Last week Simon retweeted a link to Don’t Feed the Beast – the Great Tech Recruiter Infestation. Which reminded me I’d been meaning to comment on my own experiences from earlier in the year.

I don’t entertain the same level of bile as displayed in the post, but I do have a significant level of disappointment in the recruitment industry. I had conversations with 3 different agencies, all of whom were geographically relevant. One contacted me, the other 2 (one I’d dealt with before, one that was recommended to me) I contacted myself. All managed to fail to communicate with any level of acceptability.

The agency hat contacted me eventually went quiet, after having asked if they could put my CV forward for a role and pushing very hard about when I could interview. The contact in the agency I’d dealt with before replied to say I was being passed to someone else who would get in contact. Who of course didn’t. And the final agency, who had been recommended, passed me between 3 different people, said they were confident they could find me something, and then went dark except for signing me up to their generic jobs list which failed to have anything of relevance on it.

As it happens my availability and skill set were not conducive to results at that point in time, so my beef isn’t with the inability to find a role. Instead it’s with the poor levels of communication presented by an industry which seems, to me, to have communication as part of the core value it should be offering. If anyone had said at the start “Look, it’s going to be tricky, we’ll see what we can do” or “Look, that’s not what we really deal in, we can’t help”, that would have been fine. I’m fine with explanations. I get really miffed when I’m just left hanging.

I’d love to be able to say I’ll never deal with a recruiter again, but the fact of the matter is they do serve a purpose. There’s only so far a company can get with word of mouth recruitment; eventually that network of personal connections from existing employees who are considering moving dries up. Advertising might get you some more people, but it can also result in people who are hugely inappropriate for the role. From the company point of view recruiters nominally fulfil 2 roles. Firstly they connect the prospective employer with a potentially wider base of candidates. Secondly they should be able to do some sort of, at least basic, filtering of whether a candidate is appropriate for a role. From the candidate point of view the recruiter hopefully has a better knowledge of what roles are out there.

However the incentives to please each side are hugely unbalanced. The candidate isn’t paying the recruiter. “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” may be bandied around too often, but I believe this is one of the instances where it’s very applicable. A recruiter is paid by their ability to deliver viable candidates to prospective employers. The delivery of these candidates is the service. Whether or not the candidate is happy with the job is irrelevant beyond them staying long enough that the placement fee can be claimed. The lengthy commercial relationship is ideally between the company and the recruitment agency, not the candidate and the agency. A recruiter wants to be able to say “Look at the fine candidate I provided last time, you should always come to me first in future”. There’s a certain element of wanting the candidate to come back if/when they are looking for a new role, but it’s not a primary concern.

It is notable that the recommendations I’d received were from people who had been on the hiring side of things. The recruiter has a vested interest in keeping the employer happy, in the hope of a sustained relationship. There is little motivation for keeping the candidate happy, as long as you don’t manage to scare them off. And, in fact, if you scare some off, who cares? A recruiter doesn’t get paid for providing the best possible candidate. Or indeed a candidate who will fully engage with the role. All they’re required to provide is a hire-able candidate who takes the role.

I’m not sure what the resolution is to this. Word of mouth only scales so far for both employer and candidate. Many of the big job websites seem to be full of recruiters rather than real employers. And I’m sure there are some decent recruiters out there doing a good job, keeping both sides happy and earning their significant cut. I’m sad to say I can’t foresee any big change any time soon.

[Note I’m not currently looking for employment.]

[No recruitment agencies were harmed in the writing of this post. I have deliberately tried to avoid outing anyone in particular.]