Confessions of a Recruiter

 Have you ever heard of a recruiter tell-all? Neither have I (at least in book form), but I recently came across an interesting article where an ex recruiter “spills the beans” on the industry. And I don’t mean he simply “reveals” all the other a-day-in-the-life-of-a-recruiter type of insights; he’s reallycandid about the ins-and-outs of the recruitment industry and recruiting professionals.

At first glance, his disclosure of “secrets” is a bit surprising and definitely makes one wonder, Is this really how recruiters are?

So, I wanted to highlight a few of the ex-recruiter’s main “confessions” about how recruiters operate and also explain what each would mean to a job seeker. After all, the reason he revealed his “truths” was to give job seekers (and anyone who works with a recruiter) insights into how you folks operate.

Confession #1: It’s all about money

You are just dollar signs. Often you know they’re not the best person for the job and they’ll get into the role and quit in two weeks. But all you care about is invoicing the client before they do.

It’s a lot of money for what is sometimes just resume flicking … you’re thinking ‘oh my god I just billed $15,000 from this candidate I’ve never met who happened to email me’.

Job seeker translation: Recruiters only care about making money, not helping find me a job. This recruiter’s confession tells job seekers that, at the end of the day, recruiters’ end goals are to make a buck, and they’re not truly concerned about helping people find their dream jobs or a suitable position. A recruiter will forgo taking the time to know a job seeker and properly place him/her if it means less time to make a “faulty” placement, win over a client and reap the (generous) reward. And the more placements they can make, the more money they get; so, it’s more about who can I place the fastest than who can I find that’s actually a great fit for this role.

Confession #2: It’s a cut-throat competition

Often when it’s quiet and you don’t have much going, you’ll put a fake job online to get candidates in,” the former recruiter said.

You’d get resumes, call up candidates and say ‘you’ve got good experience,’ when what you’re trying to do is work out where they’re going for interviews so you can ring up that company and say ‘oh I heard you’re looking for staff’ then you pitch other candidates in.

The fake position is never filled and the people that applied are none the wiser.

Job seeker translation: Recruiters are snakes. They post fake job ads only to lure in hopeful job seekers. They totally disregard a job seeker’s time and effort of applying, because not only do they not respond back, recruiters send their own candidates for open positions they “scammed” their way into discovering.

Confession #3: Taking advantage is a part of the game

Another thing we did is really screw down the temps, particularly if they’re new. You have a lot of people that come from overseas, so they wouldn’t know much about the market so you would try and hook them in on a six-month contract where they were being grossly underpaid.

A lot of the time people are desperate … you can just say whatever you want and the candidate will often take it and you think ‘wow I’m going to make commission this month.

Job seeker translation: Recruiters are dishonest and untrustworthy. Recruiters so easily take advantage of ignorant and unsuspecting workers to make a profit. They ensure that they’re paid “fairly” at the expense of others not receiving fair and deserved compensation.

All three of his confessions tell job seekers the same thing: Recruiters are terrible, untrustworthy, money hungry people and you should avoid working with them. But is this really true?

Now that you’ve read his “truths” and understand how this translates to job seekers, what’s your opinion, recruiters? Did one of your former own get it right? Or are the confessions of this recruiter specific to him and him alone?