5 Clear Signs of an Unethical Recruiter 

Sep 14, 2017 | Blog

When you type “recruiters are” into Google, you get a series of rather unflattering suggestions and the reality is that it is not totally undeserved. This industry is littered with questionable ethics, high staff turnover and bad experiences borne out of poor service. Sifting through the agencies who fall into the aforementioned category and those who don’t, and then sifting through the guilty recruiters can be quite a process.

Below, we offer you some examples and insight which we encourage you to treat as warning signs that could lead you down that dark path to becoming a contributor to the list of undesirable “recruiters are ….” on Google.

Our advice is: Be cautious, be particular; insist on professionalism, and stay away from the cowboys and cowgirls out there!

  1. Having your details sent to a client without your consent. 

​No recruiter has the right to do this. The fact that you have registered with a recruitment agency simply means that you have given them permission to hold your personal information and career history on their system. You have not given the recruiter your permission to fling your private and professional life across the city and the internet. Before a recruiter should even consider sharing your details with a client, they should communicate and discuss the position, company and industry with you. Only once you have agreed that this information is indeed aligned with your career aspirations should the recruiter share your details with their client.

  1. Having your details sent to a client by a recruiter who hasn’t taken the time to get to actually get to know you.

​You should go through a professional registration and interview process with a recruitment agency prior to them presenting you to a client. If a recruiter simply finds your details on a job portal or on LinkedIn and offers to present you to their client without having done the aforementioned, it shows a lack of professionalism and a lack of ethics. Firstly, the recruiter is doing you a huge injustice as they cannot represent you accurately without knowing more about you; what makes you unique, what  your job turn-ons and turn-offs are, what, beyond your skills and experience, makes you a really good fit for the client’s business, and so on. Secondly, in doing this, the recruiter is being, quite simply, completely unprofessional – recruiters charge their clients a fee for the service they provide, and if they fail in the very first step of the process by not going through a thorough registration and screening with you, you can be sure the service they provide to you will be just as unprofessional.

  1. If there are any financial implications to you as a candidate.

​In no way and at no time should a recruitment agency imply or request that there may be some type of financial implication or cost to you as a candidate in order to partner with them. Whether you renege on an offer, don’t show up to work on day one, decide to resign within your probationary period or anything else – there cannot be a financial consequence for you. There are rumours of agencies who ask candidates for a type of “sign up” fee which is absolutely unacceptable and certainly not something an ethical recruitment company would request.

  1. Demanding exclusivity 

​Every agency would like their top candidates to only be registered with them and, although there are advantages to working closely with one agency, you should never be required to do this in order for them to assist you. At the end of the day it should always remain your choice as to who you want to be represented by and how many people or agencies you would like to be represented by. Talk to your recruiter and ask them what working with them exclusively will offer you. Make a decision based on what you want and not what they want.

  1. Insufficient knowledge about a position/industry/company

​Your recruiter should know the ins and outs about the company they’re recruiting for, the intricacies of the opportunity their client is offering and should be able to offer insight into the industry they are looking to move you into.  A colleague of mine has an example of a recruiter calling her directly to ‘market’ her candidate for the role that she was advertising. Cathy was advertising, as a recruiter, for an Accountant for one of her manufacturing clients. Another recruiter called Cathy and started her pitch, something along the lines of “Hi Cathy, I see you are advertising for an Accountant – I have an excellent Accountant on my books who would really fit into your business – the candidate really wants to work for an accounting firm!”  You can be sure that recruiter told her candidate she has a great Accountant role with an accounting firm, exactly what the candidate wants, and they were going to send the candidate’s CV through.

The reality is that if they can’t give you detailed information on the role itself, the company itself or answer any of your questions relating to either, they are not in a position to be recruiting for it. If they don’t know this information how can they know that this is something that will suit your technical abilities or your personality? Just imagine you are a professional returning to work after maternity or paternity leave. With a little one and a toddler at home, and you and your partner working full time – you need to work within driving distance from home and ideally want to work in a professional office environment.  You go for this interview with ABC Manufacturers and the interviewer is telling you all about the 2 weeks every 6 weeks that you will be required to spend at their manufacturing plant in Angola and you’re thinking, “What on earth am I doing here?”.

The agency you work with is the first point of contact you will have with your potential future employer and, although it’s not fair, their ethics and the way in which they conduct their business does, in many ways, reflect on you. This is why it’s important to make sure you have an understanding of who you are working with and who you are trusting to represent you.

It’s your career and you’ve worked long and hard to achieve your successes. It started on your first day of school and it is one of life’s longest marathons. Don’t let someone whose primary interest in your career may only be a chunky commission payment, dilute or tarnish what you have spent the better part of a lifetime investing in.