Recruiters. What likes/dislikes complaints do you have about candidates?
There's always plenty of complaint about dealing with recruiters so I'd like to know what likes/dislikes, complaintes etc recruiters have about candidates?
Clarification added 4 months ago:
*complaint
Answers (21)
Gloria W
Actuarial, Financial, Turnaround, P.E., and C-Level Search Consultant at Ultimate Placements gwozniak@4whitetiger.com
How about this one....candidate tells you they have not been previously submitted to your client. Your client promptly informs you of previous submission and then calls your candidate to schedule an interview. A double whammy!
Lack of honesty and integrity. I always find excuses for not turning up to interviews entertaining, however frustrating.
Anne B
President & CEO, LinsleyConsultingGroup, LLC
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (2), Organizational Development (2), Job Search (1), Equity Markets (1), Ethics (1), Computers and Software (1)
Those who try to be too "cute" in their approach. If you have the right background/exp/education, there's no need for it. Makes candidate appear to be trying too hard.
-A
Penny H
Corporate Full Life Cycle Recruiter specializing in Hardware/Software Industry
I work as a corporate recruiter, not an agency recruiter, so my perspective is a little different. I only suggest that anything on the resume is correct-and not an extension of what a candidate may like to do in the future. Candidates that apply directly to fulltime positions but really have their own 1099 -S corp set up and are not looking for a full time opportunity.
Surprises from candidates are bad but any degree of deception is terrible and like in any other relationship destroys trust. Fortunate that these personal occurances with candidates are few & far between but when a candidate does intentionally mislead you and/or lack integrity its disturbing.
The Golden Rule reigns supreme here.
Richard F
Partner at Principal Search
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Good queston Tony and the answers are all very accurate. From my perspective, at a mid to senior executive level, I have been very fortunate to meet and interact with a large number of extremely professional and outstanding candidates. The key traits amongst them that I have found over the years have been honesty, integrity, expertise, and the way in which they have carried themselves has ultimately been a major factor in the success of many assignments. Many of them are confident without being egostictical, are very comfortable with their lot in life and have a strong understanding of which direction they want their career and personal life to head in. From a personality perspective, although some can be a little serious, they are engaging, good fun and very friendly. It is certainly a pleasure to deal with these sorts of people and it is easy to see why they are successful. The flip-side to this are those candidates that feel that they are somehow god's gift to the world, arrogant, rude, offer little insight into where they want to go or where they have been, and the whole process becomes a chore to be honest. It is amazing how rudeness or similiar traits fail to mask weaknesses and candidates tend to leave themselves wide open. However to be fair, I find these people few and far between nowdays. If you think about it, over the course of a senior level assignment, you do get to know someone extremely well and with this interaction, reference checking, and a large number of client led interviews, any bad eggs are bound to get weeded out. cheers
Helen C
Director of International Renewable Recruitment Specialists Charles & Nuttall hcm@charlesandnuttall.co.uk
It is tough for candidates at the moment, they are out of work and being called by so mnay recruiters, no wonder sometimes there head is spinning and they end up tellingus the incorrect information, maybe if we tell them there is no need to go to 20 recruiters one good one is enough, i am sure they have sooo manhy complaints about us...
There are two kind of deception - white lies and outright lies.
1. White lies, I can live with it since it's harmless and not really inteded to deceive anyone and doesn't result in real embarrasment to the firms that represent the candidates and candidates don't have to feel bad.
2. Outright lies - I lost my client due to the blatant outright untruthfulness in the resume and during screening and reference checking - I'd an opportunity for SAS programmer with one of my clients in Boston and sub-contracted with one of those agencies from NJ. The first candidate had put experience in the resume for a Pharma firm in TX (that went out of business 2 years earlier), 2nd one (gave a reference who couldn't tell what the project was and the outcome results were). So pathetica and disgusting that I stopped workign with third party agencies in SAS clinical areas and other pharma IT roles. 3rd candidat has graduated only 2 years ago and had 5 years of experience. I threw my towel and told my client that I' m so disgraced in representing candidates like these and politely opted out from workin on the job completely. The client was pleased that I did all the due diligence upfront, but I was so mad that none of these candidates (AND their employer agencies) can tell the truth.
Be aware of the resumes that you'll see in Monser or DICE where if you are an experienced recruiter, you can take 5 resumes that look the same with experience/projects/etc but different dates. Basically, all the 5 candidates from same agency never worked in any of these places but fill the resumes. They put their friends to support them.
I've been doing for 15 years, I never come across this much dishonesty before.
Todd R
Recruiting Professional - Highly Disciplined, No Surprises, Superior Performance
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (2), Job Search (1), Government Services (1), Change Management (1), Organizational Development (1)
the easy answer is, "they sometimes lie." But that simply goes with the territory. Next is dropping surprises and last is not knowing what they want or how to ask questions to determine if those wants are available at any given opportunity.
