Agency question - CV sent to client by 2 agencies

[Soir]

Been working on a role for a client for 4 months. Sent a CV twice to them in May but they put his CV on hold (as they had preferred candidate in mind)

I find out they have since seen my applicant via another recruiter who sent CV 2 months after me and the person starts on monday.

We should invoice them and legally (T&C's) we would be entitled to the placement fee. However the clients MD suggested I will get no work in the future (its small anyway, 1 role a year tops)

Don't want to upset the client, but it's their mistake - why should I be punished?

How would you handle it?

[thetapeworm]

Seems the other company made more of an impression in the 2 months they worked on it than you did in the 4 months, I'd start by asking myself how I could stop that happening again.

[nonplussed]

Sounds pretty simple to me - what's more important, the fee being paid or you keeping the client? I can well understand that this sucks for you, but I'd let it go for this time.

[Soir]

thetapeworm said:

Seems the other company made more of an impression in the 2 months they worked on it than you did in the 4 months, I'd start by asking myself how I could stop that happening again.

Thanks - it does look that way!

I had 2 previos candidates they were interested in, so they put all the others (including this one) on hold. One person was offered the role and accepted...then got counter offer weeks later so role was back open (this was the 2mth delay)- this point the other recruiter sent my 'on hold' applicant.

I sent this Cv directly to the MD and the HR Manager twice..8 weeks before other agency

Future roles, won't be many - we are quite specialist so only 3 roles from them in last 3 years

I've had many occasions spent time with candidates, sent Cv to a client to then be told already have it by another agency. I can accept this but not the other way round

Edited by Soir on Monday 4th October 13:22

[escargot]

Andy, why is the MD being so aggressive about this? Surely he understands (being a businessman) that the candidate was initially introduced to them by you and therefore should be invoiced by you. I can only imagine that the other agency has undercut you on fees.

You have to question though, if he's prepared to do this, do you really want to work with him anyway?

[Soir]

escargot said:

Andy, why is the MD being so aggressive about this? Surely he understands (being a businessman) that the candidate was initially introduced to them by you and therefore should be invoiced by you. I can only imagine that the other agency has undercut you on fees.

You have to question though, if he's prepared to do this, do you really want to work with him anyway?

Slightly in his defence he would have been very busy as he had only just joined the business (its part of a major group) so I can undersand it being overlooked by him and even HR but you would think he'd try to be more fair?

Hate this situation. done nothing wrong. worked on this role for months and found him the person (and one they previously offered to) yet feel like I am the problem (he replied saying could blacklist me if I hound them for a fee-how the hell has this turned around so badly?!)

Edited by Soir on Monday 4th October 13:31

[escargot]

Soir said:

escargot said:

Andy, why is the MD being so aggressive about this? Surely he understands (being a businessman) that the candidate was initially introduced to them by you and therefore should be invoiced by you. I can only imagine that the other agency has undercut you on fees.

You have to question though, if he's prepared to do this, do you really want to work with him anyway?

Slightly in his defence he would have been very busy as he had only just joined the business (its part of a major group) so I can undersant it being overlooked by him and even HR but you would think he'd try to be more fair?

Yes exactly. In fact, once the situation had been brought to his attention you'd have thought he'd have said "oops, here you go Soir, here's your fee, terribly sorry competitor agency but Mr Soir actually sent this chap to us a full two months ago as documented here......"

[escargot]

Soir said:

escargot said:

Andy, why is the MD being so aggressive about this? Surely he understands (being a businessman) that the candidate was initially introduced to them by you and therefore should be invoiced by you. I can only imagine that the other agency has undercut you on fees.

You have to question though, if he's prepared to do this, do you really want to work with him anyway?

Slightly in his defence he would have been very busy as he had only just joined the business (its part of a major group) so I can undersand it being overlooked by him and even HR but you would think he'd try to be more fair?

Hate this situation. done nothing wrong. worked on this role for months and found him the person (and one they previously offered to) yet feel like I am the problem (he replied saying could blacklist me if I hound them for a fee-how the hell has this turned around so badly?!)

Edited by Soir on Monday 4th October 13:31

Because despite spending however many man hours and x £s on vacancy advertising/headhunting et al, we are still considered by many to be shysters.

I'd be telling him that I'm not hounding him, merely pointing out the facts and that if the situation was turned around and it was his business that was getting shafted, he wouldn't be too happy about it either.

Edited by escargot on Monday 4th October 13:35

[anonymous-user]

Unfortunately just sending a cv may not be considered an introduction, otherwise you could send a load of cvs to large range of companies and wait for them to be hired.

If they'd interviewed them (in person or not) and then hired elsewhere that would be very different.

How did you submit, and what responses did you receive - is the role exactly the same ?

It will come down to how you manage with the MD, but I'd expect not to be paid but to try and get a better working relationship out of it. No problem in putting your case to them effectively, just dont start with 'I sent him first, so pay me'

[Soir]

wsurfa said:

Unfortunately just sending a cv may not be considered an introduction, otherwise you could send a load of cvs to large range of companies and wait for them to be hired.

If they'd interviewed them (in person or not) and then hired elsewhere that would be very different.

How did you submit, and what responses did you receive - is the role exactly the same ?

It will come down to how you manage with the MD, but I'd expect not to be paid but to try and get a better working relationship out of it. No problem in putting your case to them effectively, just dont start with 'I sent him first, so pay me'

Industry standadard T&C's set out by the recruitment & employment confederation clearly state that introduce is by way of CV (our terms are set by these). Of course this would not be the case if you speculatively sent Cv's to random companies. But is the case when it for a partcicular role and you have been instructed by the client to work on it..which is the case

-personally I never spec cv's to any companies

[AJS-]

Sorry Soir, I would say you messed up on this one.

