Do You Trust Your Recruiter?
You should.
If you choose the right recruiter, they hold your future in their hands. It is a symbiotic relationship. You entrust them with helping you to find a new job, and they rely on you to be honest about your situation so that they have the best chance of placing you and earning their keep.
They are your agents in the job market and how they market your candidature to their clients will hugely affect your chances of getting an interview. Their guidance through what can be a highly complex process is often invaluable.
It makes sense to trust a recruiter; it is in your common interest.
So why don’t you?
Some recruiters do things without telling you. They send your CV to their entire client database.
Some recruiters are all about the metrics. They ask for your CV to tick a box. They interview you to tick a box.
Some recruiters never call back. They tempt you with promises and kill you with silence.
Some recruiters embellish the truth. “Yes, I’m sure we can place you, you don’t need to talk to anyone else.”
That’s the thing about the world we live in, you only hear about the bad guys. The good stories aren’t so interesting. Recruitment is full of success and failure; that is the nature of an industry in which only a small percentage of applicants will have immediate success. Candidates who are having a hard time will always try to work out why and usually there will be a few horrific recruiter stories thrown in for good measure.
We are not all like that.
“Yeah, yeah” I hear you say, “You would say that.”
I would like to explain that we need you to trust us. We want to be open and honest about situations. We want to tell you that your reputation is in safe hands and we won’t do anything to harm our reputation either. It is a small world and candidates often become clients.
Trust requires a leap of faith. Yes, you might get a recommendation from a friend, but usually, you are having an initial conversation over the phone with someone you have never met. Feel free to ask them a few questions, ask them how they work, and ask them about their processes. If they talk openly without being defensive or evasive, then you can be 80% sure that they are one of the good guys.
Trust requires making an effort. If they are reluctant to spend time advising you and only seem interested in the mechanics rather than the meat of a job search, then you can be assured that they will be unlikely to fully divulge issues when they arise. They will go for the low-hanging fruit and then leave you high and dry when the going gets tough.
This has been a hard blog to write. I have had so many executives come into an interview room with me, look me up and down, and I could see them thinking “What sort of person is this? Can I trust him?”
Yes, I hope that you can.
Written by David Ford
