Sticky candidate situation

I've headhunted a candidate for a specific role with my client who use an in house RPO and I'm on the PSL.

She has already had an interview with them but for a different part of the business, however she now wants me to put her forward for the role I'm working on as the agent who submitted her is not working on my role.

I tried to submit the candidate using the system but the postcode has been registered so it has been logged via the RPO and not another route.

For what it's worth I have it in writing the candidate wishes me to represent her.

However according to the T+C's the recruiter who put her forward has 3 months so I don't really want to flag to the client the name of my candidate as so far she has not been considered for this role even though she's in the system and if I do she could well end up being placed by a recruiter who didn't even know about this role whilst I have done all the work tracking her down.

Any advice anyone can offer ?

Kind Regards

Matthew Harvey

Harvey Alexander Recruitment

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on March 8, 2011 at 11:11am

If you have an exclusive listing on this particular role ,I would call the other agent, tell them you would do a split with them since you have the job and have identified a candidate they have submitted for another role who is still within the three month time frame.

If you do not have an exclusive listing on the job,the candidate was recently submitted and interviewed through another agent, unfortunately she is their referral for the three month time period. At that point , I don't think you have any choice but to tell the candidate that you cannot represent her. She would have to go through the other agent. If they are unable to get her considered on the role you are working on they may be very willing to agree to split.

It is possible that since she was not hired for the other role, the company might not consider her for any position so all of this is moot. It is my take when a candidate has been interviewed by a company within six months through another source, I drop it right there rather than go through all the hassle. Disappointing, but reverse the situation,if you were the first submitting agent, how would you feel about it. It is situations like this that have caused companies to set firm time frames to honor referrals.

I don't think the letter you have from the candidate means anything. Fortunately or unfortunately candidates can not decide to change a company policy on honoring referrals from the first agent who represented them.

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Permalink Reply by Matthew Harvey on March 8, 2011 at 11:42am

Thanks Sandra, a sensible answer and a good idea.

She has not been rejected for the other role yet, the hiring manager she interviewed with has now gone on holiday so maybe I should wait to see if they are going to proceed with her application for that role before approaching the agent to discuss a split.

I don't have an exclusivity for this role but are one of 3 recruiters working on it. However the recruiter she went through as far as I know is not working on this one.

In the meantime the search continues!

Kind Regards

Matt

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on March 8, 2011 at 11:53am

Absolutely wait. Since she is still in the process with one position she will probably ask about the other position if she doesn't get this one now that she knows it exists or the company will ask her about it. Put this candidate on the back burner and go find two more before she muddies the water for you. Fast!

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Permalink Reply by Matthew Harvey on March 17, 2011 at 5:38am

Quick update on this one ....

I ended up raising this scenario with my recruiting contact and the long and short of it is that all parties agreed that because this was for a completely differemnt part of the business that the fee would 100% be mine. :o)

However I was told on Monday after 7 weeks of performing what was essentially an executive search for this candidate that the role has been cancelled! The job description is being redefined internally and will go out as a new roles however I will not have the chance to work on these as the RPO will try and fill them themselves first.

I don't even know if the hiring manager looked at the last two very strong CV's I sent over and I'm extremely frustrated.

I'm thinking of approaching the hiring manager to get more clarity and see if he's even assessed the CV's - what have I got to lose? The RPO is going to continue to try and fulfill all roles themselves and they only brought me in for this very hard to find role with an extremely pernickity hiring manager who was looking for the perfect candidate on paper and didn't even consider interviewing ones who were off that chart which was very short sighted as my RPO contact wholeheartedly agrees.

I should have been on a retained fee basis for the service I was providing but as the organisation was historically my best client I didn't go down that route and they were so adamant about needing this person.

I would like to bill them anyway for 33% of the fee but I know there's probably not a great deal I can do in all honesty but ... AAAAAAaaaaaarghhh.

Kind Regards

Matt