What do bad recruiters do?

Following on from an article I wrote recently “What do good recruiters do?” I wanted to follow up and do the opposite and expose some bad recruitment practices. 

With the recruitment industry coming under more scrutiny than ever, it’s a time where a recruiter has to add value and sadly some recruiters don’t understand. 

FAKE JOBS 

This is a tactic some recruiters use to harvest CVs, because they see it as an easy route to speak to a high volume of candidates with a view to using the candidate for lead generation, to other jobs they’ve applied for etc. It’s usually quite easy to spot a fake job when you speak to the recruiter, because they “won’t” be able to say who it’s for. 

NO FEEDBACK 

Communication is a staple of any good recruiter. I firmly believe giving feedback comes down to if the recruiter is professional in his approach. Good recruiters understand the importance of feedback. 

Some recruiters will not give feedback, because they don’t have a built relationship with you. This tends to be a very common trait amongst some recruiters. If you aren’t getting feedback from a particular recruitment agency, I think you need to ask yourself why you’re working with them.

THINK OF CANDIDATES AS QUICK MONEY

Sadly, some recruiters see dollar signs when speaking to some candidates. They don’t see candidates as human beings, who need advice and guidance as looking for a job can be a very daunting task. 

One of the signs of a recruiter seeing you as a quick bit of money is, if they only call you about live jobs they have, they push you into jobs you aren’t sure about and they offer no advice on the whole process.

OFFER NO ADVICE

I like to think of my role as a UX Recruiter, as more of a “UX Career coach & Recruiter”. 

A recruiter should always be on hand to offer you advice on how to improve your CV, Portfolio (if needed), advice on which companies you might be suitable for going by your experience and wants, interview advice, how to utilise LinkedIn and other social media channels to your advantage and NOT just for pushing your CVs to jobs because you might fit. 

THEY DON’T HAVE A CLUE WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT 

They don’t go to networking events, they don't read up on the profession they are recruiting for, they don't attend industry events and they don’t take the time to ask the candidate about what they ACTUALLY do to an in-depth level, but simply match keywords on a CV. 

DON’T PROVIDE CANDIDATES WITH THE COMPANY NAME

I think I might be talking to 99% of the people who are reading this article on this point. A recruiter calls you with a great job, but they can’t provide you with the company name.

So how are you meant to know if this is the right job for them and if all their requirements are met in terms of team size, culture, location, projects and who their boss is going to be amongst other things. 

SEND CV’s WITHOUT PERMISSION 

This is one of the most common bad recruitment practices.

Things can get messy with this, because if an agency who hasn’t got the role from the company send a CV to them but then they get the same CV from a agency who are working the role, this can look unprofessional on the candidate for not tracking who their CV.

It can also look unprofessional on the agency who is working the role, because they should always do the due diligence before they send a candidate to a role, but the fault will lay solely at the agency who wrongly sent the candidates’ details over. 

I would strongly recommend tracking who has your CV at all times. 

SEND INAPPROPRIATE JOB SPECS

After speaking to a lot of people in the industry, I found out this was also a very common issue at the moment.

It’s very easy to spot which recruiters know what they’re talking about. The recruiters who send inappropriate job specs without your permission to you, have either spammed their database or matched a few keywords from your CV (which could be outdated by 5 years!..) and sent you a spec.