SG
It just wouldn’t be a proper start to the year without some well-intentioned resolutions of one kind or another. For many, one of these may be to get a new job. This invariably means having to deal with recruitment agents. The purpose of this post is to provide some pointers to identify sub-standard recruiters, and alert you to the risks of dealing with them.
1) Deceptive database building
Picture this scenario: you enthusiastically respond to position, and your polished CV is rewarded with an interview with the responsible recruitment agent. However, after 20 minutes of great rapport, you get the eerie sense that not all is right. Not wanting to come across as rude, you persevere for another ten minutes, before it dawns on you that there is actually no job here.
This is then confirmed when the agent admits that, while there is no immediate mandate, there are many opportunities “in the pipeline” and you are certainly well placed for future consideration. In other words, you have just been added to the consultant’s database so that he/she has a better chance of getting a piece of those “opportunities”. There is of course nothing wrong with being in a database, if you are serious about scoping for new work. But a recruitment agent who achieves this by deceptive means is also more likely to engage in the our other unscrupulous practices listed below.
2) CV shopping
An occasionally but disturbing practice is when a recruiter distributes your CV around town without your knowledge or consent. Putting your name out there is fine, but considering how incestuous the finance industry is, it would be so easy for your resume to land on the wrong desk and ricochet back to your current boss. To guard against this practice you should insist that the agent contacts you regarding the name of the intended recipient before he sends out your CV.
3) Intelligence building
Beware of recruiters who spend more time inquiring about other employees in your firm than learning about you. This is because you may be an unwitting accomplice to his intelligence-gathering exercise on your employer – like an FBI agent constructing mafia organisation charts with the help of an informant mole. From a recruitment agent’s standpoint, this is highly valuable in building his industry networks. Unfortunately, it does little for your job-hunting efforts. In fact, in extreme cases, it may well backfire, if one of your colleagues gets headhunted based on your information, with you subsequently left with extra workload in your current job.
4) A flimsy knowledge of the role
One would expect a recruiter with a mandate to be somewhat familiar with the role on offer. However, it is not uncommon for him to have a merely superficial understanding, and not know what the basic functions entail. The downside for a candidate here is that, if the agent is not even competent enough to shed adequate light on the role, what chance is there that he will be competent enough to correctly present you to the employer for further consideration?
5) Not returning follow-up calls
I can fully appreciate recruitment agents not returning your calls, if you are merely pestering them after sending in your CV or after you have had a meeting with them. After all, they deal with many people and understandably have more pressing things to do. However, it is bordering on unprofessional to not return calls after putting forward a candidate to an employer, or after a job interview. The least that agents can do is make the calls worthwhile by providing feedback from the employer.
Although increasing professionalism in the industry may have driven out much of the activities described above, they could creep back in vogue, especially if the current malaise in the market forces financially-struggling recruitment agents to resort to desperate tactics. Of course, even a sub-standard recruiter can land you the dream job, if your merits are strong enough. However, be wary of investing too much of your time building a relationship with someone who practices too many of the above mentioned antics. Chances are you may be helping him more than he is helping you.
The author is a financial services professional in Australia and the views expressed are his and not those of eFinancialCareers. In the interests of balance we have also published a rebuttal article today written by a recruiter, which explains how good consultants operate. If you haven’t already read it, click here.
If you would like to comment on this blog, you should use the “react” function below. Recruiters: if you would like to write your own rebuttal, please email apac.editor@efinancialcareers.com. Please do not contact our Sydney office.
Would like to name and shame gow recruitment
Fished me in with a fake opportunity that did not exist despite my insistence at not coming to meet them if it was a meet and greet
I arrived in Tokyo in the middle of the bubble years, and immediately landed a job as a Headhunter. (Let’s be honest, nobody says “recruitment agent” unless they’re ttrying to inflate their own sense of importance. Or claim that they are a ‘profession’. But don’t get me started).
Anyway, the test to land my job was to get 5 people, any people, to come in and sit an interview. I ended up winning my spurs by bringing in 2 dead-ended junior salarymen, 2 people who thought they had won a free english lesson, and the man who swept the corridors in the building next door (our ‘recruitment agency’ offered free coffee).
In the job I was traine dby a veteran of 20 yrs experience.The usual tactic was to ring up a target company and pretend to want to talk to a person, whose name had eluded me, but that I had met at a cocktail party. I would list a string of characteristics that I was looking for and the receptionist would usually hepfully supply a name “Oh, you mean Mr So-and-so” and kindly put me through. Nowadays you’d call it Phishing or ‘social engineering’.
Once I had the Mark (nowadays you’d call them the ‘Client’) on the line, it was a a process of holding out the tantalising prospect of their ideal employer, and the importance of getting them in to meet. THis is, of course, the fastest way t fill out a database input form. When they arrived in the office it was an orchestrated process of extracting vital details and history but without making an actual offer (since there was no offer to make, and no job to be fille, as yet).
Stage 3 in the process was called “Shotgunning”, a process that respectable headhunters all frown upon, but usually practice to one degree or another. In the case of my headhunting company it was quite literally a broadcast blast of a resume that I had carefully constructed, and perhaps inflated, from the information gleaned from my victim (sorry, “client”). Names were of course obscured by being replaced with initials, but you all know how incestuous any industry is – I’m sure many people suspected who the resumes were about, even if they weren’t certain. And this uncertainty is what a good headhunter provides – not enough to get you sacked, but enough to get ‘em worrying.
So now you know how it works – so don’t just tut-tut about the evils of the system, USE it. Take advantage of the deniability that it affords, and get your name (or your initials) out there. It’s a good thing if your boss thinks you’re looking around. Loyalty is a virtue when expressed, but a fool’s bargain when honoured. Use your agents. just don’t let them use you.