CAVEAT EMPTOR

As a result of my knee jerk, fit throwing rant about a recruiter who thinks it's totally neat, fun and wonderful to brag about having 27 profiles on Facebook , 26 of them bogus and phony,so he can get into networks that are restricted to local cities, my email has been a steady stream of people coming out of the woodwork agreeing that they think it's a scummy, lowlife thing to do. But thank you for letting us know what you are all about. It's always nice to know who to stay away from.

I am sure his email steam has been full of adoring fellows who think being bogus is totally wonderful if it gets them into places and connected with people that they would not otherwise be able to reach without a little more effort.

People are reporting that there is a career counselor who is coaching candidates to set up bogus company profiles on Linkedin showing themselves as the CEO or a VP so they will be contacted by recruiters. or companies. May they be contacted by a bogus recruiter, a big dose of kismet and karma for both of you.

Another person has reported that there is a recruiter in the DFW area who prides herself on having set up 50 bogus profiles on Linkedin which she then uses to make recommendations of her services.. oh honey, that is just too pitiful, may you marry another lying narcissist.

And the list goes on and on. Since the coming of age of the internet (and before albeit it was not quite as easy) the ease for sleaze, scams, cons, lies and misrepresentations has become an art form unto it's self. I have spent 35 years in this industry fighting the crappy reputation that recruiters have earned due to the scammers, slammers, cowboys and crooks.. I shall not stop now calling bullshit on scams, what else would you call a bogus profile. A fun time avatar?

We scream to the rafters about being professionals, being respected for what we do, building trust with our candidates and clients. We bitch our heads off about candidates who lie on their resumes, lie about their educational background. We beat the drum loudly about transparency, authenticity. We rail because our clients do not have enough respect for us to give us feedback or return our cold calls. Are we in any position to ask for trust, respect and to be treated as professionals if we think it's fine to set up bogus profiles......for any reason.

Do we then say, well the rules are silly about phony profiles so it's ok and in fact gee that's a cool idea.

I can't control what anybody else does or how they run their business but i can certainly make it known loud and clear that it is my humble opinion if you can't make it as a recruiter whithout setting up bogus profiles to connect with people, if you can't get a real recommendation without setting up bogus profiles then recommending yourself you should really consider selling used cars that don't run or sign up for an email scam to con people into sending you their social security number. or consider credit card fraud. Fraud is fraud. Be it a job that does not exist or a phony profile.

As i said on twitter this morning. "A lie, just like a rose by any other name is still a rose and a lie. So if you need to lie to make a living or be a big shot go for it but be advised, there are a lot of us who think you are scum and the reason our industry has a bad name in a lot of venues..

If your take is that i am being "holier than thou" by calling bogus business practices bogus. Thank you for the compliment. And i wish you 50 bogus resumes in a row by some other bogus recruiter just like you trying to find out where your job is so they can call your client. You deserve each other. I loathe your types, you pollute an industry that deserves better. I wish St. Patrick had done a better job with the snakes. He missed a few it seems.

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie on December 16, 2011 at 4:18am

@ Sandra - I don't know an English saying that describes is as well as the Afrikaans one I grew up with ("Honesty is the best policy" just doesn't say it all) but roughly translated is says: "No matter how fast or far a lie travels, the truth will ALWAYS catch up". And I bet there is a similar saying in every language in the world! That tells us that through the ages people have known this to be a fact. Thus I hope they enjoy setting up the phony profiles etc. (where do they get the time?, a good recruiter scarcely has the time to keep 1 profile updated!) because someday that's all they will have left because they won't be able to use their "real' names in this industry!!

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Permalink Reply by Suresh on December 16, 2011 at 8:38am

Good points. There is not enough people asking questions, people willing to buy and not seeing through Sales Pitches.

It happened with the mortgage mess (packaged CDO's etc) that come to find out people bought and sold without knowing whats in it, they were making money on paper, so nobody bothered.

We have called Corruption in Washington with benign words such as Fundraising, Lobbying, Fancy Vacations until recently it looks like people have caught on..(because the overwhelming belief was corruption occurs only in other parts of world )

As long as there are people to buy there will be gimmicky sales folks out there..Human nature.

