I was screening an IT candidate the other night for a developer position with one of our Dallas IT clients and noticed that the resume he had emailed stated that he was a BA on his last 3 positions. I told him thanks for his resume, but my client needed a developer. He said he was a developer and I asked why his resume stated he was a BA. He said that the last Dallas IT Consulting/Recruiting firm he had spoken with had "tweaked" his resume to match a requirement one of their clients had open. To me this is just plain wrong. For one thing, a Recruiting firm should never try to squeeze someone into a position they are not a fit for just to make a buck.



Years ago I interviewed for an account manager position with this same Dallas recruiting firm. I a way I am glad that at that time they chose not to extend an offer to me and I would work for them now that I know that they engage in these types of unethical practices. Even if this recruiting firm does not necessarily condone these practices, if someone working at the firm that chose to engage in unethical practices, it tarnishes the image of the entire firm.



I had a similar situation happen with a company that I worked for out of New York. I managed the Dallas office of this company and had recruiters supporting me out of New York and New Jersey offices. I had a situation where the recruiters just were not finding candidates with the right skills my clients were looking for. They were submitting plenty of candidates, but none were a fit. One recruiter promised me that her candidate had all the experience my Dallas client was looking for although his resume did not reflect the experience. I told her that, if the candidate had the experience with certain programming tools my client was looking for, to have the candidate expound in the body of the resume how he had used the tools and then I would submit them.



Without my knowledge, this recruiter changed the candidates resume to match the requirement (without the candidate’s knowledge, consent, or permission) and sent it back to me. I submitted the resume to my client and he immediately requested an interview with the candidate based on what he saw in the resume. I scheduled the interview and after the interview the manager called to ask why we had changed the candidate’s resume without their knowledge. I told him that we never touch candidate resumes (so I thought). He told me the candidate said he did not have the experience mentioned in the resume and that the recruiter must have added it.



Once I found out what had happened I called the candidate immediately to confirm that he had not updated his own resume and then I called the president of our company to discuss the problem. The recruiter told him that she had corroborated with the candidate on what to change on his resume (which he denied) and the president believed her. He told me to get the candidate another interview – WHAT?



I was so embarrassed that this situation had wasted my clients’ time. IT managers are too busy to have their time wasted interviewing candidates that are not a fit. As recruiters, we must commit to excellence and consistently raising our standards when it comes to working with our clients. We must operate with integrity at all times. We must exhibit INTEGRITY in RECRUITING.

Mike Hanes

ProVisionTech