7 Tricks recruiters use to trap unsuspecting candidates
One estimate of job openings filled by recruiters is over 35%. The percentage is higher for executive-level positions in the $100,000+ salary range. Clearly, cultivating a professional relationship with a recruiter or two is an excellent career development strategy. But how do you avoid exposure to the wrong ones? I believe knowledge is power. The more you know about how and why recruiters set traps for you, the easier you can avoid getting caught.
A crafty recruiter or a representative from a ‘resume mill’ can entice you to send your resume because they are trained to handle any objection you can produce. Unless you verify an actual search for a real company, don’t send your resume.
- Vet the recruiter immediately. Ask for the recruiter’s company name and contact information. If the recruiter is vague or unresponsive to your direct questions, they are bogus and up to no good. Request the hiring company name and the job description. If they can’t supply all this information, there is no reason to go forward. If they can, offer to get back to them after you have a chance to think about the opportunity. Use that time to ascertain the validity of the recruiting company, the company with the open req and the job. If you still have doubts, call the company in question and ask if they work with that recruiter. If the recruiter cannot supply the information or objects to giving you time, run away.
- Protect your contact information. Resume mills are or sell your resume to resume aggregators. These resumes are then used to cull contact information which is subsequently sold to the highest bidders. Don’t include your home address and use a public email such as gmail. If you submit a resume, it is lost in space and you will never hear from the recruiter again no matter how terrific the match to that imaginary job.
- Job boards are not your friend. The recruiter submits your resume to job boards. Resumes are stripped of your name and contact information and the recruiter’s contact information is substituted. If someone is interested in your credentials, they have to go through the recruiter and split fees.
- Cover the earth. Resumes are sent to prospective employers at random and nationwide with the recruiter’s contact information, not yours. Most companies do not follow-up on unsolicited resumes submitted by unknown recruiters. They flag the resume and file it. When a genuine presentation of your credentials occurs by you or your recruiter of choice, your resume is cast aside because of the previous connection.
- The Trojan horse. Recruiters contact a company with an open req and pretend to represent you. If the employer takes the bait, the recruiter can say they have the search. While this sounds like an opportunity to get exposure with someone else doing the heavy lifting, it is just the opposite. Candidates from recruiters known to the company get higher consideration. The recruiter doesn’t know you so he can’t represent you (or the company) with any usable knowledge. And worse, if the company rejects the recruiter, they flag your resume so neither you nor another reputable recruiter can breach that company’s defenses for consideration.
- Is your resume part of their quota? Some recruiting companies have a resume quota for their recruiters. This encourages new recruiters to get resumes with any story possible. This is where the complaint “The recruiter didn’t even understand what I do,” comes from. Your resume is submitted to their data base with no real understanding of the job you want or the special circumstances. You can contact these recruiters till the cows come home and never get a response or follow up. In fact, the likelihood that recruiter is still employed by the recruiting company after a year is very low. These recruiting companies can advertise and boast of a database with over xxx# current resumes.
- The oldest trick. A recruiter trick as old as the hills is to court an unsuspecting candidate with the ‘perfect’ job then ask the names and contact information of their boss or direct reports; the real target of their search. While this is clearly a short-term solution, many recruiters cannot see past the next placement. You will never hear back but your connections will.
New recruiter scams and bad-actors arise weekly. It is up to you to protect yourself from bad recruiters. The best way to avoid the disappointment and harm done by these disreputable folks is to vet them before you ever send a resume or give any information…regardless of their pitch. No opportunity is so critical that receiving your resume can’t wait a day or two while you research the recruiter.
If a recruiter asks for a fee, they are not a recruiter. By definition, no recruiter should ever charge the candidate; if they have a search, the company pays. If they charge, that makes them an employment agency, not a recruiter. Again, run away.
Don’t let your desire to find a plethora of resources cloud your vision about recruiters. If you chose the wrong one(s) they can do serious damage to your self confidence and your search. There are many excellent recruiters hired by companies to source qualified candidates. Learn to tell the difference and you will avoid all the angst and anger the recruiting’s bad apples spread.
This just in: GadBall reports on scams where job seekers lose money and their identity.
Rita Ashley, Job Search Coach
Author: Job Search Debugged
www.jobsearchdebugged.com
ritathejobcoach@gmail.com
My clients get hired; not a guarantee, it’s a track record.
For more insights on recruiters, purchase Job Search Debugged.
Career advice, Job Search Tools, Recruiters, Six Figure Jobs
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$100, 000+ jobs, Career advice, executive jobs, job search, Recruiters, Six Figure Jobs
Themocracy
This was very informative. I never thought about the potential trojan
horse.
