A Recruiter Said What He Hates about Candidates and the Candidates Punched Back Twice as Hard

There is often a tenuous relationship between recruiters and job seekers, which is funny because they need each other to be successful. But, they drive each other nuts and that came out to be blatantly obvious when a recruiter posted his pet-peeves about candidates and the candidates responded.

Ciaran Hardie wrote on LinkedIn that these are some of the things that bother him about job seekers:

  1. They apply to jobs which they are clearly not suitable for.
  2. They don’t respond to personalised outreach messages.
  3. They lie about their preferences (e.g. contract or perm) in order to rally up as many options as possible.
  4. After an offer has been made at the salary they’ve asked for since the beginning, they ask for more.
  5. They keep applying for jobs despite being in the final interview stage with a client.

To read the rest of the things that annoy him and people’s responses, click here: A Recruiter Said What He Hates about Candidates and the Candidates Punched Back Twice as Hard

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20 thoughts on “A Recruiter Said What He Hates about Candidates and the Candidates Punched Back Twice as Hard

  1. Hello,
    When I visit the INC. article, I can’t seem to locate the candidate response. This is very interesting to me. Am I missing something? Thank you!

  2. Half (if that) an article stopping, as it does, at point 9 of the recruiter’s list.

    Wonderful.

    You may have to have words with someone at Inc.

    (For those who want to see the reply, look at the Linked In link – 2nd in the article on this page.)

  3. Suzanne, I think they only posted the first part of your article. The candidate responses and your thoughts appear to be missing…

  4. They keep applying for jobs despite being in the final interview stage with a client.

    Because – a final interview does not guarantee an offer. Sheesh.

    1. Ooops. You addressed that in the article.

      I stopped when I read it because I couldn’t believe someone would think poorly of someone who keeps looking for a way to keep a roof over her head. The nerve.

    2. My husband is going through this at the moment. He has had 3 interviews for a high level IT Project Managers position over the past 2 weeks and he still doesn’t know if he starts work Monday. He has had lengthy face-toface and phone interviews with the employer representatives in multiple states, and they have picked his brains about project methodology but until his signature is on that contract he will continue exploring other offers.

  5. Sorry! I don’t know what in the heck happened. My editor fixed it for me, because of course it disappeared right as I was getting on the London Underground with no cell service

  6. Are you all old enough to remember what Pogo said?

    We have met the enemy … and they are us.

  7. Early in my career, I wanted a change, and found an job through a headhunter in a nearby city (less than 45 minute drive from my then-current job and domicile). The hiring manager liked me for the job, I liked the opportunity.

    The hiring manager called me up to offer the job. However, the salary was less than I was already making.

    Excuse me? I said.

    Well, he explained, the fee for the headhunter is pretty steep. It’s a percentage of your salary for the first year. We’d like to start you low, and in a year we promise to raise your salary enough to make it worthwhile.

    It felt wrong on so many levels: bad for me, bad for the headhunter, and probably unethical.

    I just declined, saying I couldn’t reduce my income while dramatically increase my commuting costs.

    The next day, the headhunter called me up. You turned down the offer! he exclaimed.

    Yes, it was lower than my current salary, I started to say, and…

    It’s a great job! A great company! You’re not thinking of the future! And of my reputation with the company… the headhunter just exploded.

    I don’t recall how the call ended, but it was a ugly rant. I wouldn’t consider working with a headhunter for years afterward.

    Later I realized the recruiter only wanted a ‘slice of the pie’, he didn’t care about whether the job worked for me. More was better, but anything was better than nothing.

    1. Yeah, they don’t like to mention how your salary is affected by their fee, plus there’s no guarantee that job will continue longer than the time period needed to pay the fee. I would have liked to see the job seekers comments to things like this.

  8. Years ago I signed on with one recruiter after providing a resume that detailed my career in banking and politics. All he sent me were invitations to “join our sales team and earn great commissions.” Same thing with a friend of mine whose entire career was secretarial/clerical work. No sales experience for her either, yet she’s magically qualified to work as a sales agent???

    I was so turned off I’ve never used another recruiter since and my career hasn’t suffered a bit because of it.

  9. Advertising ” We need a person for ” X ” job” and when you apply, you get the old…. ” We already filled that position trick. They just want the data based filled.

    And you see the SAME job days later as NEW position.

    Or you get a position that… ” Oh wow…. that can be permanant…. temp to hire… ” and 9 out of 10 times it is not. And the recruiter knows it and the company knows it. You are gone after the wprk is done or at 90 days when the company can hire you in.

    They usualy just need people because the company got a huge order and needs help to complete it.

    Agree that workers don’t act honest either like not showing up for work or saying they can do ” X ” when they can’t.

    So it goes both ways as far as problems with the system.

  10. Except for the lying on my CV (resume in my case since I’m in North America) and not showing up for interviews; I have done, will continue to do, and consider it perfectly normal and professional to do all the other “pet peeves” Ciaran complains about.

    Glad that I’m not looking for a recruiter in the UK!

  11. I hope neither I nor anyone I like ever needs to work with this guy. To say that he’s weighting this towards himself is a massive understatement.

    It’s not just his attitude, but he sounds like he has absolutely no understanding of what job seekers (and potential job seekers) are dealing with and are looking for.

  12. Ahhhh, much more complicated than it seems but then that is why “talent acquisition” is the most broken, dysfunctional process in business. Neither side of the table respects the other nor puts in the amount of “wrench time” necessary for a great outcome. As a rule.

    Perhaps the best way to describe it is that everyone is “jumping over dollars to get to nickels”

    As a rule, its a war when it should be the First collaborative project between colleagues….

    But, there is so much more and I doubt either side is committed enough to make the process anything close to Best Practices….but that is why good TPR’s are worth their weight in the clients gold.

  13. Neither recruiters nor job hunters are very good at telling each other their needs and expectations. Little wonder there is usually negative tension between them.

    Recruiters and job hunters have very different, and often conflicting, imperatives. The recruiter is striving to place a good candidate with the client knowing that the client’s hiring process is anything but systematic and time sensitive. The job hunter often thinks that the recruiter is on his/her side and interested in their career objectives, which couldn’t be further from the truth, and builds unreasonable expectations of the recruiter as a result.

    Since many recruiters are paid commission, unethical practices by some are inevitable. Job hunters needs to be alert to nefarious practices by recruiters.

    Some job hunters treat the recruiting and hiring process as a game, and push to win the game regardless of collateral damage to recruiters.

  14. Re: complaint 1
    “They apply to jobs which they are clearly not suitable for.”

    This is a bogus complaint.

    When I was an employee, I would apply for jobs that, according to the posting, I was qualified for. Most of the time, I heard nothing back. Sometimes, I would interview only to discover the job was not as advertised.

    I call BS on complaint 5 too
    “They keep applying for jobs despite being in the final interview stage with a client.”

    Most employers don’t give you any closure until after the person they decide on is sitting in the cubicle, if at all!

    Can you imagine sitting around waiting on the phone to ring, believing you’re going to get an interview or worse having had a good phone screen, 1st interview, 2nd interview, thinking you have a job, then find out you’ve wasted your time?

    I don’t have to imagine. Been there, done that.

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