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?
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You could have shortened this article considerably by simply asking yourself “is this person a recruiter?” The answer to that question will invariably be the opposite to the answer of the question “are they trustworthy?”
For future reference, simply use this handy list of recruiters I have found to be ethical, knowledgeable, professional and effective:
“____________”
AB, I have a number of recruiter colleagues who are quite trustworthy. When I was at SHRM a couple of weeks ago (I’m writing this in 2013), I met at least several dozen trustworthy recruiters.
Please don’t paint all recruiters with the same brush.
I have a list of Boston-area recruiters I maintain for my Boston colleagues.