Why the “hate” toward recruiters?
Recruiters: everyone loves to get a phone call from one, but once that phone call is over, a LOT of people will go on to say how much they “hate” recruiters. I’ve always been aware of this odd biting-the-hand-that-feeds-you phenomenon, but earlier this month, Ian Lenehan wrote a post called “Why does everyone hate recruiters?” that really got me thinking. Lenehan, an Australian recruitment consultant, told an anecdote of being embarrassed to admit his own job in a social setting. He went on to blog:
Recruitment is a valuable profession — everybody needs recruiters whether they like it or not. But unfortunately many people claim to hate recruitment consultants. Like car salesmen and real estate agents (hey, we need those guys too). Even recruiters engage in rec con baiting. Agency recruiters hate in house recruiters, and everybody hates rec to recs. So why is this?
Good question. It got me wondering: does everyone hate recruiters? I plugged the relevant words into Google, and the results were pretty disheartening. Evil HR Lady did a 3-part posting series on why she hates ‘em (she was partially kidding). Less playfully, an anonymous someone has created a Facebook page under the name “I Hate Recruitment Consultants,” which is mostly filled with unflattering jokes. Someone else went to the trouble of setting up a blog called I Hate Recruiters on Blogspot. It reads, in part:
- Don’t you hate recruiters who try to push you into jobs that are not right for you just so they can make a few bucks?
- Don’t you hate recruiters who say they’ll call you back and don’t?
- Don’t you hate recruiters who claim to be experts but don’t understand what you do?
Clearly, some people have had bad experiences. But people have bad professional experiences all the time, and don’t go out of their way to create blogs denigrating entire professions. Where does this hate come from?
Lenehan, in his blog post, opines that a job change is an ultra-sensitive time in one’s life — a huge change — and any bad moments are thrown into especially high contrast. Fair enough.
My own suspicions revolve around the middleman nature of the job. The recruiter stands between people, by necessity. This is actually a service, but when jobseekers and hiring managers are frustrated, they focus on the limiting factor of having a middleman, when they should be counting their blessings that the recruiter saves them from having to meet and screen everyone. People who need jobs (or need to fill jobs) can be very stressed out, and anything that they perceive to be slowing them down can be a target. Recruiters control access to people, and access to jobs, and this seems to tap into people’s control issues in a very tangible way.
Add in a payment structure that is performance-based, and people start to bash the very recruiters that hook them up with jobs.
I checked in with a few popular HR bloggers to get some more thoughts on this trend of bashing the recruitment profession. There’s a real difference between people just hating recruiters (like the person who made the Facebook page) and actual recruiters tackling the profession’s image. The well-known Jim Stroud at The Recruiters’ Lounge has an oldie-but-a-goodie up called “6 reasons to hate recruiters, 3 ways to get revenge and 1 way to keep everyone happy.” I’ll let you click through to read all 10 tips, but two of my favorite points here are:
- Managers hate recruiters because they are after their best people (and it took forever to get the team just right.)
- Ego-geeks hate having to use a recruiter to find work because (they feel) that it is an admission of weakness. (After all, shouldn’t all companies be beating down their door to hire them?)
Finally, I came across a very good post that is brutally honest about why some people have problems with the profession. In 10 Things to Hate About Recruiters, Jeremy Sisemore, president of a recruiting firm, compiled this list of things people sincerely complain about in the recruiting profession:
10. “Recruiters don’t seem to truly understand the role they are recruiting for or that much detail about the client’s needs.”
9. “I am not sure if the post-interview feedback is honest or I don’t get feedback at all.”
8. “Recruiters don’t want to help or talk with me if I am not a perfect fit for their open search assignments.”
7. “Most headhunters don’t return my calls or acknowledge that I applied for a job.”
6. “As a hiring manager, I hate when recruiters sling resumes at me and don’t take the time to understand my needs.”
5. “Dishonesty about a position, company, or the requirements for a role”
4. “Some form of discrimination or even reverse discrimination”
3. “Recruiters seem unethical and will do anything to make a placement; their tactics to recruit or develop accounts are dishonest.”
2. “I feel like job postings are not real jobs some time, the Bait and Switch.”
1. “Recruiters are only working for the company and aren’t looking out for my best interest through the Offer Stage.”
Now, I feel like we’re getting somewhere. Recruiters, what do you think about these prejudices and misconceptions? What would you like to share about what you do?
I can relate to some of the points put forth as a candidate. My pet peeve is recruiters’ inability to filter candidates based on an assessment of their ability and instead trying to look for a 100% fit to put in the least amount of work. Would be interesting what the recruiters have to say about this article.
Everyone hates recruiters, and recruiters hate job board owners.
And yet they would so much like to own a job board.
I am guessing the hate raises when you pay for the service (in money or in your time) and get nothing in return?
I have never heard about hate towards recruiters, but I can understand it.
I am Swedish and live and work in Sweden.
But between April 2000 and April 2009 I lived and worked in Belgium.
In Belgium I lived in a town near the French border, called Mons, with a population of about 100.000.
Since I had worked as a salesman on commission in Sweden (I sold ads and newspaper subscriptions), I looked forward to a similar job in Belgium.
