How Do You Know if a Recruiter is Trustworthy?

Matt Buckland had some great comments about my post Why You Should Make Friends with Recruiters. In his post, Why you should make friends with Recruiters, Matt rebutted a couple of points (which is just fine!). He made a great point at the bottom:

I’d add one major exception to the list, make friends with a recruiter you trust.

So the question is: How do you know if a recruiter is trustworthy? There are two parts to the answer, and I’m assuming we’re talking about external recruiters here, not people who are part of your company.

Part 1: Looking for trustworthiness if you’re a hiring manager:

• Is your recruiter willing to work with you on your hiring strategy and job description? You might not know exactly what you’re looking for at the beginning of a search, and a good recruiter is, at least partially, a consultant.
• Does your recruiter trust you to do your own phone screens? I stopped working with a recruiter who tried to assure me he knew best. BS.
• If the recruiter offers the job to the candidate, does he or she offer exactly what you explained the offer was? I’ve never let a recruiter offer a job to one of my potential hires, but some hiring managers do.

Part 2: Looking for trustworthiness if you’re a candidate:

• Does your recruiter want a blank check to send your resume to his/her client companies? If you’ve been working for more than three or four years, you know a bunch of the local people in your field. (Ok, I hope you do.) You and the recruiter should expect to talk about places to send your resume.
• Does your recruiter blast your resume to “everyone who’s hiring” without considering whether you would be right for the organization or the hiring manager? If so, run away.
• Does your recruiter not want to show you your resume on his/her letterhead? I stopped working with certain recruiters when I was a candidate and a hiring manager, when I realized they just *lied* about me or their candidates.

What other actions help you know if a recruiter is trustworthy?