When Career Advice Goes Bad

Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 by Terry BrameNo comments

Among the much rubbish that can be found concerning recruitment consultants, Anne Jagger Recruitment have recently uncovered this gem from someone calling herself 'Career Girl' and offering job-seeking advice to graduates. We won't even bother linking to her blog in case there is even more misleading rubbish published within and we would hate to diminish anybodies chances of finding a job and a career through WHATEVER means they choose. 

The basis of the blog was that job-seekers shouldn't "fall into the trap" of using a 'recruiter'. By which we assume she means a recruitment consultant, as she then goes on to name a company that, as far as we can see, trades only from their base in USA and operates a mainly online facility for American based candidates.

Her 'advice' continues along the lines that ALL recruiters earn their money simply by sourcing CV's from applicants. They then lie and break promises to push candidates into interviews for which they are wholly unsuitable and care little about the poor job-seeker because by this time they have earned enough money and moved on to the next victim.

WOW!

It hardly seems worth insulting the readers intelligence in rebutting that pile of garbage but, for the benefit of anyone seduced into believing the above...

On what planet does Ms Career Girl imagine any company is paying a recruitment consultant to send them as many inappropriate CV's as possible? What employer is happy to pay money to a recruitment business that submits unsuitable candidates for the roles they are advertising? How many recruiters are still in a job if they lie and mislead their clients and candidates?

The knowledgeable blogger then continues by advising job-seekers to avoid all recruitment companies and go 'direct to the hiring manager'.

WRONG!

If a company is advertising a suitable vacancy for which you think you should apply, and that company is instructing you to apply direct to them, your CV should, indeed, be sent to the person responsible for arranging interviews.

If, however, you are applying through an agency, it is HIGHLY PROBABLE that the company does NOT want to fielding direct applications. That is why they have engaged a professional recruiter to carry out the task for them. The best you can hope for, if you happen to find out the prospective employer, is a polite request to submit your application through the agency as advertised. The worst (and most likely) thing to happen is that your application will be rejected simply because you have not followed the correct application procedure - maybe you can't follow instructions!

It seems to us that our blogger has, in fact, approached one company (the business named in the article) who have let her down because they are not UK based or have failed to explain that they do not speak to the kind of employers to which she needs to access. She goes on to contend that she has spent "hundreds" attending registration interviews and only ever found unprofessional and uncaring recruiters.

We have no facts with which to challenge this contention, so we will simply say the following;

If you have a similar experience when speaking to a UK based recruitment agency, report the matter to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) or ring us here at Anne Jagger Recruitment and we will report them for you. Our guess is that you will find 99% of recruiters in this country open, honest and professional, if you avoiding speakingto ALL recruitment agencies in your particular sector you will miss out on a huge part of the current employment market and this could mean restricting your career opportunities.

If you want to know about consultants' bonuses and commssions, yes, they often exist to motivate consultants in the same way that any sales targets are used as an incentive. However, far from simply collection worthless CV's most agencies will actually help you improve yours and also offer you guidance and preparation if you are lucky enough to secure a job interview through them. In short, your consultant is unlikely to make any significant salary if he or she does not actually help their candidates get the job for which they have applied and will give you all the help and encouragement you need if they think you are a suitable candidate. Remember, candidates pay nothing for any of this, the client pays the bills after a placement has been made and it is for this reason you may find that many recruiters will only submit your application if it fits with the very tight brief that they will have been given. Don't be offended if you aren't put forward for your 'dream job', you may not actually be ready for it yet.

Also, beware the amateur blogger who doesn't know what she's talking about!! 

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