The languages are not a problem, since my mother was Belgian.
In Belgium I contacted several recruiting companies like Randstad and Manpower.
One day I was contacted and I was told they needed a telesales agent for a company.
When I got to the company they actually needed someone to unload their trucks.
I told them I had a Swedish law degree and had worked with sales all my life, I’m almost 50 years old, and that this was not the job I expected.
I thought the difference between what I had been told and what I was supposed to do was incredible.
Last new year I was on another occasion recruited by Manpower in Antwerp, Belgium’s fashion capital, to work as a salesman for Sony Style in Brussels, selling laptops and different electronic devices to the Scandinavian and French speaking markets.
But after an introduction at the company, I was told they didn’t need sales personnel, and that I was hired to receive customer complaints.
I worked with customer complaints for about a month, but I didn’t like it, and decided to move back to Sweden, where I presently successfully work as a consultant selling insurances on commission.
First you have to know where the jobs are before you mount a strategy to go after them. Most executive job seekers look to executive recruiters and job boards for open positions. The problem with this is recruiters get 15% of all executive searches and fill half of them, and only 1% of anybody ever gets a job from a job board.
The “Top 10 Things To Hate About Recruiters” is definitely worth remembering - as it helps recruiters pinpoint some best practice procedures. However often the limits of time, lack of available information/competition for placements (in cases of agency recruitment) may result in some of these annoyances which aren’t always in a recruiter’s sphere of control.
Just as recruiters need to step into the shoes of candidates to empathize with the emotions and frustrations wrapped up in the recruitment process - so too should the candidate step into the shoes of the recruiter and empathize with the constantly changing nature of information/role/hiring manager needs which means the amount of control and influence a recruiter has on the information provided to a candidate is often fluctuating.
Treat a candidate how I would like to be treated is always something I try to keep front of mind. I do however have competing demands of managing the needs of the client and only so much time to talk to the huge amount of talent in the market place - to invest time in every single person who puts their hand up for jobs they are not necessarily suitable for is both unrealistic and impossible - however of course wherever possible I will try to steer people in the right direction for their skill set.
Empathy and reasonable expectations on both sides will ensure an improved process across the board.
At IvyExec, a web-based recruiting company, we understand the frustrations that employers and job seekers have with recruiters and the traditional recruitment process. For this reason, we have revolutionized the process of matching employers and job seekers.
Employers who post on IvyExec.com include Fortune 500 companies, such as bulge bracket investment banks and top consulting firms. All of our jobs are pre-screened to ensure that the quality is appropriate for the caliber of professional we are targeting.
At IvyExec.com, we take the benefits of discussing specific desires and concerns with a recruiter and pair it with the benefits of a job board which you may review at your convenience.
Instead of fighting the ethics and the lies of the “so called minority” of headhunters I have written a Free Report called The Death of The Head Hunter.
A report that outlines all those things we love to hate about the Headhunters and how technology is slowly eating away at their fat commissions.
Declaration of my interest. My partner and I have developed a validated and normed psycometric test for pre employment screning called The Integrity and Values Profile. My clients love it and the recruiters hate it because it really does sort out the wheat from the chaff.
The Death of The Headhunter Free Report will be published online early march.
In my experience as a job-seeker along the years, I noticed a big difference between having an interview with a ‘professional’ recruiter and someone who is an operative (I mean : your future direct boss) :
- operatives want to know if you can do the job
- recruiters want to know if you already did it
For the record, I work in engineering. Recruiters understand nothing about it.
So they are unable to judge if a candidate has the skills, knowledges and qualities for the job. So instead, they require you have ‘5 years experience’, assuming that if you did it during 5 years somewhere else, you should be able to do it for their client. True .. most of the time.
But somebody who has a good brain does not need 5 years experience in most jobs. Actually, if he stays at the same position for so long, you may wonder why.
I’m an IT professional and I used a recruiter to get me my current position. I’ll agree that there are SOME recruiters who take the time to work with and find the ideal position, however these are a VERY rare bread.
My current company is in trouble, and thus I’m going to need a new position soon, but the thought of working with recruiters again sets my teeth on edge. Instead I’m looking at applying directly to companies (quite a few now say “No Agencies!”), and working with my network on Linked in. Recruiters are my LAST resort.
Don’t hate all of the recruiters… Some have been in your shoes (as an engineer) before, but then chose a career in recruiting. Look for these, not the ones who stumbled into a large staffing agency, who will most certainly stumble right back out in a few months / years.
As for your comment on someone staying in a job for a whole 5 years, I’d beg to differ. People changing companies every few years are bad investments, period. And, no GOOD recruiter will work with a “job hopper”. Perhaps this is actually the root of your problems….
Why I hate recruiters:
1) they never, ever, ever return calls or emails
2) they don’t read your resume and send you some form to fill out
3) they aren’t honest with you. Hey, tell me if you don’t want to submit me because I’m one of th 15 million unemployed in 2010!
Fortunately, I believe most companies are doing their own inside recruiting these days. Perhaps the self employed recruiting days are over. Good Riddens!