What's Changed In Recruitment?

[Badda]

bad company said:

Badda said:

bad company said:

Doofus said:

bad company said:

Mailshoting cv’s without candidate consent would contravene data protection law. An agency would be mad to do that.

Not if they're anonymised.

If there properly anonymised so no individual can be identified what’s the problem?

I think that says it all!

Does it. What exactly is the problem, please explain.

That you don't even know what's moral and correct and what's not.

There is no point discussing this any further with you as you don't see what's wrong with the way the industry often behaves. I'd love to know what your company was called but I'm guessing you won't be telling us any time soon.

[bad company]

TonyRPH said:

bad company said:

You have to have input your data somewhere for that to have happened.

Otherwise 10 agencies committed serious criminal offences just to get your details. Does that sound likely?

So what you're saying is, that it's ok for agencies to harvest CVs from job boards, even if the candidate did not apply through said agency?

Is that what you're saying?

Because to my mind that is grossly unethical - and I would be extremely disappointed if my CV was made available to just any agency when applying for a job through a particular agency...

Sounds like you’ve put your details on several job boards. That makes you very vulnerable to anyone getting your data including identity thieves. You need to be more careful.

[Countdown]

bad company said:

So an agency phoned your Payroll Manager and told her they were calling about her her job. Seriously????? Are you sure she’s being 100% truthful. Agents are notoriously secretive about identifying clients too early.

100% (or a hell of a coincidence). they said the client was

About 500 employees (we were 499)
Migrating from Payroll X to Payroll Y (we were)
Salary was "starting at £XX" (they didn't point out that £XX was also where it finished....)
Annual leave was 25 days rising to 33 (same again)
and it was a national media company (guess what we did?)

To clarify - they didin't say they were calling her abdout her current job. They were calling about a Payroll manager post that they were recruiting for and would she be interested?

[Countdown]

bad company said:

I do still disagree with you but hey what do I know. I just owned and managed a successful agency for 23 years.

An Accountant friend of mine does the accounts for a couple of RAs. There's no doubt that some are very successful, but successful doesn't necessarily mean moral/ethical/professional. Incidentally he also does the accounts for a "massage parlour"...

[Badda]

BC will defend to the death the industry it seems. Here's some tales from the cutting edge.

IT recruitment - perm and contract - around 98-02.

Speculative mailshots: Ads would be continually placed for in demand skills at the time (things like Cisco quals etc) and CVs gained by resourcers chatting to the candidates. The top consultant in our place was earning in excess of £30k/month and would fill two mail bags DAILY with purely speculative CVs. A pure numbers game - 99% would go in the bin but 1% would be interviewed and 1 in 8 of those placed.From the ones of us doing it ethically (and earning a lot less), client feedback would be 'I've already seen a version of that CV' all the time. Embarrassing, unprofessional, unethical but financially successful.

I sat next to someone who tried to sell a client's CV to the guy's boss. This happened because there's little personal touch involved and the pressure's on to get interviews.

Constantly advertising for jobs that the agency haven't been 'given' but hope to be able to sell someone into. Even direct ads from clients with No Agencies Please would be copied, anonymised and placed by the agency and then the candidates sent to the client. If these candidates were any good, the company were bound by our terms to use us. Sometimes candidates applied directly and were rejected because their CV had already been sent in 5 times from various agencies and they were seen as desperate or tarnished in some way.

This company employed about 40 people all in and sold for £8m.

I could go on but in a lot of companies, it's as bad as you'd imagine.

[TonyRPH]

bad company said:

TonyRPH said:

bad company said:

You have to have input your data somewhere for that to have happened.

Otherwise 10 agencies committed serious criminal offences just to get your details. Does that sound likely?

So what you're saying is, that it's ok for agencies to harvest CVs from job boards, even if the candidate did not apply through said agency?

Is that what you're saying?

Because to my mind that is grossly unethical - and I would be extremely disappointed if my CV was made available to just any agency when applying for a job through a particular agency...

Sounds like you’ve put your details on several job boards. That makes you very vulnerable to anyone getting your data including identity thieves. You need to be more careful.

Well, I routinely followed the application process which almost always entails submitting my CV via a job board.

This appears to be the preferred method to process applications (unsurprisingly!!).

I think 'Badda' has said everything that needs to be said about agencies, end of.

You (bad company) may have run a (reasonably) respectable operation and perhaps that's why you are so insistent that agencies are squeaky clean, as you're judging all the rest by your own standards.

