Different Recruitment Agencies
Different recruitment agencies have sent out copies of this contractor’s CV to the same client. What should I do?
An agency called me up to ask if they could send my CV to a major bank in the city. I agreed and thought nothing more of it.
They wouldn’t tell me which bank. Other agencies called me up and asked me if they could send my CV out. Hoever, they were even less specific.
Of course I agreed – I haven’t worked for 4 months.
About a week later the first agency called. They said that they had spoken to the client, who had said that they had received several copies of my CV from Different Agencies.
They wanted to know if they could tell the client, on my behalf, that the CV that they had forwarded was the one that I wanted considered.
Not Told by Different Recruitment Agencies
It turned out that the agency that the client was saying was the first to arrive, hadn’t even told me that they were sending the CV.
I told the agency that they could go ahead and say that they were my agency. They were the ones who had told me that it was a major bank in the city. The other one hadn’t even told me that they had sent my CV.
Was I wrong to do this?
IT Contractor Comment
Yes, you certainly were!
First of all, legally, now, agencies must tell you who they are sending out your CV to.
In saying that, it’s not your problem to sort out inter-agency battles. You have to look out for your own good when different recruitment agencies send out your CV.
Let me tell you what has happened here!
When I was an employer and someone had their CV sent multiple times from different agencies, I had a scheme for sorting it all out. It was quite simple. The first one that I received was the one. It was first come, first served.
What has happened is that the client has informed your agency that your CV had arrived through another agency first.
The client will have told the agency which has got onto you that this is the one that they are considering. They have probably told the agency that sent the CV first this too.
Last Hope from Different Recruitment Agencies
The agency who has contacted you is feeling tremendously frustrated by this.
It’s almost certain that they are going to interview you. Otherwise the client would have told the agency that it didn’t matter anyway as you are not going to be considered.
Therefore the agency sees a great deal of cash slipping through their hands – so near and yet so far.
However, they have one last shot. They can phone you up and get you to say that they were the only agency that represented you – that you had given no permission to other different agencies to send the CV through.
Of course, when they speak to the client they will go further and say that you are not veryhappy that the other agencies sent your CV out without permission, and that you don’t want them to represent you.
What Happens Next
Do you know what’s going to happen next? It could be one of two things:-
1) The client accepts the new agency as your representative
2) They say that they don’t want to involve themselves in an inter-agency dispute between different agencies. So, they won’t now be interviewing you. They might be a bit miffed also that you have overridden their own selection process
There might have been a third option. That was to say to your agent that they were sticking with the original agent as they had sent the CV out first.
However, you told them, through your agent that you don’t want this other agency to represent you. So this is not an option.
Troubles Aren’t Over for Agencies
Even if the client goes for option number 1, i.e. that he accepts the new agency as your representative, your troubles aren’t over.
The client will inform the first agent that they will no longer be taking you for interview through them as you have said that they don’t represent you.
Guess what they’re going to do next, now that a juicy bone has slipped from their grasp?
You’ve got it!
They’re going to call you up and try to get you to change your mind – or at least remonstrate with you.
I don’t think there’s any need to go any further with this. You can see the hassle that it has all caused. It may even have cause you a very good shot at a job.
What You Should Have Done
So what should you have done when different agencies put forward your CV?
You should simply have said to the agency calling you up that it was up to the client to choose which agency they wanted to choose, according to the criteria that they currently had.
If the agency has contacted you, you can be certain that they have already been rejected as your agency.
They will tell you that no decision has been made yet – but that is unlikely to be true.
Information About Job
Tell the agency that you understand their situation, where they gave you the most information about the job, and that the other agency hadn’t even told you that they’d sent the CV. However, you’ve been out of work for four months and that you didn’t want to jeopardise your chance of getting a job – that it was up to the client to choose.
This kills it dead – and you will almost certainly be hearing shortly from some other agency to say that you have an interview.
Don’t get involved in inter-agency disputes when different agencies are fighting over a contract.
Leave it to the client to sort it out.
It’ll have happened to them before, and they’ll have their own method of sorting it out.
You don’t mention whether the role was contract or permanent. Either way all the agencies had a duty under the agency regulations to inform you of the name of the client, location, pay/rate, duration etc and get your permission to represent you for the role in writing.
These are the regualtions which sadly, even the clients don’t abide by when they use the first come first served rule as what they should do is ask the agencies for proof of sole rep which should name them in it. This stops the cowboy agencies dead in their track but only if the client plays by the rules. In the good old days it was common for the client to state that any dual submission would be rejected out of hand thus forcing agents to abide by the regs and for that matter the candidate as well. Who wants their CV bandied around the market to god knows who and where.
It does not go on as much as it used to now its been replaced by the fake job ads/cv building database scam!
I’ve had this experience very recently! Two agencies called within the space of 30 mins to advise of a post with a local university doing the same role (however the salary was £500 different).
I also had an experience where my CV was put in front of the same employer from two different agencies… On this basis, it’s first come first served and the trailing agency has to accept this but it would help a great deal if agencies were transparent about whom they’re putting you forward for in the first place.