Kate Ross: Recruitment industry cowboys

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I thought with 2009 well and truly over and with 2010 being a year of recovery and growth that the "recruitment cowboys" of our industry had disappeared.

Not the case. It has been recently witnessed on more than one occasion that there are still some unprofessional agencies that act without thought. I don't know how many times I have been told by candidates that they "do not want to be treated like a number", which is how they felt when dealing with agency XYZ. These feelings tarnish all of us, even the ones doing a good job.

It has been brought to my attention lately (and unfortunately more than once) about agencies acting inappropriately over a client and/or candidate situation. What the "cowboys" don't seem to get is that this market of ours is incredibly small.

Below are a couple of examples from clients who contacted us directly after one of these agencies acted unprofessionally.

Client calls Consultant, asking "Who the hell is "X Recruitment"? Someone from "X" has just emailed me completely out of the blue, putting forward candidates for the role that I have you recruiting for me."

The consultant then asked him how "X" knew he was looking, and the client's response was, "I have NO idea, as far as I'm concerned I only use one recruiter, and that's you." The client then went on to give feedback that he would not respond to "X", nor would he ever deal with them in future.

"How arrogant and presumptuous they must be to think that they know what would be the right "fit" for my team. How could she know this when we have never met and she hasn't even seen the working environment?"

He said the candidates were SO off brief and below par, it was laughable. Not only that, but both candidates' interview reports were identical, with only the names and a few odd words changed. The client then assured his consultant that this incident just proved that he is working with the right agency.

When any client approaches a recruitment company about utilising their services, there is a reason for this; it's normally due to reputation and delivery. If you are in recruitment then you also know that there is an "unwritten code of ethics" and in this line of work - reputation is everything.

Below is an email from another client informing us of yet another "cowboy":

"I just had a call from a girl at a company called Y Consulting, never met or heard from her in the past but telling me she has an 'amazing candidate who would be perfect' for us... ha!

Anyway, I told her we weren't looking and she asked if we had any other roles etc. I said yes we are looking for sales support staff but that I have that with an agency exclusively.

I was shocked by her response, but she said 'oh well, if you want to give that role to me on the quiet, we can look for you as well, then when the exclusive period is up you can say you found that person on your own...' This is what I was talking about when we were chatting about the reputation of some agencies, unbelievable!"

Clients are generally loyal if you work hard for them, offer a good service, stand by your reputation and ultimately deliver. This being the case, why then would or should they utilise another agency? Most consultants who account manage their clients well know what is happening internally and have a good enough relationship that if someone acts unprofessionally it gets discussed.

These types of instances do nothing but damage the reputation of the recruitment industry, particularly when a good majority of us are working incredibly hard to get it right for candidate and client alike.

So, those recruiters or agencies that act without thought and try to make a "quick buck" won't last. You can't.

Long term business is built on substance and delivery.


Kate Ross


Kate Ross is director of Kinetic Recruitment