Can we stop "Salesmen" ruining our reputation?

I have had a couple of recent experiences where I have met people in a social setting and then found out that they were recruitment consultants. I would have expected to have liked them, or at least had something in common with them, but on the contrary I haven’t. I have found them shallow, obsessed with how much they bill and a little bit arrogant and dismissive.

Funnily enough they all work for large Recruitment Consultancies that swamp the market place with their brands and speculative CVs and no doubt gloat about the fees they have “screwed” out of their clients in loud voices in noisy bars.

No wonder therefore that it is easy to find tweet after tweet from in house recruiters moaning about recruitment consultants and blog after blog from various industry experts excited by technology that could spell the end for Third Party Recruiters.

Anyone got any suggestions about what we do as an industry to counter this vocal minority ruining our reputation or is it something we are just going to have to live with?

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Permalink Reply by Bill Schultz on September 25, 2011 at 7:27pm

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Permalink Reply by Tim Spagnola on September 25, 2011 at 8:33pm

+1 Bill

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Permalink Reply by Eric R. Derby on September 26, 2011 at 12:56pm

You cannot stop it. There have been unethical recruiters around for years, which is why it is already so hard to establish a good reputation.

The best you can do is to work with integrity and ethics every day. You will build a sustainable business. Your clients will come back to you, and refer more people to you.

Those companies that abuse their candidates and clients will fail. The two worst offenders in my area have been gone for a few years now.

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Permalink Reply by Amy Ala Miller on September 26, 2011 at 2:12pm

I'm with Bill. :)

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Permalink Reply by Daniel J Smith on September 26, 2011 at 5:34pm

Its almost the same as the sales game where you have the people who play by the rules and those who think they make the rules. We are all in the same sandbox and should deal with all our clients and colleagues with as much respect that we expect from them. The ones who are way out in left field will at some time burn all their bridges to isolation...problem solved. The old adage is still true (see above)

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Permalink Reply by Samantha Lacey on September 29, 2011 at 9:10am

When I first started out in recruitment I was taught to recruit the "bad" way. I am so glad I failed miserably at that style of recruiting and came to the RPO side of the fence, much more service than sales orientated. The industry is just so hard to regulate as it's so easy to set up a consultancy. My mum could set up as a recruiter tomorrow if she wanted, knowing nothing about the industry. (I doubt she will, but you never know) The fact that it's so driven by the bottom line is a issue too, the minute you throw a load of money hungry grads and wide boys/girls in a room and give them a sales target and a phone book you will have cold callers and CV spammers, unless you train them to build relationship and sell people what they actually need. Training needs to be addressed and in an ideal world, regulated so that you would need to pass a test before you could hit the phones. This happens in financial industry to stop people getting bad advice and being missold, changing jobs is just as big an undertaking as getting a loan or changing banks, so why are the people advising you on this potentially untrained and unregulated? Wow...sorry about that rant!