[Funk]

Countdown said:

I think "seedy" describes it perfectly. For example some agencies think it's perfectly acceptable to ask candidates where else they are currently applying on the pretence that "they don't want to send their CVs through again" when in reality it's to cold-call those very companies in order to put forward other candidates.

We currently have two finance roles out to advert. We've seen agencies advertise our roles but with a salary band going 5-10k higher than we will be paying even though we've not asked them. So it's basically a CV farming exercise for them. In the past when we've used agencies we get to the end of the interview and the candidate says "The agency said the salary was negotiable up to £XX k". Err no, the limit is £XX-£5k... so basically the last 2 hours has been a waste of your time and ours.

Now that websites like LinkedIn have gained traction it's far easier tapping into a good pool of candidates without having to go to agencies.

Just as employers filter CVs out on certain things, this is one of the first things I would now check straight out of the gate with a prospective employer I'm interviewing; no point in either of us wasting our time if the recruiter is bullstting about the salary etc and the employer's expectation and mine are way out of sync.

I'd far prefer to avoid having to deal with a recruiter if I were to be on the hunt; thankfully I'm very happy and stable in my current role and nowadays I get direct approaches from employers via LinkedIn etc or even some of the vendors I work with.

[Sa Calobra]

"Sometimes candidates applied directly and were rejected because their CV had already been sent in 5 times from various agencies and they were seen as desperate or tarnished in some way"

Often the cv would be taken straight off a CV search and sent in.

So candidate isn't even aware until there is an agency war over his CV at interview request stage.

Extre example but I've heard about it a fair few times:- Agency sends in five cv's. Client says interview four of them. Agency then says sorry you moved too slow, all found jobs now.

In reality none were aware of their cvs going g to said company and it was either too far, too low, wrong company or they said no why did you send me cv there?

Some real shoddy sharp agencies out there. Like the car selling industry I don't know how some of them sleep at night.

[bad company]

Sa Calobra said:

"Sometimes candidates applied directly and were rejected because their CV had already been sent in 5 times from various agencies and they were seen as desperate or tarnished in some way"

Often the cv would be taken straight off a CV search and sent in.

So candidate isn't even aware until there is an agency war over his CV at interview request

So in your example 5 different agencies commit data protection crimes and risk huge fines by sending cvs without consent?

[TonyRPH]

bad company said:

So in your example 5 different agencies commit data protection crimes and risk huge fines by sending cvs without consent?

I think it's clear to all that most agencies have little fear of the data protection act - after all, who is going to enforce it?

How will candidate(s) prove that the DPA has been breached?

It's nigh on impossible and agencies know this.

[bad company]

TonyRPH said:

You (bad company) may have run a (reasonably) respectable operation and perhaps that's why you are so insistent that agencies are squeaky clean, as you're judging all the rest by your own standards.

We worked exclusively with lawyers. Most of our candidates were solicitors, barristers or legal executives. Most of our clients were law firms, legal departments of major companies or local authorities. If we hadn’t conformed with data protection laws or the employment agencies act we’d have been properly in the st.

[Sa Calobra]

Yes. It's a common practice.

Fast and loose with people's privacy and consent.

If caught out the consultants manager would 'investigate' and discipline the consultant.

There is also canvassing out cv's or speculative cv's.

Sometimes at initial screening stage a candidate will be asked "what sort of companies would you like to work for". Guess what happens next? No job but job advertised will dully sent over with a cover note.

Do this 20times and you might get one interview back. A consultant has to keep up their activity so many will have weekly CV sent targets and CV:interview conversion ratio targets.

So I talk to a candidate about a role I'm working solely on. I do alot of work and put them forward. Hey presto CV already sent two months ago and crap CV spamming agency (who has no relationship at all our agreement) finds out (how? Weekly or bi-weekly they call up candidates for catch up chats to see where they are upto. Find out the candidate has an interview and immediately kick off with the company saying 'i submitted this candidate (canvassed in) two months ago and out terms state 12month candidate ownership. We even had a conversation on the phone about them' (yes you did the HR lady said no vacancies ra goodbye).

How does it end? Sometimes the CV gets canned. As the candidate can be asked to get involved and it creates bad feeling/just leave that one.

Or a myriad of other outcomes.

Thankfully I worked at a decent enough level and not in IT that such practice was kicked away/bad agencies told to go elsewhere.

The worst practice is keyword searching by agencies then mailing over the resulting cvs from cv search online to a company. You'll find the keyword searching often brings up employees at the company their details are being sent to...

[bad company]

Badda said:

BC will defend to the death the industry it seems. Here's some tales from the cutting edge.

IT recruitment - perm and contract - around 98-02.

