A Plea From a Seasoned Recruiter

I am getting rather fed up with the negative and disrespectful comments regarding recruitment consultants that are constantly being disseminated on LinkedIn. Why do people think that it’s acceptable to denigrate an entire industry sector because of a less than perfect personal experience?

Most of the time and for most people, the recruitment process results in a positive outcome. It may take a while to secure an appropriate role for a candidate but it usually works out well and I would like to thank all the candidates who have supported both myself and the business over the years and assisted us to grow a professional recruitment agency.

​I have to wonder if people, when they are typing their negative comments about agencies on LinkedIn, ever consider how we as recruiters actually feel when candidates apply for roles, saying all the right things and then disappear without trace, will not answer our calls, emails or text messages and frankly make us look rather foolish and incompetent at our jobs! This is not good for business, our industry sector or our own self esteem.

So next time you read a post saying how bad recruiters are at their jobs, please think about the fact that we take our candidates on face value and give an honest, empathetic and professional service to both our clients and candidate alike.

We are being let down regularly at short notice ­- or even worse, no notice at all – and left to pick up the pieces. However, that’s not where the problems start. I receive a high volume of CVs in application for positions, for which, the candidate is clearly not suitable and this usually come about because the applicant hasn’t read the ad properly. We spend considerable time ensuring that the clients’ requirements are fully catered for within the ads to attract appropriate applications. For example, why would someone apply for a role that states that certain criteria are essential if they don’t meet that criteria?

It is a hard-enough task to run professional desk and business in this highly competitive marketplace and I sometimes ask myself; do these candidates give recruiters any consideration? When a candidate unexpectedly drops out, we have to explain to clients why the candidate has not arrived for interview or is not starting their job as expected.

The client may have purchased new office equipment, made plans for induction or training etc. and clients often interview outside of working hours to accommodate the candidates’ availability. I had a client wait until 8pm for a candidate who said they were stuck in traffic for over an hour and never arrived, yet kept texting the agency to say they were on their way. There are so many examples I could give but this would be a very long post.

So please, before you join in the “witch hunt” on the recruitment industry in general, please take a breath and consider if, in all honesty, that it is always the recruiter at fault by not answering calls, emails etc., poor levels of service and so many other issues that are posted publicly. Instead, it may be expedient to consider that most recruiters try their best at all times, work long hours and want to provide a high level of service to all.

Hopefully, if an application hasn’t gone your way, after some honest consideration, you might think instead, that maybe not every recruiter is a bad recruiter.

Debbie Curtis has worked within recruitment for over thirty years and now specialises in finance. In July 2015 she set up Curtis Recruitment and focuses on recruitment within accountancy practices.