1) You didn't make the right impression to the client on behalf of the candidate, or he would have interviewed him through you.

2) You didn't have a strong enough relationship with the candidate to know that he had gone through the interview process with your client through another agency.

You might be able to get something through the courts but it will leave a bad taste for all involved, and take up a lot of your valuable time. I would suck it up and move on, and make sure not to let it happen again.

Best of luck

[Doofus]

I just goes to show that no matter how good you are as a candidate, and no matter how well you can do the job, it's the recruitment consultant's job to persuade the client of that. If he can't, you won't get a look in...

[escargot]

Doofus said:

I just goes to show that no matter how good you are as a candidate, and no matter how well you can do the job, it's the recruitment consultant's job to persuade the client of that. If he can't, you won't get a look in...

Not really.

Soir said:

Sent a CV twice to them in May but they put his CV on hold (as they had preferred candidate in mind)

[Doofus]

escargot said:

Doofus said:

I just goes to show that no matter how good you are as a candidate, and no matter how well you can do the job, it's the recruitment consultant's job to persuade the client of that. If he can't, you won't get a look in...

Not really.

Soir said:

Sent a CV twice to them in May but they put his CV on hold (as they had preferred candidate in mind)

No, because they didn't take his CV off hold; they used a different version of the same CV, created by a different consultant.

[escargot]

Doofus said:

escargot said:

Doofus said:

I just goes to show that no matter how good you are as a candidate, and no matter how well you can do the job, it's the recruitment consultant's job to persuade the client of that. If he can't, you won't get a look in...

Not really.

Soir said:

Sent a CV twice to them in May but they put his CV on hold (as they had preferred candidate in mind)

No, because they didn't take his CV off hold; they used a different version of the same CV, created by a different consultant.

You're assuming that each recruiter creates a different CV for the candidate. Not all recruiters do this - we certainly don't.

[Doofus]

escargot said:

You're assuming that each recruiter creates a different CV for the candidate. Not all recruiters do this - we certainly don't.

Fair point - I was. Used to drive me bonkers, because they'd always leave out the important stuff, or rearrange it...

[escargot]

Doofus said:

escargot said:

You're assuming that each recruiter creates a different CV for the candidate. Not all recruiters do this - we certainly don't.

Fair point - I was. Used to drive me bonkers, because they'd always leave out the important stuff, or rearrange it...

When I launched this company, I took a conscious decision that the consultants wouldn't edit or amend a candidates CV for the above reasons. The feedback I receive from clients is that it's better for them to receive a CV that is a true reflection of the candidate than a generic document from us. We'll usually write our thoughts on the individual and highlight the salient points in a brief synopsis but that's pretty much it.

It's more transparent for both candidate and client.

[thetapeworm]

In some cases that would have backfired on me when I did recruitment as we had some clever candidates who insisted on coloured CVs with photographs and rambling stories about their hobbies over 10 pages but the company policy at that time was to scan and reformat each CV into a set font and layout. Personally I didn't like doing it but rules were rules at that place.

These days I worry about my CV when I submit it to an agency as there is rarely any indication that they understand what I do and what I want to do despite it being very clear, the game seems to be "keyword bingo" followed by a copy and paste email being sent to me. In IT recruitment the personal touch I once tried so hard to provide myself seems to have gone missing. Obviously there are still the decent people out there who try to get to know a candidate for the benefit of both parties but it must be difficult when the job to application ratio is probably much higher than it used to be.

We always strived to ensure a CV was only sent for a role by one agency, if we weren't the first we tried to learn from it, if we were then we ensured our relationship with the client was good enough to mean that anyone else sending the CV would be rejected. Unfortunately some of the onus comes back on the candidate in that they should only really go through with one agency (in my opinion at least) but is anyone likely to do this when so many people believe that "job on hold" really means "didn't bother to submit your details"?

I enjoyed my time in medical and IT recruitment roles and miss the buzz it used to provide but I'm not sure I could go back to it now, I still admire those of you who rise above the clichés though, keep up the good work and don't allow one client to turn you into a big-knot smarmcake

[escargot]

thetapeworm said:

In some cases that would have backfired on me when I did recruitment as we had some clever candidates who insisted on coloured CVs with photographs and rambling stories about their hobbies over 10 pages but the company policy at that time was to scan and reformat each CV into a set font and layout.

A gentle "perhaps you could tone your CV down a little bit as our client will only want to see your professional information" type conversation usually does the trick for us.

It is an issue though, for sure.

[Nick M]

Soir said:

thetapeworm said:

Seems the other company made more of an impression in the 2 months they worked on it than you did in the 4 months, I'd start by asking myself how I could stop that happening again.

Thanks - it does look that way!

I had 2 previos candidates they were interested in, so they put all the others (including this one) on hold. One person was offered the role and accepted...then got counter offer weeks later so role was back open (this was the 2mth delay)- this point the other recruiter sent my 'on hold' applicant.

I sent this Cv directly to the MD and the HR Manager twice..8 weeks before other agency

Future roles, won't be many - we are quite specialist so only 3 roles from them in last 3 years

I've had many occasions spent time with candidates, sent Cv to a client to then be told already have it by another agency. I can accept this but not the other way round

Edited by Soir on Monday 4th October 13:22

If you're 100% sure of your Ts & Cs, and you're happy not to do business with this company again (and perhaps more importantly, that it won't have any other consequences), then I'd be sorely tempted to write to them explaining why you're attaching an invoice for the relevant fee.

But if you have any doubts about the validity of your entitlement to the fee, take a deep breath and mark it down to experience.