idealpeople blog

We all know that some recruiters are far from whiter-than-white. Some of you may be aware of some of the underhand tricks employed - but some of you won’t. In light of our recent post about the REC, we’ve decided it’s time to take the law into our own hands and expose the more devious practices of dodgy recruiters.

So, welcome to the first of our series exposing what recruiters say and what they really mean - helping you to dicipher what they’re talking about and decide whether or not you want to work with a particular agent.

“I need an answer on that offer today”
Yeah, right.

We’ve never worked with a company who only give candidates one day to accept or reject an offer (Disclaimer: We’re talking about permanent recruitment not Contract, in which it is in fact highly possible for this to happen). Think about it logically - what would a potential employer have to gain by putting that much pressure on you? So, if you hear this from a Recruiter, the odds are they’re lying.

This is what happens in the Recruiter’s head. They’re received an offer of employement for you. They’re already thinking of banking the cash they’ll make. If they’ve done their job properly, they’ve already found out that you are interviewing elsewhere. They want you to accept this job and they don’t care about what you want. Really. So they tell you that the offer will be taken away if you don’t accept it straight away. Fear is a powerful tool - you’re probably left thinking about what happens if you turn this job down, and then miss out on the others you’re interviewing for, so you are forced to accept.

If a Recruiter says this to you, here’s what to do. Explain to the Recruiter that you have some questions you’d like to ask the company making you this offer, and ask for the contact details of your potential line manager. The response to this is normally interesting. Some recruiters will say fine, no problem. Other recruiters will tell you to write the questions down and they’ll get the answers for you. Don’t accept the second response. If the agent is being reticent, then look up the company’s phone number (you may have it already of course) and put a call in to the hiring manager and ask him or her directly how long the offer is open for. We’d be very, very surprised if it transpired that it was true.

“I can’t tell you the name of the company I’m recruting for”
This is a classic. Recruiter one calls you up and describes a role which seems interesting. They give very little details about the company other than a rough location. When you ask for the name of the company in question (quite rightly), they claim to be “not allowed” to tell you.

What they mean is that they don’t want to tell you. They don’t want to tell you because they don’t trust you. They think that the next Recruiter who phones you up (notice that they expect another Recruiter to call you - is that because they know they haven’t impressed you enough to convince you that you don’t need to speak to other Recruiters?) will ask you what companies you’ve applied to. They think you’ll tell other Recruiters. They think that other Recruiters will steal their clients. They really, really do. This is because they’re so aware of the fact that the service they provide isn’t particularly good, and their relationships with clients are so weak that any Recruiter who calls their clients will be able to easily convince them that they are better than Recruiter one.

Don’t waste your time talking to Recruiters like this. For one, it’s highly dodgy for a Recruiter to respresent you to a client without your express permission. But secondly - what benefit does allowing a Recruiter to send your personal information to an unnamed company give you?

If you do give these people the time of day, you will cause yourself problems. Inevitably, another, much more professional company will contact you about the exact same role, but they’ll be much more in-depth and give you all the details you need on the company and job in question. You’ll be genuinely interested and keen to make a good impression. They’ll speak to the client, who will tell them that they’ve “already received your details”. For the record, companies don’t like receiving the same CV twice. Agent number two will be annoyed, because they’ve spent time qualifying the role with you. You’ll be annoyed, because you liked Agent number two, and because you told Agent number two that no-one had been in touch about this specfic job, and because you were genuinely interested in the position. Agent number two will ask you to send an e-mail explaining that Agent number one were rubbish and you don’t want to represented by them. It won’t work, you’re stuck with Agent number One, and you’ve made yourself look like the kind of person who can’t remember which jobs they’ve applied for.

“I want to take a reference on you from your old boss”
This is a clever one, and is hard to say no to, particularly if the Recruiter times it well. It is in fact entirely possible that the Recruiter may need a reference on you - although this is unusual if it happens in the first conversation.

However, some Recruiters use this line in order to find out the name and contact details of your former line manager. You know, the one who hired you. This for them is Recruitment Gold. Now they can call your ex-boss, safe in the knowledge that they are the person who controls hiring. They can send your ex-boss CVs every single day.

Ask yourself firstly whether or not you really care if this Recruiter phones your ex-boss. Also ask yourself whether being nice to this Recruiter is worth your while. Are they giving you a good service? Do you trust them? If they’ve come across as being honest and understanding, and they’ve told you all about the job in question, then you have no choice but to believe them and give the details. But if there’s any dobut, be careful.

If we can help anyone out there with a problem of this nature, get in touch. If not, keep your eyes peeled for more….