Submitted by jib88 on
in
Forums
BLUF: I'd appreciate community advice on how (and whether) to continue engaging with a particular agency recruiter. I'm in early stages, and have only spoken on the phone once. No bad vibes yet, but some unexpected behavior that I can't quite explain. The positions discussed are first-line management posts.
An agency recruiter contacted me recently on LinkedIn, and after a few emails back and forth we setup a call to talk about my background and a few positions. I actually sent my resume ahead of this call. I know, big mistake, but I had recently revised it after some feedback from Wendii and pride got the better of me and I wanted to show it off. It had also been a while since I listened to the warnings in the recruiter casts, and our emails had somewhat set me at ease. I did caveat that I wasn't sending it for one of the positions, just for our discussion.
I have since spoken to the recruiter and one of the positions sounds genuinely interesting. The odd thing is that they told me the exact title and company for both of the positions we discussed and sent me the complete job descriptions. Both jobs appear to be posted on the hiring companies websites. I thought that recruiters would not normally offer this information in a contingency search because you could simply go around them directly to the company. How is the recruiter protected from me doing just that? Does it mean that they have likely already broadcasted my resume, or are they assuming a certain level of integrity from me?
It makes me slightly suspicious that they might not be linked with the hiring manager or HR, but that they will simply submit my resume to the company. If they are working with the hiring manager or HR and were trusting that I would not go around them then I would of course want to honor that agreement and work with them. But if they are simply trying to skim search fees then I feel like I am in a slightly different position. If they submit my name but the company won't pay a search fee then I am locked out.
Should I tell them I am interested, fish for more information, or simply apply by myself?
N.B. - As an aside they gave me a list of their active clients, and suggested I browse those company job boards and let them know if I like any of the posts. I can see where this is appealing for them, but I really don't see much advantage for me doing that unless the recruiter has connections at those companies. The jobs we discussed are not from one of their listed clients.
I just gave the recruiter casts another listen and looked back over Rites, but still don't know just how to proceed.
Thanks! -JIB
Not illigit, but....
Hi JIB
This doesn't sound to me like unusual behavior, but it's not the most professional behavior either.
As a corporate recruiter we often had jobs that we had tried to recruit directly for a number of weeks and then released to agencies either to get any resumes or some additional ones. The fact that an agency has a role and that it's on the corporate website is not an automatic bad sign. It probably means that it's a middle management or lower role though - higher level roles tend to be more exclusive.
Personally, when I worked as a recruiter, I wouldn't have told you the company name, but Google didn't exist then, and with the job description you can probably find which company it is, so perhaps he thought this was no great loss.
It sounds like they are on a Preferred Supplier List, which means they have a contract with the company around the number and type of roles they will work on. Often that does mean that the recruiter will not have direct contact with the hiring manager or HR - sometimes it's a recruiter and sometimes it's all done electronically. [Bad idea, but saves money :-) ]
It shouldn't make any difference to you how the company gets your resume - since the recruiter introduced you to the job, I think you're honor bound to go through them.
I wouldn't go to the extent of looking on their client list websites and telling them which jobs you want to go forward for - that's doing their job for them.
If you feel uncomfortable with this person, I'd just leave it where it is and wait for them to contact you. 3/4 of the art of having a recruiter's attention (especially not great ones) is contacting them. If you want the relationship to wither, that's much more easily accomplished than the opposite.
Recruiters are a commodity. If you don't like one, move on :-) (And I say that having been one, and knowing that's exactly what I didn't want when I was one!)
Wendii
Follow up on the recruiter
Everything sounds legitimate.
I did some searching and found that one of my old colleagues now works at the company with the openings. A few quick emails with him, and I got some details about the jobs that weren't in the online postings (online job postings can be quite generic and/or look like they are the result of a lot of copy/paste, but that's a different discussion!). I gave a quick call to the recruiter asking for more detail on the postings, and they followed up with their contact within the hiring company. I got an email from the recruiter shortly after detailing what I already knew about the jobs, which also confirmed that they had contact with the company and they weren't simply trying to float resumes.
A few lessons for me here:
1) Always check with your network. I learned more about the jobs, and was able to get a good inside reference.
2) Don't blindly trust the posted job description. I found out a lot more about the opening by digging around, and can target my resume much more effectively.
3) Don't send your resume first. I sweated this one out a bit wondering if I'd passed my resume along prematurely. Fortunately, it seems I didn't hand my resume off to a broadcaster.
-JIB