loyalty should word spread, and a real chance at an offer that will force a decision. What you gain is bargaining power and a candid reply to a question you have never voiced out loud: what would it take to lure me away?
Guidance from seasoned executives
Leaders who have run large organizations tend to say it without hesitation: always take the call. This is not about planning to leave, since the call simply counts as information, and it costs you nothing to receive. A 2025 Deloitte survey of 7,500 women revealed that just 5% intend to remain with their present employer for more than five years. In Richmond, the women who exit gracefully were never just restless. They had their figure worked out long before anyone asked.
They also note that a recruiter will share something your manager never will, namely the role the market sees you filling. When a chief operating officer post is on the table but your title at work still reads senior vice president, that is not an offer in hand. It is a fix you can request from within your own company, with no need to leave for it.
The verdict
Path two, applied across the board. It isn't really a decision. Think of it as a half-hour reality check on your market value, one that keeps women from being caught off guard by their own worth or by how others have sized it up. Pick Option C only if the figure is what leaves you sitting down.
Your vote
Which do you prefer? You can disregard it, answer the call, or follow the full process. Cast your vote below. Next week we will share the findings, including the figure that left most of our readers in their seats.