Speculative mailshots: Ads would be continually placed for in demand skills at the time (things like Cisco quals etc) and CVs gained by resourcers chatting to the candidates. The top consultant in our place was earning in excess of £30k/month and would fill two mail bags DAILY with purely speculative CVs. A pure numbers game - 99% would go in the bin but 1% would be interviewed and 1 in 8 of those placed.From the ones of us doing it ethically (and earning a lot less), client feedback would be 'I've already seen a version of that CV' all the time. Embarrassing, unprofessional, unethical but financially successful.

I sat next to someone who tried to sell a client's CV to the guy's boss. This happened because there's little personal touch involved and the pressure's on to get interviews.

Constantly advertising for jobs that the agency haven't been 'given' but hope to be able to sell someone into. Even direct ads from clients with No Agencies Please would be copied, anonymised and placed by the agency and then the candidates sent to the client. If these candidates were any good, the company were bound by our terms to use us. Sometimes candidates applied directly and were rejected because their CV had already been sent in 5 times from various agencies and they were seen as desperate or tarnished in some way.

This company employed about 40 people all in and sold for £8m.

I could go on but in a lot of companies, it's as bad as you'd imagine.

IT recruitment was very competitive back in the day though I was never involved with it. Your apparent examples are from at least 16 years ago.

[Sa Calobra]

Those examples were still relevant when I left the industry a few years ago.

I still get mail shots and phone calls that are wildly innaccurate too.

[bad company]

Sa Calobra said:

Those examples were still relevant when I left the industry a few years ago.

I still get mail shots and phone calls that are wildly innaccurate too.

Scattergun approach.

As I said earlier in the thread a rifle is more effective than a shotgun in recruitment.

[Funk]

bad company said:

TonyRPH said:

You (bad company) may have run a (reasonably) respectable operation and perhaps that's why you are so insistent that agencies are squeaky clean, as you're judging all the rest by your own standards.

We worked exclusively with lawyers. Most of our candidates were solicitors, barristers or legal executives. Most of our clients were law firms, legal departments of major companies or local authorities. If we hadn’t conformed with data protection laws or the employment agencies act we’d have been properly in the st.

With respect then, it seems you never got involved with the sttier practices that the bulk of the industry seems to partake in and which most people experience.

[Doofus]

bad company said:

Scattergun approach.

As I said earlier in the thread a rifle is more effective than a shotgun in recruitment.

Only if you know how to use it properly.

It seems my experiences as an employer up until a few years ago, and others' experiences as candidates and clients all tell a similar story.

[Badda]

bad company said:

Scattergun approach.

As I said earlier in the thread a rifle is more effective than a shotgun in recruitment.

So you acknowledge that it’s common practice and tried to coach your employees not to do it. It seems we agree, what a strange circular argument.

[bucksmanuk]

bad company said:

1). I agree. People come into the industry thinking it’s easy money then quickly find out it isn’t.

2). ‘Spamming’ CV’s is not effective as clients get fed and stop reading them. A more targeted approach is best. I used to say to my team use a rifle not a shotgun.

recruitment people?
shotgun?

[bad company]

Badda said:

bad company said:

Scattergun approach.

As I said earlier in the thread a rifle is more effective than a shotgun in recruitment.

So you acknowledge that it’s common practice and tried to coach your employees not to do it. It seems we agree, what a strange circular argument.

I don’t acknowledge what’s common practice, it may have been but given fairly recent legislation I wouldn’t have thought agencies would dare operate like that nowadays.

This thread reminded me of one of my most successful placements.

I was aware that one of the partners of a medium sized North London law firm had died suddenly and unexpectedly. They weren’t clients but I was aware that they were advertising for a replacement. A hard job to fill but I knew I had the ideal candidate. I asked my man if he had applied and he said he hadn’t because he knew the firm and was uncomfortable putting his hat into the ring in case he wasn’t right for them. He was actually embarrassed to apply but he wanted the job.

It would have been crass to cold call and say ‘sorry your bloke died, I want £x,000 for the replacement so I wrote a ‘mailshot’ on my candidate, call it an anonymous cv if you like. I printed it on cheap paper to look like I had sent several but in fact just sent 1 to the senior partner of the firm. He called the next morning to request further details and our terms of business. An interview was arranged for the following evening, they cancelled all the interviews they had arranged already.

Anyway my man got the job and joined as a partner. Result:-

1). I got a very large fee, my % of a partners money.

2). I got a new client onboard.

3). After a couple of years the senior partner retired and my man took the job. Guess who was the preferred recruiters.

Happy candidate, happy client and very happy me.