The Problem with Recruiters!

The problem with recruiters is that most of them are focused on “closing the deal”and all else is just details. They will do anything necessary to simply make a placement and invoice their customer. They don’t have their customer’s best interests at heart. His only concern is getting paid and getting past the guarantee period!

Sad, but true for many, if not most recruiters. Oh sure, they “care” about the outcome. But not more than they care about submitting an invoice. In most cases, they are not committed to the success of their clients. They are committed to doing whatever is necessary to obtain a fee for services. This is almost universally true of contingency recruiters and sadly even true for many in the retained camp. It’s a basic human flaw that people are “self” first and “others” second. It is rare to find a recruiter who will do the right thing when they must decide between telling the truth and remaining silent. There is a lot at stake for a recruiter in the short term, and it takes incredible character to do the right thing when there is a large sum of money at risk. There is a sacred trust in a relationship with a company and it’s recruiter. My belief is that very few of them make the right choices when facing this dilemma.

Here are some examples of What is Wrong with Recruiters:

A. Over-preparing candidates on how to appeal to all of the hiring managers’ “hot buttons”
B. Editing a resume to cover up “red flags”
C. Pressuring both candidates and hirers to make a decision that may not be in their best long-term interests
D. Not searching for the best candidates, but only skimming the “low hanging fruit” of the Internet
E. “Flinging” resumes of people they haven’t vetted nor received permission from
F. Presenting the same candidate to multiple companies in order to create greater urgency
G. Concealing obvious flaws of their candidates

These are some of the problems with recruiters and “just cause” for HR to suspect bad behavior from them. Considering these examples, is it any surprise the industry has a poor reputation?

There is much that can be done to positively impact this bad rap, but it must start with recruiters doing the right thing at every turn. It is simply the best way to build your practice and reputation. It requires seeing beyond the short term financial gain and believing that by doing what is right for your client, you are building a business with honor and integrity, and by doing it this way, you will get repeat business. As i said, it is the right way to build both your business and reputation. If you can’t stay in business doing it right, you really should get out. There are far easier ways to make a living. Besides, you’re bringing down an entire industry!

Bad behavior isn’t right no matter how many placements you make! Do us all a favor and go do something else!

For more blogs from the author visit www.druedeangelis.wordpress.com

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 9, 2012 at 3:24pm: And by the by , you arrogant, self promoting ass, (label for identification purposes) I am one of those "contingency" recruiters you so ignorantly referred to as "universally not concerned with their clients or candidates". I haven't made a cold call in over 30 years. I don't have to. Those clients I am not concerned about just keep calling me back because they know that I know it's not about me or how wonderful I am. It's because I produce what they hire me to do and my ego is in order to the point that I have no need to bad mouth my competition to convince anyone I'm good or better.

If you as a reformed bottom feeder want to pontificate to bottom feeders, my suggestion is that you take this crap to the bottom feeders. You won't find them on this site and as you can see you won't find much acceptance for reformers who want to stand on a box in the park screaming at everybody in the park that they are all sinners.

Take your box and move on to another park. We really take issue with monkeys who can't do anything but stand in the village square flinging poo at everybody going about the business of good commerce.

Comment by Brandi Cooper on February 9, 2012 at 3:31pm: Sandra- I love you.

Comment by Casey Kuperus on February 9, 2012 at 3:34pm: Sandra, remind me to never piss you off! And thank you, on behalf of another "contingency" recruiter.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 9, 2012 at 3:42pm: You might also consider that it is the epitome of arrogance to go anywhere, fling monkey poo then be so dense as to tell those who don't like monkey poo to just walk around it. It makes morse sense to get rid of the poo flinging monkey. So please monkey take your poo back to San Francisco and fling it at people who don't know what poo is or what it smells like.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 9, 2012 at 4:22pm: Thanks Brandi and Casey. I love you guys too. When you have been in this business for 35 years, have seen every flavor of kook, nut, jerk and egomaniac I will be delighted to pass the torch of the fight for respectable recruiting so you guys can pop these silly bastards upside the head. The bottom feeders are easy to recognize. This type of "slick willy" is most of the time worse. You listen to them or read their junk. Your blood starts to boil and you aren't quite sure why for a minute. Your first reaction is to think you need to defend yourself. It's the trap they set with the comeback we just saw here. "well, if it's not you why are you reacting, just move on, but it must have hooked you or you wouldn't be saying something.". "I'm just trying to raise your standards to my own, you poor pitiful shumck.

"slick willy" always starts his pitch to a client off with a diatribe about how most of his peers are only concerned about closing the deal and making a fast buck, but not him. Oh no, he used to be that way because he was trained by a bunch of car salesmen at MRI or Robert Half or any other well recognized name who do a lot of cold calling driving clients nuts. Bing, the trap closes because the client has had all those cold calls been irritated by them. The client says something to the effect that ,yes they call all the time and it's irritating. Then "slick willy goes into the second phase of how he learned the hard way to focus on concern for the client now that he has seen the light and offers up a copy of this blog to reinforce how he is trying to reform his own industry.

The put down sell used to work. Not so much anymore because "slick willy" has multiplied, clients are not stupid and most of them have bought a used car from the guy who says, "now we are not like the guys down the street who try to pressure you, boy I hate that, don't you?"

I can also tell you this. It's. Full moon ,if you haven't noticed, I co manage a couple of non recruiting sites and the poo flinging nuts are out everywhere. In full tilt boogie.

In Texas we see and hear a lot of Bullshit so we don't have to take a bite of it to know what it is. Good luck to "slick willy" and all the others forms of bottom feeders. Lipstick on a pig doesn't get rid of the smell and that gentle readers is what you are reacting to in this post. It's still a pig even if you give it a bath and it says it isn't one.

Comment by Bill Schultz on February 9, 2012 at 4:29pm: guy's a dbag.

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on February 9, 2012 at 4:45pm: Oh boy... comments are on fire today! :) I've written my share of inflammatory blogs, so I had to think for a minute why this one raised so much Cain, vs. some of my rantings which, while I've been called out by some, have been mostly embraced by many. I think the one thing I always try to do is make sure I'm writing from specific experience. When I wrote about "why corporate recruiters hate you" for example, I used real life situations I had been in over the last few weeks - and made sure to note I was speaking about the specific few, not the masses. So trying to be devil's advocate here - I think your intention was to spark good discussion (which I appreciate) but it went off the rails a little with the sweeping generalities. Also, as I commented earlier in the discussion, I don't know that the list of "wrongs" you provided are all that wrong... at least in moderation (candidate prep, for example).

Just my 2 cents.

Comment by Craig Watson on February 9, 2012 at 5:12pm: Remember what I said once about 'knob jockeys'.... Exhibit A...

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 9, 2012 at 6:19pm: LOL, Craig i had forgotten that one. Your exhibit as been so marked and entered into the court record. One could certainly say this kind of post is truly self satisfying trite, mental masturbation.

Comment by Craig Watson on February 9, 2012 at 6:44pm: @Sandra You are my moral compass - and forever will be..... Now there's a Linked In recommendation if ever I've seen one!!!

Comment