I received this email from a recruiter friend of mine.

Sandra,

We have been contacted by a recruiter in another state who wants to do split business with us.  He gave us his website, indicated that his company has offices in 5 or 6 states but has only been in business for 3 or 4 years so they are looking for recruiting partners.  When we checked out the office address for the different cities where they say they have offices we found that they are all executive suites.  We thought maybe they had a recruiter located there but there is no local number for those offices.  We contacted the executive suite management office and discovered that they do not have an office there.  They pay a small amount a month to use the business address, any mail sent there is forwarded to another location ( all the same address in one location) and they have an 800 number for contact.  What do you think?  Should we work splits with this recruiter?

Appreciate your thoughts,

"Looks Strange to Me"

Dear Looks Strange,

I've seen this before.  This recruiter may be just fine but it sounds like to me they want to appear to be something they are not, which always gives me cause for concern.  Ask yourself the question, "Why would they need to do this if they were doing well?" There are great recruiters who office from home, work out of an executive suite, office share etc. who work all over the world with a lot of clients from different states.  This sounds like smoke blowing, posturing in order to appear to be a lot bigger company than they are in my opinion.  I think that falls into the catagory of "Big Hat no Cattle" myself.  My associate says they should call themselves the Wizard of Oz recruiting because all the representation about multiple offices is a sham.  But ,maybe it's the new virtual product of the internet where one can be anything they want to be until someone like you checks out some of the claims.  Sort of like the guy on the dating site who talks about his boat like it's a yacht.  Then you find out he has a 1981 model bass boat with a lawnmower motor.

I would wish him all the best and stay away from him like the plague.  I don't like phony stuff.  In my world if somebody says they have an office somewhere I would want to know that there is a chair in it with somebody's butt in the chair, even if it's in their basement, i want a real person not a mail drop.

If you want to do splits there are lots of great recruiters who don't have an ego problem and are exactly what they say they are.  I am attaching a list that i would recommend.

Sandra,

What do you think?