Dealing with Recruitment Consultants

I'm job hunting at the moment so I have to deal with recruitment consultants. Unfortunately in today's market they are the people who are the gatekeepers to jobs as companies cannot be bothered to shift through lots of CVs.

Some recruitment consultants are unscrupulous.
Some common tricks include:
1. Saying they have a good job that matches your skill set then refusing to tell you who they are putting you forward to. This generally means they are going to spam your CV at every email lead for a company they have ever had. A decent agency will tell you the company so you can research them.

2. Asking who your previous managers were. They either do this by asking directly for your referee names, pretending there is a piece of legislation that means they have to have those names or making up names and asking if those people are your manager. The easiest thing to say to them is either "Yes you can email hr@companyname.com" or "I want give you a reference name until you make me an offer". If they persist then you can just put the phone down. A decent agency will not care as they have enough leads or know you are likely to give them leads once you have secured a role.

3. Not bothering to inform you how you job application is going on i.e. whether you are shortlisted or not. Due to this common practise I have ended up taken jobs not knowing that agency A was dealing with a client who was very slow with interviews and now wants to interview me.

I have found these practises common whether I'm looking at a permanent or contract role.