What is it with some recruiters and their failure to listen?

[Gentile]

I had a conversation with a recruiter about a role I was actually interested in on Friday. At the same time, he asked me about another role in investment banking that he was recruiting for. As anyone who knows me will tell you, they'll be hosting the Winter Olympics in hell before I'd ever work in banking, let alone investment banking. So, after reviewing the job spec for politeness' sake, I declined using these exact words in an e-mail:

"With regard to the additional *********** role: thankyou for considering me for this, but unfortunately I don't feel it's a good fit for what I'm looking for and what I have to offer. The spec mentions responsibility for testing and support, and also asks for experience in banking. I wouldn't be interested in a support or testing role, unfortunately, and can't offer any banking experience. I wish you well in sourcing more suitable candidates for this particular role."

He called me back almost instantly, and, with barely-concealed irritation, proceeded to try and convince me that the role was actually a development role, and would be of interest to me. He even said "it's just a generic catch-all role description, it doesn't really describe what they're looking for in this case". Because, you know, even if that transparent lie had been true, it would have somehow made it better that the bank concerned hadn't even bothered to write a role spec that reflected their needs properly. Not to mention the fact that, even if it had been a role as their chief chocolate and beer taster, it'd still have been with a bank, and I'd still have said no.

Anyway, skip to today, and I get the following e-mail through from the bank's automated Applicant Tracking System:

"***** ************ just referred you to our company for the position of ***************, and may have answered questions and assessed your skills on your behalf. We strongly recommend that you review your candidate file and provide any missing information to ensure that our records are up to date."

After 14 years on all sides of the hiring table, as a permie and as a contrator, I really shouldn't be annoyed or surprised at this sort of failure to listen. But this particular one still managed to surprise me, because it seems so utterly counter-productive for all concerned. Suffice to say, that's one recruiter that'll be going on my "never deal with again" list.

[Wanderer]

"***** ************ just referred you to our company for the position of ***************, and may have answered questions and assessed your skills on your behalf. We strongly recommend that you review your candidate file and provide any missing information to ensure that our records are up to date."

I guess you could complain to the agency but this wouldn't make any difference as they have a hide as thick as an elephants.

I'd take a different tack, contact the the Data Protection Officer at the bank to tell them that the agency forwarded your personal details to them despite your explicit instructions not to do this. Demand that they investigate this breach of the Data Protection Act and ask them how they intend to remedy the situation.

Most likely, the bank will put that agency on their tulip list too.

[Gentile]

I guess you could complain to the agency but this wouldn't make any difference as they have a hide as thick as an elephants.

I'd take a different tack, contact the the Data Protection Officer at the bank to tell them that the agency forwarded your personal details to them despite your explicit instructions not to do this. Demand that they investigate this breach of the Data Protection Act and ask them how they intend to remedy the situation.

Most likely, the bank will put that agency on their tulip list too.

Agreed, it's pointless to complain to an agent. Some of them just think that if they throw enough balls at enough coconuts, they're bound to win a prize eventually, and shrug off any and all complaints whenever they attempt and fail to chance their arm. I could make an issue of it with the ICO if I had as much time on my hands as this chancer seems to have. But I think that instead I'll just chalk it up to experience and know not to deal with that particular individual again. He's a Regional Director with the agency concerned too, and so really should have known better.

As for the bank, the automated Applicant Tracking System that I was signed up to without my consent doesn't even provide contact details. So much for the direct relationship with the hiring manager that the recruiter claimed to have. In any case, although I do have the contact details of an internal recruiter there from other sources, I know I'd only be wasting my breath if I were to complain to them too. Any company that actually uses software to decide which developers to have working for them, rather than the other way round, isn't likely to be a good place to work, or to care much about the way feeder recruiters behave.

In years gone past when I was young and stupid (I'm only half of that now), I had been known to BCC the hiring manager on the reply I'd sent a recruiter with a propensity for selective hearing. Thereby giving them enough rope to hang themselves with when they invariably go back to the hiring manager with whatever fairy story they'd prefer them to believe. However, there's really no point in even giving these sort of clumsy recruiter approaches head room; it's just a case of identifying an individual recruiter never to deal with again and moving on.

[centurian]

So much for the direct relationship with the hiring manager that the recruiter claimed to have.

They all say that - with current ClientCo, the pimp also said that he had personally knew the hiring manager. However the hiring manager had never ever heard of the agency, let alone the pimp himself. Most big banks have strict rules that hiring managers are not allowed to speak to agents at all.

So what's wrong with IB. I've never had a problem with it, although I guess you get a few of the MF-type characters around

[Ignis Fatuus]

Draw a Venn diagram with one circle for "Your Interests" and another circle for "His Interests", and it will be clear

[Ignis Fatuus]

They all say that - with current ClientCo, the pimp also said that he had personally knew the hiring manager. However the hiring manager had never ever heard of the agency, let alone the pimp himself. Most big banks have strict rules that hiring managers are not allowed to speak to agents at all.

So what's wrong with IB. I've never had a problem with it, although I guess you get a few of the MF-type characters around

It's full of tulips AND it's immoral.

Throw in Pharma and Nestle (dried milk), and quite a bit of the market should make a thinking person ask whether they maybe want to do something else.

[nomadd]

I had a conversation with a recruiter about a role I was actually interested in on Friday. At the same time, he asked me about another role in investment banking that he was recruiting for. As anyone who knows me will tell you, they'll be hosting the Winter Olympics in hell before I'd ever work in banking, let alone investment banking.

Work on the assumption that every agent you speak to these days is both deaf and a cretin - this will aid your perspective enormously.

I finally lost my temper with one on Friday who had been messing me around for 5 weeks with unsuitable roles. You'd have thought London-only, Contract-only and 3 months or longer duration would have been easy to understand - especially when you'd repeated it every day for 5 weeks? He phones on Friday with a contract that he's already forwarded my details to the client about (without permission) and the role is: just Two weeks long and located in Eastern Europe!

I never had much respect for agents, but these days, sheesh.

[Rabotnik]

I had this before. An agent wanted to put me forward for an IB role and I told him I'd already verbally accepted another role, and the IB role was too much of a commute.

Cue him phoning me again at 7:30PM saying he had put me forward and gotten me an interview the next day. I told him I'd already told him I had a role and he tried to play it innocent like "Oh I misunderstood...".

This is obviously a trick he uses all the time - just puts a candidate forward and if they get an interview out of it he tells them assuming they will be so grateful they will just go, and if they don't get an interview, they will never know they were put forward.

[Gentile]

My God this guy's particularly persistent. I've had several phones messages from him since Monday, trying to give me "feedback" on the Role I Didn't Apply For And Had Made Clear I Didn't Want. I try just to ignore people when they're being prats since it's generally a waste of breath to try and make them recognise that the way they're behaving is as unproductive for them as it is for me. However, on the receipt of an e-mail this afternoon that implied I had left him hanging, I eventually let him have both barrels.

What do these people honestly expect you to do when they keep being pushy? Suddenly pretend you are interested in the a role that you've made crystal clear all along you're not?

[darrenb]

Recruiters are basically an army of the unskilled raised to wage war against the skilled. This is done by the incumbent powers in industry to protect their positions. The army also includes HR types, non-technical managers, and many others who at first glance appear to serve no purpose at all.