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Permalink Reply by Helen Burbank (Appleby) on December 16, 2011 at 9:22am

Fantastic rant. Made me have a little smile on a very cold, wet day thinking about how people that lie and cheat their way through life are eventually going to have it stuck to them.

Side note: if you do confront one of these recruiters, could you videotape it and post it? I think it would be marvelous

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Poreda on December 16, 2011 at 10:01am

Well said Sandra! When I was recruiting, in the first 5 seconds of the call I identified myself as such. I was proud of it. I believed and still do that I was calling someone to help them so the calls were easy and didn't require any misleading statements. I can't imagine beginning a relationship with a lie...those usually make a lot of money quickly then burn in a flame of disgrace...I've seen it a thousand times.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on December 16, 2011 at 11:02am

@stepanie I like that saying. We have a couple in Texas. "you can lie to your dog for a long time but when he bites you in the butt, just remember he was wagging his tail right before he did it"

"watch that guy, he's a counterfeit SOB and the horses he trains are as counterfeit as he is."

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on December 16, 2011 at 11:35am

@dr. R. Corrupt has a lot of names to make corruption politically correct and/or justify corruption in the name of successfully making money..very good observation. You are very correct, as P.T. Barnum said, "there is a sucker born every minute". We tell our kids to not take everything they see on the news or read on the net as fact. We have to monitor what they do and who they interact with on the net because that person may not be who they purport to be.

I guess now when we advise job seekers to put their profile on LI and FB we will need to caution them to be suspect of recruiter profiles as there are recruiters who put up phony profiles. Or do we just ignore that, take the attitude that we don't want to bad mouth anyone in our industry.

I didn't sign up to be the ethics police. I am not under the delusion that beating the drum will have any affect on the perps of sleazy practices in our industry but when one publically announces that he has bogus profiles and thinks it's funny that he forgot he really has 27 if he includes the real one, be advised, it is my personal opinionn that "he sucks buttermilk"

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on December 16, 2011 at 11:45am

@Helen glad you got a smile. Listen to yesterday's animal show and read the blog "Email is Dead" and make your own decision. That is all any of us can do. In my book if anyone announces they use phony profiles anything else they do is of no interest. He indicated on twitter that it was ok because he used his previous company name and said he was a recruiter. How's that for it's ok because I don't work for that company either. I can't get my head around that one.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on December 16, 2011 at 12:12pm

@christopher thank you for your comment. When I first started ,the firm I worked for suggested we use "desk Names". At the time I didn't understand that albeit I figured it out pretty quickly when I learned some of the things they wanted us to do. The first few days I was there my boss smiled and instructed me that this business was a series of "little white lies". She gave me a strange look when my response was, "Why?"

I never used a desk name because my focus like yours was to build my own reputation and be well received. It worked for me. When my boss asked me how I was doing what I was doing without ruse calls and her sales spiel, my comment was, "I'd rather somebody be mad at me or say no because I told the truth than be mad at me because I lied to them". I plan to live here for a long time.
I have certainly made some folks mad but I have the rep for calling a spade an efn'n shovel.

I wonder how any of us would feel about it if we found out our doctor, lawyer, accountant or the person we were dating or married to had 26 bogus profiles on the net to generate business. I don't know about the rest of you folks but I' find another, doc, lawyer, account and look for a new date.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Schultz on December 16, 2011 at 12:45pm

I went to a Peter Lefkowitz seminar once and he started ti tell a story about a company that used a ruse to get admin asst's names. I thought it was rather amusing until I realized he was talking about my company.

It involved calling companies and saying you were a new florist in the city and wanted to send a bouquet to all the admins as an intro. Worked like a charm. We don't do that anymore. Well, I don't work there anymore.

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Permalink Reply by Suresh on December 16, 2011 at 1:05pm

When you have to constantly beat your chest or make 27 profiles, question is What is going on inside your company .

Somewhat relevant to this discussion, I think Heineken in their ads was right on the money

"When you make a great beer, you don't have to make a great fuss"

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on December 16, 2011 at 2:36pm

@Bill a ruse by any other name is still a ruse. A lot of people seem to have to do that. I just ask saves the price of flowers.

@ Dr. R. That just pretty well says it all. Thank you for that. They do seem to have a lot ofr fancy titles to go along with the inflated all the other hype. :)