In a word, yes, some do.
Following on from the last article on Protect Your Project Management Professional Profile I wanted to share with you another practice which unfortunately we are seeing an increase in. When times are difficult, some recruitment agents need to be gaining all the new clients they can and sometimes that means you, the job-seeker, will be able to provide information about which companies are recruiting right now. When you last spoke to a recruitment agent did you get asked the question ” Are you attending interviews at the moment, who are you interviewing with?”
This information enables recruitment agents to go directly to the organisations they know are recruiting and throw a few CVs to see if any of them stick, nice eh? That 30 second conversation with an agent might just have cost you the interview and any potential job offer that was coming your way. Instead, the recruitment agent have put another candidate’s details forward and now you have more competition for the post. That’s the worse that can happen in a situation like that but the employing organisation won’t thank you either. Generally when the hiring manager gets speculative CVs suddenly out of the blue from a recruitment agency they have never used before, alarm bells start ringing, especially if the position is confidential. It doesn’t take long either to work out where the “leak” may have come from, and questions start being asked. Not the most positive light you wanted to projected yourself in.
So what can you do? Last week I spoke to a candidate about a situation they were placed in just recently. They had received a call from a recruitment agent about a potential role in which they thought this candidate would be a good fit. The recruitment agent then asked the usual questions; when are you available, what rate are you looking for etc. The agent then asked if they were attending any interviews at the moment and if so who with. The candidate replied that they were and that they would rather not say. The agent then said that they wouldn’t let the candidate know any further details about the job they had on offer until he divulged who he had been interviewing with! Feeling coerced but wanting to keep the communication open about other potential opportunities, the candidate subsequently told the agent the name of the company at which he had attended an interview.
The outcome? The agent then, with a little creative thinking and research, managed to submit a CV to the company with an email along the lines of “I am aware that you are currently recruiting for a XXX”. Yes, that’s right, the recruitment agent put another person’s details in as direct competition to the candidate who had interviewed there just recently! So what stemmed from a innocent call from a recruitment agent 24 hours before led to the candidate being placed in a potentially very embarassing situation that could have really scuppered his chances with the hiring organisation.
The candidate had been genuinely shocked by the whole incident and asked what should he have done in this type of situation. If a recruitment agent approaches you with details on a new position but keeps pumping you for details about where you’re interviewing at the moment, play the confidential line. Let the agent know that you have been asked not to talk about where you are being interviewed at, at the moment. You might be put in the above position like our candidate, where details about posts were held back until you spill the beans about your interviews. If you find yourself in this position, ask yourself, do you really want to be represented by a company that in effect, blackmails its candidates to gain details before conducting business with you? There are plenty more opportunities out there with other credible agencies. You should also consider making a complaint directly with the organisation and through the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. Don’t take this kind of behaviour from recruitment agencies, I’m all for candidates taking control of their career in the recruitment market!
Some agencies may also ask the question about where you are interviewing to make sure you’ve not already been submitted to that hiring company or even be interviewed there before. Most reputable recruitment agencies would actually share the hiring company name with you at that point if they are genuinely interested in your experiences and skills and believe you are a good fit for the role. What they wouldn’t do is not speak to you about the role because you didn’t tell them where you were interviewing.
Has anyone else got an experience they want to share? What happened and how did you deal with it?
Image © psmithy and used with permission.
Hi,
Good post and extremely timely in the current climate.
As an Interim Program Manager of many years standing I know all about the tricks Agents play, especially when times are hard. The key one’s to watch out for are:
1. Never ever tell Agents who you are interviewing with. Or if pushed make up some names of big companies to impress them.
2. If an Agent asks when your contract is finishing fob them off. I have know agents on discovering a a person’s contract is finishing in a couple of months to ring up their boss and propose a replacement at a cheaper price.
3. Never tell an Agent what you are earning. Always get them to tell you what the role is paying first.
Just remember, Agents are extremely useful and the best one’s are worth their weight in gold. However many haven’t got a clue and are on the same standing as Realtors / Estate Agents. So be careful who you trust and with what information.
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
Twitter: projectmgmt
Another respondent commented;
“Interesting article. I would say that this problem is rife amongst a number of agencies, particularly in the current climate. I was between contracts for 6 weeks between May and earlier this month. I applied for a number of positions to keep the “pipeline” full. I was contacted by a number of recruiters who were VERY insistent I tell them which companies I had been dealing with, what interviews I had lined up: who with, what for, what day rates etc. I always refuse to divulge this kind of information.
Also, I was contacted by recruiters wanting to send my CV out on a speculative basis. I refused. The recruiters were some of the big name and well-known companies so I was a little surprised at their approach.
Personally, I prefer to network and use selected, trusted agencies to find work. My last three contracts have been secured through networking and a re-engagement by a happy client. “
Yep, I’m seeing this a lot too. I’m pretty sure agents are calling me up about bogus jobs most of the time, fishing for information on where I’m working and what I’m earning so they can try and tap my current employer for businesss.
Most agents really are a bunch of shysters. Some are reputable but it looks like an increasingly small group.
Hi,
As an experienced recruiter in the PPM space, I feel that it is important to put across the other side of the story. Whilst the practice of fishing for information undoubtedly goes on, it is the minority, not majority of agents that would actually use the information regarding interviews to try and win business with a new client.
Apart from the obvious dishonesty involved in such a practice, it simply doesn’t work. If a client has got far enough through the recruitment process as to be at interview stage, they are extremely unlikely to return to the beginning of the process because an unsolicited CV arrives from an unknown agency. It is far more likely that the client will either ignore the speculative CV, or send a strongly worded email to the agent saying that they do not accept unsolicited approaches. In addition, it is unlikely that the speculative CV that the agent sends will be more suitable than the original interviewee, as the agent will be working ‘blind’ without a job specification.
There are numerous other reasons why this practice would prove ineffective, but I won’t bore you with them now. The important thing to note is that any agent that uses this tactic to win business will very quickly gain a reputation with clients and candidates alike for dishonesty and poor service. In the current economic climate they will not survive for long.
Our business is built on trust, open dialogue and honesty. It is only by gaining your client’s and candidate’s trust that you can build a sustainable company with a reputation for providing a good service. I will always ask a candidate if they have had interviews with other employers because I need to establish whether there is competition for the candidate’s services and how quickly my client will need to act if they are interested. If I am going to submit a candidate’s CV to a client, I ALWAYS tell them who the client is to make sure they have not been submitted by another agent or previously interviewed there. In providing the candidate the name of the client, I trust them not to tell other agencies about the role and I expect them to trust me in return. After all it is in my interest to build a strong relationship with my candidates because one day they might be a Hiring Manager and if they had a good experience as a candidate, they will call me when they need resources in the future.
There will always be ‘bad apples’ that tarnish the majority of honest individuals or companies in a group and I expect to earn my candidate’s trust. However I hope that once I have demonstrated that the trust is deserved, we can have a relationship that benefits both parties for years to come.
Barney Butterell
CPS