Moz wrote: "Since when was the recruitment industry supposed to "find real jobs for real people" ? It's not the CES! A recruiter's job is to find the best candidates for their client (the employer)."

They are not finding the best jobs for their clients if they have a bums on seat mentality. In this sense I am speaking mainly of the bread and butter business which comes from temporary contractors.

The biggest mistake these recruiters make is in forgetting that candidates are 'clients' too - without them you have no business. If a consultant has an expectation that a temp will just take any old job that comes along regardless of interest or experience and then punishes them later by not referring - that is an a failure of duty of care in my opinion. This just makes good business sense.

I can tell you that the ideology might be finding the best candidate for the role but the practice in overworked and stressed agencies the reality is far from that.

Indeed they are not the CES but if they accept contracts from the government to place the unemployed they have a duty of care to those 'clients' as well. This may well be the biggest argument against outsourcing to the private sector - the lack of a holistic approach to the candidates they are being paid to find jobs for.

The only profession worse than HR is PR. Or perhaps Marketing.

Pelican wrote: "if they accept contracts from the government to place the unemployed they have a duty of care to those 'clients' as well."

Absolutely, in fact it turns the tables completely. But that's very different to contingent recruitment, it's almost like an outplacement service.

Pelican also wrote: "I can tell you that the ideology might be finding the best candidate for the role but the practice in overworked and stressed agencies the reality is far from that."

I know this is the case in *some* recruitment companies, but definitely not all. The worst culprits are likely to be the larger firms who's staff are driven by stupid KPIs which focus on a 'numbers game' rather than providing a quality service to both clients (who pay the bills) and the candidates. If you're a client and you get a bunch of resumes for poorly matched candidates on a Friday afternoon, you'll know you are dealing with someone driven by KPIs.

The more professional recruitment firms, which are often the smaller, specialist firms, take a much longer term view and a quality approach, because they know from experience that candidates often become clients. Some of them also simply feel they should treat people how they would like to be treated.

In recent years there has been a trend for large employers to build their own internal recruitment function, usually by attracting recruiters from the recruitment agencies. The problem is, in many cases they're hiring the duds, including people with a bad attitude towards job seekers. It's been trained into them by the "body shop" agencies who play the numbers game and treat candidates as a commodity. These people view the candidates as their product rather than viewing their recruitment services as the product.

However, at the end of the day, no matter what you think of the recruitment industry, it is essentially a product of the HR departments it serves as clients. It's a bit of a vicious circle really.

actually HR is on a par with law and financial planning as occupations lacking in integrity

Recruiter Daily, 4 December 2008

"Only "loser" recruiters accept a candidate's salary expectation at
face value, according to recruitment trainer Greg Savage.

"In today's lead article he provides a script that you can tailor to squash
candidates' salary expectations ..."

That sums up HR.

That's a stupid view (Greg Savage's). Fair enough if a candidate's salary expectations are unrealistic, but there's no point in persuading them to accept a lower package otherwise. If you con a candidate into taking a package they're not really 100% happy with it's a pretty bad way to start a new job. But then Savage is a long time commercial recruiter who's primary focus is making placements. Unfortunately there are too many commercial recruiters out there who continually try to fit square pegs in round holes. It's happening with internal recruiters as well now, I've heard of people turning up for an interview with an employer and being interviewed for a different position from the one they applied for. It's difficult to know if this is down to the recruiter or someone more senior, but it's the height of arrogance on the employer's part (of course it happens with external recruiters as well).

I should also point out that some companies (such as a big Australian phone company beginning with O), pay their internal recruiters performance bonuses as though they were working in an agency. This is a dangerous approach, because it may encourage internal recruiters to take a short term view, just as a lot of agency recruiters do. At least with an agency recruiter there is almost always a replacement guarantee, which will make them think twice before trying to force someone into a job they're not suited to, because ultimately it will impact on their bonus/commission. But for internal recruiters there is probably no personal remuneration downside if the new hire leaves after 5 months.

One other important point to remember, either when making comparisons between HR and recruitment agencies, or when hiring internal recruiters - external/agency recruiters are NOT HR people, they are a completely different animal with very different drivers.