Thank you for a very good, and scary, article!
I have a few questions:
1. Why remove contact info? Won’t your name, alone, result in the same culling/ selling, as well as possible flagging by employers? (See #4, below.)
2. I don’t understand the recommendation to use gmail versus ,for example, optonline.
3. Job boards – there are many openings stating that resumes submitted by recruiters will not be considered. How can you be sure that those postings (and even others without that statement) are not actually posted by a recruiter with ill intentions?
4.I have considered submitting my resume using an alias. If I do this and also eliminate my address, might this prevent some of these pitfalls, in addition to preventing recruiters and hiring managers from Googling me.
5. Is there ANY way to securely use job board postings or sites such as Craig’s list if the hiring company’s name is not clearly stated so you can then can verify the job opening?
6. I have forwarded my resume to quite a few online job postings, some of which I know went to a recruiter. If, in fact, the recruiter was misusing my resume and information, is there any way to undo the potential damage?
I look forward to replies to these questions, both from Rita Ashley and others. Thanks in advance.
Julie, Thanks for sharing your views. I hope to answer your questions here:
1. Remove your home address, not your public email or city, state and zip. That prevents a lot of unwanted mail and possible exposure to scams.
2. My suggestion of gmail is only and example. I simply mean, don’t used your personal email address. Even from this blog, I get all kinds of spam and smut on my business email.
3.Don’t use job boards. Solves all the problems. Read my blogs on job boards to discover why they don’t work and how they can hurt you.
4. You don’t say where you are submitting? Direct contact is the most effective way to get your resume into the right hands. Not anonymous sites and email addresses. Again, I direct you to the blogs on referrals and suggest my books, Networking Debugged and Job Search Debugged for specifics.
5.One way to detect who the hiring company is requires you extract key words from the ad and use a search engine. Also, the job search engines are better resources for local jobs as is LinkedIn and if you are in Seattle area, eggsprout.com
6.No way to un-ring the bell. Just be aware for the future and protect yourself. The more job seekers become become desperate, the more scams and frauds and greedy plots there will be. It is a lucrative and easy market to victimize. Not wanting to scare but human nature doesn’t change just because job seekers are in need. That is exactly who the predators prey upon. So use the simple but very easy rules and your won’t put yourself in harms way.
Someone suggested in an irate message to me that none of the things listed on this blog and in other blogs occur. That he, as a recruiter, never did any of those things so therefore, I was lying.
The way I discovered all of these issues mentioned (and more) was from candidates who have been burned. I received hundreds (!) of examples and sad stories about how recruiters (were they?) tapped candidates for their resumes and were never heard from again.
I also received email and linkedin messages from people who were CHARGED by a recruiter and still did not get results. (Anyone who charges candidates is not a recruiter, but an agency and no professional should ever have to pay for a job.)
The irate individual suggested my comments were just to scare people into buying my book…which of course is nonsense. The blog itself was the answer to the problem. If people decide to buy the book it is because they valued the advice and want to learn how to tune up their job search in all areas.
Hope this helps to clarify your concerns, Julie. Best of luck.
Rita, the job coach.
Rita,
Thanks for making this information public. I have heard things like this before, even from HR Directors in companies I have worked in the past.
Now, here’s a question for you. Let’s say that a recruiter contacts you for a job opportunity. Let’s say the job is real and the recruiter works for a real Contingency Firm. Now, on the other hand, let’s say that you had seen the job posted in a website like Monster, before the recruiter contacted you. Would you go with the recruiter or would you go by yourself? Beyond the moral issue, which option would give me the best chance with the potential employer?
Thanks
Great question. If the recruiter contacted you and has the search, the company will value her resumes. They are already committed to paying her if she finds the right person and if she has a long standing relationship, she is almost as good as a referral.
Do not go around her. Do not submit through a job board or your resume will be lost among hundreds. The recruiter has a vested interest in keeping your resume alive with the employer.
Assuming she has the ear of the employer, and she presented the job opportunity to you and you go around her, she is a gatekeeper and may affect how your resume is perceived compared to others she is representing. But more to the point, why wouldn’t you want someone connected to the company and to you promoting your interests?
Good luck and let me know the outcome.
Rita.
I neglected to use proper email etiquette and sent a recycled/fake job description without the courtesy of BCCing the 20 people I send it to. One of them has kindly posted all of my contact info for the great wide internet to enjoy at will ;-)
annoyed at recruiter:
Danielle Lambert
SCFoster, LLC. | Business & Technology Services
office: 302-450-1411 x111
email: danielle.lambert@scfoster.com
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