Having been an executive recruiter since 1989 – fifteen years owning my own firm/practice – I have found that those candidates (or contacts as I like to think of them) that are most successful are those that are honest, have a great deal of integrity, are confident but also display humility, are very comfortable with themselves and know what they want out of their career, are willing to share their network of contacts and have respect for what professional executive headhunters can do for them – whether it is introducing them to a new position or helping them build their team. I especially love to work with those people that easily make over a million dollars a year and you would not know it by their actions – they are the most down to earth group I have ever worked with and for. They are comfortable in their skin and do not feel a need to show off or tell the world about how good they are. This is the type of people I know and work with. They understand the process; they understand the value real recruiters -or headhunters in my case - can bring to the process and they trust my knowledge of the situation and the people involved. They “get” the game.
I will not work with people (they are not considered contacts or candidates) who are rude, crude and socially unacceptable. I can not tolerate lies – whether it is on their resume, to me in person or to any of my clients. And the condescending treatment that many of these types display toward others – wait staff, subordinates, and people in general – lets me know that they will never be contacts of mine. I can quickly read these people and I let them know they are not the right fit for any of my clients or my practice. I don’t recruit at the lower levels because that is where most of these rude and crude types are – they are the hanging fruit since they can’t get anywhere else. The want-to-be executive with these traits never really makes it very high at a good company. They can fool some people for awhile but not many for very long. As I have never used Monster or Career Builder I don’t ever hear from many of these.
I have placed an ad in a LinkedIn Group site. Worked well for number of people talked with but not well in finding what I needed. I’ll have to stick with using my network – it is far more valuable.
Just my thoughts on the question.
Hi,
I can relate to many of the responses. Smile
My issues with candidates are never personal. Mostly, I relate to everyone. I respect their background and accomplishments. I can weed out the liars and incompetent individuals pretty quickly. My frustration revolves around the candidates’ lack of preparedness with their career accomplishments in their documents. Even from the “A” and “B” players. Too often, they are not effectively articulating their true business expertise and value proposition in a compelling manner. ( see my blog on this topic). The Do's of Working with Search Firms
This is a tuff market for the “active” candidates. At the same time, they lack the understanding of the true role of a recruiter and how to network/sell their value proposition and interview with us. I realize the new world order has created challenges for candidates seeking new opportunities. It requires taking initiative and serious dedication to get prepared with exceptional career documents and planning a career strategy. Personally, I am not seeing enough self evaluation and preparation in career management planning from the “active” candidates, even from the extremely accomplished individuals.
The search firm’s mission is to help our client organizations reach their talent management objectives: finding and placing the right people with the right set of business and interpersonal skills into the appropriate positions. Our compensation is based on finding the TOP talent: those who understand their and who can articulate their value proposition. Many “active” candidates don’t consider that they should interview with the search firm as if they are interviewing with a CEO and/or leadership of a potential organization. Rather, they approach us with, “here is my resume for YOUR review, what positions do you have that may be a fit for my background.”. I see candidates depending on the recruiter to “coach” them on how they may position themselves for any of the search assignments we are working on. This aspect is frustrating to my peers and me.
Resume review, building one’s value proposition/ branding and gaining confidences about one’s accomplishments is the role of a Career Consultant/Coach. Not a recruiter. The candidate needs to demonstrate value up front. If the recruiter has to pull out of a candidate why he/she is valuable, they have missed the opportunity to demonstrate their power to the recruiter. It deminishes the recruiter’s confidences in the candidate’s writing skills and business competencies and their business value gets called into question. As a result, the recruiter will be reluctant to market the candidate into his/her network.
I continue to recommend to the “active” candidates, to charge of your career search, prepare their career documents, have them polished and ready to go prior to reaching out the a search firm. This will enable the recruiter to focus on the real work of understanding the candidates real skill set and talent.
Links:
Like many, my biggest "complaint" is dishonesty and a lack of integrity. Of course, resumes are a reflection of your experience and you should mold them for different job postings, but they should communicate the same basic information--title, company, dates, and basic functions. We keep candidate resumes on file for years and will rule candidates out if there's inconsistency from one resume to another in terms of companies or dates. Of course, we understand when a candidate will condense a series of temporary assignments to "Recruitment Firm, various assignments 2004 to present."
My second issue is with honesty throughout the process. We understand that changing jobs is a stressful process. Recruiters get stressed as candidates move through the process, too. When candidates don't let us know about other interviews, doubts, etc. through the process, we can't anticipate what they'll do. If we know a candidate might be facing multiple offers, we can let our clients know this so they can really go to bat if the candidate is their first choice. Overall, it's in candidates' best interest to be honest with their thoughts throughout the process so that we can best serve their interests, as well as prevent ulcers :)
Rob N
Corporate Recruiter at Gayhart & Associates (Open Networker/TopLinked Member)
I think that when contacting a candidate who is currently employed, they think that by making a move to a new position the salary will increase so much that it will be like winning the lottery. I talk to people with unrealistic salary increase requirements every day.
