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Make sure you know who you're dealing with when applying for work

Published on Jun 11, 2009 |

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When you apply for work through recruiters that express an interest in introducing you to hirers, always find out who you are dealing with before granting them representation rights or you could miss out on a good work opportunity.

These days, many large, high volume, low margin operators, that tend to recruit for the IT sector, employ resourcers. Their role is to liaise with applicants and pre-select suitable CVs from the voluminous flurry they receive in response to advertised work.

Are you being represented to the hirer?

But resourcers can deceive you. Once they've pre-selected your CV from those they've rejected, they will contact you and ask you to grant them representation rights - perhaps in writing. This stops you from applying for the same work opportunity through rival recruiters that are handling the same work requirement.

But this is a big mistake to make. The resourcer will only send your CV to an account manager not the hirer, perhaps with many more suitable CVs than the hirer will consider. It's the account manager that decides which CVs to finally sent across - normally a maximum of 2-4. They may well exclude yours from the pre-selected batch.

In the meantime, you believe that your CV has already gone across to the hirer and, in return, you've granted the recruiter representation rights and not bothered to apply for the same work opportunity through rival recruiters.

How to avoid this happening

1. Always ask your initial recruitment contact what their role is. Resourcers tend to hold a job title that effectively disguises their junior status.

2. Find out the account manager's name, then find out how many CVs have been sent across to the hirer, and when. Perhaps their allocation (usually 2-4) has been exhausted, but they want to keep your CV on the 'back burner' in case the hirer rejects the first batch they've received. If that's the case, you'll want to apply through another recruiter now, not wait.

3. If your CV hasn't gone across to the hirer, ask the account manager to confirm when they will send it across. Better still, ask them to confirm when they have sent it across too.

4. When they've done this, grant the recruiter formal representation rights in writing.

But remember, these measures aren't foolproof because account managers can just as easily hold your CV back as represent you, as they've promised to. But at least you've taken the appropriate steps you can to mitigate the risk of being a subjected to an avoidable restraint of trade.

About the author

Bel Grant
Writer on Flexible Working and Recruitment
http://twitter.com/BelGrant