I continue to be disheartened by stories I hear about recruiters in this industry and their often juvenile approach, unfiltered arrogance, and complete lack of professionalism.  Even when I was a rookie 20 years ago, at a time when I made many mistakes, and misspoke many times, I don’t believe I ever showed quite as much indifference to the truth or disregard for common sense as I see in some of these agencies today.

Whether their behaviors are a product of poor upbringing, stress at home, addictions, or afflictions, bad management, or lack of mentorship….these recruiters continue to give a bad name to a profession that otherwise has the potential to be viewed differently as the industry evolves and matures.  These recruiters represent a spill off of waste from past generations.  They are egomaniacs with deep deficiencies and emotional voids, filled only by unprecedented rants, angry banter and inexcusable infantile aggression. Their complete lack of self-respect is illuminated by their lying, browbeating, and backstabbing approach to daily business.

In a market where people are difficult to find, and companies are desperate to sign up new recruitment firms to fill their own personnel needs, some have no choice but to overlook the negligent, distrustful and abusive histories of some of these recruiters because in the end they may deliver product.  This may work in the short term, but in the long-term owners must remember that the agency recruiters they hire, are a representation of their own company.  Just as a CM’s subcontractors reflect their own values.  Just as a CM or architect is a reflection of the Developer that hired them, and a Developer is a reflection of the bank or investment group that entrusted them, a third party recruiter’s behavior represents the judgement and sense of those who hired them.

Who you choose as a consultancy is just as much part of your branding as your mission statement or logo. And you wouldn’t choose a logo of middle finger, with a mission statement of ‘we’ll work with anyone regardless of their moral compass as long as they get the job done.’

Well….maybe some companies would do this if they were being truly transparent.  And maybe we would all stand to benefit if companies were honest about their dishonesty.

“Executive Big Recruiters Inc….., pay us for a placement, and we’ll place that same person 3 months later for another fee.”  “NYC Real Estate so and so Development Management LLC…., we’ll promise you an A team, and you’ll be lucky to get our D team.”  “Tri-State #1 Drywall Professionals LLC……what’s drywall?”

We all love an up market, but there are downsides, and this is one of them.  The drive to get our work done eclipses what is actually important in life, like….not lying, and not needlessly making other people feel bad.  And if morality isn’t a motivator for you, think about the actual time, money and quality lost by hiring people who don’t care about anything but getting paid.

Quality Control is born out of accountability and caring, and these firms have neither.

These days it’s hard to tell if we are evolving, or if the nature of human beings will always provide a spectrum of behavior ranging from idiotic to neutral to exemplary.  Concerning those who don’t even strive for the latter, I hope that humans are in fact evolving so that these bad actors may eventually catch on and evolve themselves, or finally disintegrate and fade into history, as a sentence on a page in a chapter about things we got wrong long ago.

Until then, choose your partners wisely.