Before working on specialist assigments with specific clients I worked as a delivery consultant for many years within IT recruitment. Many of the other responses to this question are all reminders of how hard the job could be made by a minority of candidates, especially the pure, unadulterated rudeness that some felt we got paid to listen to. However, it never ceased to amaze me at how many candidates thought they knew more about recruitment than the actual recruiter.
Since this is posted on LinkedIn, one issue that I have is related to how job seekers respond. I get many messages from potential candidates that simply state, "Please see my LinkedIn Profile and let me know if you are interested". The messages are sent via LinkedIn, thus there is no return email address. It now requires logging into LinkedIn to see a profile and reply to the message. If this is the effort they demonstrate then they are NOT a fit for any of my clients.
Interesting comments and mostly accurate. I have been a third party recruiter since 1985 and there is a real difference in a "candidate" and an "exceptional candidate". Our role is to deal with the exceptional candidate. They have integrity and real purpose and passion for what they do and what they want to do. You can hear their sincerity. I can easily tell the BS'ers and move on. I have only been burned 1 time in 24 years. Average candidates do average things and we are naive to believe in them. Remember search is a process and not an event.
Stephen L
Sr. Technical Recruiter, Blogger, Philanthropist ----- http://blog.emurse.com
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (8), Computers and Software (2), Job Search (1), Government Services (1)
A good recruiter has the ability to overcome nearly every problem listed on these responses, attitude and rudeness withheld.
An answer I see repeated on here a lot is HONESTY. A good recruiter knows what he is working on, the skills involved in that role, and what is/isn't involved in that role not listed on the requirements. I am a technical recruiter and I, along with fellow employees, know that to represent the candidate best you need to understand their technology and how they have used it. Most lies in resumes, experience, interviews can be overcome by understanding what you are recruiting on. We arent masters of one trade but of many. If a manager can spot the lies then we should be able to as well.
Overall though I would mention my number one complaint is when I ask a candidate to work on their resume and use the requirements of the job to highlight their experience. If the job has ten requirements they have done but they only list three of them I ask them to make their resume complete and best formatted for the position. When I get puch back on this it bothers me because it is only going to help them.
Links:
Anil D
Software Engineer - Site Reliability at Google
Best Answers in: Computer Networking (1), Software Development (1)
Penny, I do have my own 1099 S-corp set up and I do temp contract work. That doesn't mean I am not honestly looking for full time work. I am. But, since temp work is what I am getting right now, that is what I do. I always tell recruiters if I am in the middle of some work that I will have to finish it before I can join. I don't hide it.
Trish C
Expert Manager/Business Development at Brookwoods Group
Best Answers in: Job Search (1), Staffing and Recruiting (1)
Great question Tony and great answers everyone.
To all the points made above I completely agree and value those answers. I’d like to add that when a professional comes in to meet with our team and cannot articulate how their skills, talents, knowledge and experience will lend to the success of the position for which we are recruiting (or contract staffing) my nails curl. A professional, regardless of entry level or senior vice president level, must be able to connect experiences with requirements even if that candidate has never worked a day in his/her life and it has to be framed in a way that tells what YOU did for an initiative – do NOT speak in team or multiple person language – you have to relate YOUR part and how what YOU did contributed to the desired outcome. Relate challenges experienced in college or with various volunteer organizations if you lack real work experience. If you cannot articulate how the company will benefit from having you on board you will not get an offer. If you are prepared with information upon going into the interview you won’t be blindsided by questions asked by the interviewee. Preparedness or lack thereof creates the end result – what do you want to happen and what will you do to prepare for THAT outcome as a candidate? When I ask a candidate if they have any questions after we discuss the job and they say no, I cringe. At the very least, there should be a question pertaining to how the hiring manager will define success in the role after the first 90 days, six months, and twelve months. Even if the interviewer has already answered all your questions, it won’t be a compliment to that person if you have NO questions due to that fact. You as the candidate need to have questions ready to ask regardless of how informed you now feel and please do not leave the interview without asking for the role at the end with a closing question. If you don’t, another candidate will. Good luck!
Mark N
▀▄ Director of Sales Recruitment Companies ▄▀ Helping good recruiters realise their potential ► mark@finlayj
Candidates differ in their approach to Consultants and the good experiences make it all worthwhile. However, I don't like it when candidates don't do as they say they will - simple. Executive level candidates should be professional at all times, unfortunately this isn't always the case.
That said, there are far more professional candidates out there than otherwise...
I believe in communicating clearly what’s expected, getting people’s commitment to those things, and then following up continuously to check progress
