I recently received an email from a recruitment consultancy. Now I normally refer emails from these agencies to our HR team, who have very efficient processes for dealing with them, but this one caught my eye.
It stated that the agency had just placed an ex-member of staff at Technophobia with ‘another Top Tech 100′ company and they needed a reference. The tech community in Sheffield is very well connected and so I was surprised that I hadn’t heard through the grapevine that ‘Andrew’ (named changed to protect the innocent) was looking to move from his current employment. I was also suspicious of the amount of sales spiel that followed the request for a reference.
I decided to contact Andrew and ask him if the recruitment agency was on the level. I looked on LinkedIn to make sure I had an up to date email address for Andrew and noticed that the text the agency had used to describe Andrew was exactly the same as he described himself on LinkedIn. Hmmmm, curious!
Andrew replied to my email confirming my suspicions, he had never heard of the agency and was not leaving his current employer. I thought I’d have a little more fun. I replied to Dan (his real name, because he’s not innocent) and asked after Andrew requesting that I be put in touch with him again. I also feigned interest in his company’s services, asking for the names of the other companies like us that he provided candidates for.
Dan took my bait and confirmed that he was talking to Andrew. He also gave me the names of several other companies on his books. One of which I recognised, as they supply us with various network and infrastructure services. A quick phone call and a confirmation email later and I had caught Dan in another lie (or perhaps just a misleading exaggeration).
The people he named as his contacts at the other company had never dealt with him except to provide him with a reference for an ex-member of staff.
Whilst I was doing my little investigation, I was tweeting my disgust at Dan and his company, mainly to see if they were paying any attention. It seems they weren’t as I have since had phone calls asking for Andrew’s reference. I was debating whether to name the agency concerned here, but to be honest I really can’t spare the time to talk to the lawyers about the implications (don’t get me started on lawyers). So they will have to remain anonymous for now.
My point in this post is not that some recruitment agencies exaggerate, mislead and downright lie in order to try and get your business – we all know that! But that it is so easy to check up on their claims and the impact of being caught in a lie is so damaging that they really don’t do themselves any favours. As easily as they can find the name of an ex-member of staff on LinkedIn, we can find out whether their claims are true and call them out publicly if they are not.
As my mother always told me, honesty really is the best policy.
