More shocks from the Recruitment Industry

Last night I broke the usual routine of home, meal, East-enders, run, then bed and spiced things up by meeting an old associate of mine for a drink, (coffee of course, it was a school night).

So we sit down in a local bar, (I mean coffee shop), exchanged pleasantries, moaned about the lack of activity in our love lives, drank a few more coffees, (I mean beers..... no I mean coffees), made our predictions for the coming football season, then onto work.

Now as luck would have it, this associate of mine happens to be a recruitment consultant for a leading Financial consultancy in Bristol.

I won't bore you with the details, but will summarise the content.

Last month he raised two invoices for just over £7000 with candidates’ he had found on a FREE social networking site and boasted that he had done this many times before.

Informed me that many companies are looking to head hunt the best staff on the market place, which often means "re-visiting" candidates’ he had already previously placed.

Now I am in business to make profit and I commend the initiative shown here.

But the following thoughts cross my mind.

Is the client aware that they are paying over £7000 for something that cost the agent nothing?

I wonder if compassion and empathy was shown to the client? After all times are hard for IFA's and financial services business at the moment, so were the fees discounted to reflect the agents, (cough, cough), costs?

Where is the moral correctness in churning candidates’ that have previously been placed by the agent in your business, only to whip them out and offer them to someone else?

In my mind that empathies the mentality of the recruitment consultant, it's not about taking your business to the next level and working with you, but earning the commission at the end of the rainbow!

Candidates will in time move on, but seeing as you paid the fee shouldn’t the consultant be doing everything they can to keep in your company not moving them on?