Almost Famous-Recruiter Groupies.

As recruiters, it certainly bothers us when we are calling around and find out that the position we are pitching has been marinating in the market sauce for months. It kind of takes the spice off the meatball, so to speak (I bring everything back to food or wine eventually)

What about when you have been working with a candidate fairly closely, with good vibes coming in both directions, so you connect with him on linkedin.

Scrolling through her connections, you find that she is connected to just about every recruiter in the free world. And they are all recent. Yet she told you that your position is her number one. Does that give you pause for concern? It should.

Recruiter groupies are dangerous. They will take you to the altar but never marry you. Because that perfect guy is just around the next update. there are some that can't say no to any Linkedin request, sure. But most of them are playing the field.

Confront them. Ask them why they are dating so many recruiters. If you still think thy are serious, meet them face to face. It wil give you a leg up on 99% of the lazy asses who never bother.

Most of all, don't ignore it.

Comment by David Sanders on October 7, 2011 at 12:53pm: I'm a big believer in meeting every candidate I represent face to face if at all possible. There are exceptions if they are out of town, etc., but I can comfortably say I have laid eyes on over 90% of my candidates. There's nothing that ties a candidate closer to you and allows you to get an accurate read on them than if you have sat down and spent an hour with them discussing their wants and needs and what makes you different than the 3000 other recruiters that are chasing after them.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on October 7, 2011 at 1:04pm: Another good reason why connections should be closed to public view. If people only knew what kind of profile can be developed from their connections they would die.

Comment by Bill Schultz on October 7, 2011 at 1:48pm: @ David- Right on. When the people at Starbucks know your name and save you a table, you know you're doing your job right.

@Sandy- I should hope most people leave their connections open. I do- and you can get from my profile that I don't connect with many recruiters.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on October 7, 2011 at 2:25pm: I used to until several of my candidates were asked why they were connected to a recruiter when HR started sniffing around on Linkedin. Interestingly also had a client that i sent a connection request to after working with him. He responded and said that he didn't connect with any recruiters because he did it once and then had a slew of recruiters calling him mentioning that they noticed he used recruiters and wanted to pitch so he doesn't connect with recruiters any more.

Comment by Bill Schultz on October 7, 2011 at 2:31pm: HR should have better things to do. As to your client, he can always ignore. I don't really see the logic in recruiters calling a person because he's connected to recruiters.

I contact based on relevance to a position. Silly me.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on October 7, 2011 at 3:23pm: They should but a lot of them don't. :)

There are a lot of things recruiters do that the logic escapes me and it never fails to amaze me the lengths some of them will go to in order to try and get a job listing. This fellow said he just got tired of all the phone calls.

Comment by Bill Schultz on October 7, 2011 at 4:10pm: Well that's true- I didn't think about mining for job orders. Still again, it wouldn't matter to me if a prospect used recruiters or not.

Another way recruiter groupies are dangerous is that by talking to a lot of recruiters, they think they are in demand and get an inflated head about their worth. Of course they aren't really in demand, they just are good to fill up the phone time.

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