idealpeople blog

Regular readers will know that something has been bugging us for quite some time. That something is the practices of certain recruiters. The recruitment industry has become commoditized. There is insufficient regulation, not enough accountability, and the systems that some have taken to assess the practices and behaviours are far from suitable.

One thing that really bugs us though is the practice that some recruiters partake in of not telling candidates the name of the company who will be receiving their details. We can remember a time when this didn’t happen. Of course, there are times when a client requests that the search be confidential - normally where there’s an incumbent in the position they’re looking to fill who will be laid off before the search is over, in which case there’s nothing more to say. However, in our experience this is rare - and the reasons for a recruiter refusing to name a client are, in fact, more sinister.

So why does it bother us? Whilst it might seem a petty gripe, witholding a client’s name to a candidate has a series of ramifications, particularly for the job-seeker. Let’s say, for instance, that recruiter A phones a candidate and discusses a job with a mystery company. The candidate nevertheless likes the sound of the job, so agrees to recruiter A sending his or her details to the company. Then, Recruiter B calls, and discusses a brilliant-sounding job with a company, who they name. The recruiter spends significant time on the phone with the candidate discussing the merits of this company, and the position in depth. The candidate confirms that - as far as they are concerned - no other recruiter has sent their details to that particular company.

So Recruiter B sends the candidate’s details over to the company, who then get annoyed - because of course recruiter A has already sent the details over. Generally, the hiring company will begin to question either the second agency (the company which did its job properly) or the candidate, suspecting of course that no candidate with any sense would “forget” that a recruiter could have sent their details out to a particular company. Its messy and it doesn’t look good - either for the recruiter or the candidate.

We wanted to find out how prevalent this “nondisclosure” practice was, what effects it had, and why recruiters do it. So, we asked our LinkedIn network via LinkedIn Answers. Check the link for the full list of answers from the recruiting industry, but here’s a selection of our favourites….

It’s a common practice among contingency recruiters not to reveal the name of their clients to candidates until as late as possible, including up to a few hours before the first interview. The reason is a fear that candidates may “go around” the recruiter and contact the hiring company directly, cutting out the recruiter and resulting in a lost fee.

Recruiters work very hard and very long for a commission. If they were to give out the name of the company and an individual were to contact that company directly, there would be huge legal issues and a lot of lost time and conflict. If you are seriously seeking a position and have chosen to use a recruiter, you should be able to trust your recruiter enough to know they have your best interest in mind.

That’s standard procedure where I’m from. I don’t fully agree with it but I do understand why it happens. The reason I’ve seen it in practice is to prevent potential candidates from going directly to the client company and grapping the job for his or herself, thus negating the fee that is charged for finding such a candidate.

In a word - no. I wouldn’t be happy with this - I’d always want to know so I can do some background research and see if the company matches the profile of a company that I’d want to work for. Otherwise its a waste of time being put forward. As for going direct - I think that’s crazy as the company might not welcome direct applications (often using the recruiter to screen candidates) and most people respect the recruiter relationship.

There are plenty more responses, but the key themes are…

1) Candidates would much prefer that companies were named where possible, and
2) Recruiters do it because they don’t want the candidate either telling other agencies, or applying directly to the company in question.

Call us naive perhaps, but we’ve only encountered a situation where a candidate, after speaking to us, went and applied directly only once. And even then, it was more through a lack of understanding of the recruitment process than it was one of malice or lack of trust.

For us, this excuse of “we don’t want the candidates to go direct” just doesn’t stack up. Build a relationship with your candidates, build up trust and stop making those of us doing our work ethically and professionally look like the bad guys. Thanks