Good morning! I
apologize for not having a post out last week,
I took half of the short week to celebrate my daughter’s and my own
birthday and to go out and get a new puppy for the family. If you haven’t seen him – meet Spot!
 |
| A very happy birthday to Ava and Me! |
In case you haven’t followed my growing family – the current
tally is five – Ava (5yrs), Mia (2.5 years), Kai (2 months), Scout (Cat) and
Spot (puppy). As you can imagine, coming
to work is a welcome break most days.
Yesterday, I had a candidate of mine experience a really
awful situation working with a competing recruiter. I’m not going to go into details about what
happened but know that it was really upsetting to her and really troubling to me as any bad actions of
recruiters reflects poorly on the industry in general and on me. So… today I’m going to talk about some of the
common problems people have with recruiters and give some advice about how to
deal with it.
Before we get started though let me say that recruiting is
like any other industry. A vast majority
are ethical, hard-working people that are serious about helping people with
their careers. I’ll be honest – I do it
for the money - I have to pay for that
new puppy’s food – but I also really enjoy helping people. Specifically, I like when I can help someone
achieve a goal or improve their situation.
I honestly believe that most of my brethren feel the same way. But just like in any industry there is the
minority. These people lie, misrepresent
are unethical and have the ability to hijack your career. I’ve written a little about this before and
you can read it at the link below:
Now that you’ve done your background reading, below are five
of the biggest problems encountered when working with a recruiter. At the end I’ll give one other bonus tip – how
to fire your recruiter.
1. Recruiter Sends Out Your Resume without
telling you
This is a really touchy subject and something that I’m
pretty passionate about. When you are in
a job search you are the driver – period – end of story. So, why should someone else arbitrarily
decide that you should apply for something?
There are some recruiters out there that get overexcited about a job
order and are so sure that there is a perfect fit that they immediately send out
a candidate’s resume without checking with the candidate. This is wrong – you have a right to know
where your resume goes and the right to decline something. There are a whole host of reasons why but
here are a couple of things that could happen if this occurs. You (the candidate) can look stupid because:
- You
have already accepted a job
- You
have already applied or are already interviewing with the company
- You
know someone personally there
- Your
boss knows someone personally there
- You
aren’t interested in the company and have to decline an interview
All of these things can and should be avoided.
What do you do?
At the end of the day you can’t totally protect this from
happening. Also, please know that I don’t think that people do this with
malicious intent – I think that it is more out of naïve excitement. However, the easiest way to protect yourself
is to do two things. First, set the
expectation with the recruiter that you want to be approached about anything
before your resume is sent out – listen to the response. If you don’t like it then suggest that the
two of you shouldn’t do business together.
The second suggestion makes some uncomfortable. Protect yourself by sharing everywhere you
have already applied and places that you aren’t interested in. This won’t stop your resume from being sent
out but at least gives you a little more control.
2. Recruiter Doesn’t Listen to You
Last week I went out to by a new iPad for my birthday. I knew exactly what I wanted – a 32G 4G model
from AT&T. I went to Target and told
the clerk what I was looking for. They
were out of stock. He then tried to get
me to pick another model. I told him I
wasn’t interested and then he ignored my comment and went on to tell me the
benefits of a Wi-Fi only one. He kept
going long enough that I just finally walked away as one of the kids was
screaming – it was convenient. I had the
ability to do this because iPads are in supply and I could go to several other
stores. While there are certainly other
recruiters out there, there is most definitely a finite amount of jobs
available right now. Some recruiters
refuse to listen to what you want and instead bring you sales jobs when you
want service and vice versa.
What do you do?
Be very clear about what you want. Remember that most good recruiters talk to hundreds
of people a month. Give them the benefit
of the doubt if they slip up and bring you wrong thing and gently remind them
of what you are really looking for.
However, some will become rude and try to push you into interviewing –
this is probably when you need to show them the door. Now – this doesn’t’ mean that a good
recruiter shouldn’t challenge your thinking.
In fact, I believe that they should make you aware of all opportunities
that are close even if they aren’t a perfect match – the key is in how they
approach you about it.
3. Changes your Resume
This is something that blows me away. There are some recruiters out there that will
change someone’s resume making it more attractive – and I’m not talking about
formatting. They will change dates,
change titles and even add job duties.
To me this is pretty clear cut and is wrong. Please know that there are some acceptable
areas where someone can change a resume.
They can put it in Word format so that it send easier. They can also take out your contact
information to protect themselves. This
is acceptable as it doesn’t misrepresent you in some way.
What do you do?
I’ll be honest I don’t have an answer for this one. Unethical people will do unethical
things. You just need to be aware of it
and call them out on it if it ever occurs.
To me this is probably a deal breaker and good cause to end the relationship as well.
4. Misrepresents the Job you are interviewing
for
Before we throw all recruiters under the bus, I think that
it is important to know that miscommunication is a pretty common occurrence in
this world. It is not uncommon for a
company to tell a recruiter aspects about a job only to have it change. This can include job duties, salary, title
and really anything. Similarly, I’ve had
people interview for one job only to have the interview morph into a job
interview for a different position that the company feels is a better fit. Nevertheless, there are situations where the
recruiter lies to get you to interview and you only find out about it when you
make a statement about the position and are corrected in the interview. This sucks…
What do you do?
Talk to the recruiter about it and gauge their
response. Some will be very apologetic
and sincere – unless they also do Community Theater you will know if they are
surprised as well. If they aren’t
surprised or apologetic – you probably need to look at them with suspicion in
the future.
5. Recruiter Doesn’t Call You Back
I’ll be honest – I don’t always call people back. I try my best but it happens. Occasionally I’ll forget to write down a
message or get interrupted mid dial.
Remember that recruiters are people too and not infallible job hunting
robots. However, there are others that
refuse to call back no matter how many times you call.
What do you do?
On the list of evils committed by recruiters this is one
that is lower on the list compared to the others but is probably the number one
complaint of candidates. The reason why
– its rude. It’s also unavoidable – you
need to understand that it will happen.
So – if you aren’t getting a response you need to create a plan of
action. Decide that you will only follow
up at regular intervals (twice a week,
every other day, etc.) – more importantly follow up with email. You should also remember a couple of things:
·
A 24 hour turnaround is nice – but a couple of
days in not out of the question
·
As someone that calls people for a living I’ve
noticed a phenomena that I’ll call the stalker rule. The greater the frequency and volume of unanswered
calls decreases the chance of a response.
What this means is that calling someone over and over again will
probably not help your cause – the squeaky wheel doesn’t’ always get the oil
here
Conclusion – Should I
fire my recruiter? How do I do it?
Let me start by saying that I don’t think you should fire a
recruiter unless they really hurt your career chances. To me this is limiting. Look at it this way. I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t
have every terrific job in every market with every company. There are companies that won’t work with me
or vice versa. Secondly, I love shopping
at Target – it’s a clean, cool store with nice quality products. I hate shopping at Wal-Mart – but you know
what if something is cheaper there or if they carry a product I can’t get at
Target I’ll most definitely go there.
The same is true about recruiters.
Just because you don’t like them or necessarily trust them doesn’t mean
you shouldn’t take advantage of them to achieve your goals. So my suggestion is that you set clear
expectations with recruiters about what you want and only take drastic action
when you feel like the person is hurting you career – don’t burn the bridge
unless you have to.
If you do need to do so I recommend sending an email that
you save for documentation. Keep it
short and sweet and state the following:
- That
you wish that they no longer represent you
- The
date effective
- That
you not longer be contacted by them
- That
they no longer submit your resume
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