Typically identity theft is associated with the stealing of someone’s credit cards and personal information. While this has been proven to be very damaging, costly and a huge inconvenience, another form of identity theft can be equally as damaging – to your career.
In the world of contract consulting, duplicate resume submissions are a problem for vendors and clients, but the biggest loser is always the candidate. Most reputable service firms maintain a policy, similar to Axis Technical, that all candidates are told to what client or clients their resume is being submitted, and must offer verbal and/or written approval prior to the resume actually being sent to the client. Even with such policy, double-submittals do sometimes occur. However, it is when companies ignore the rules of submission and engage in unfair tactics that the candidate is harmed.
Recently one of our very good clients transitioned their contract recruiting needs to a vendor management system. The new system is managed by a third party company that sends job requirements to a list of approved vendors and all candidates submitted for a requirement by these vendors are visually pre-screened and then forwarded to the hiring manager for review. In an effort to avoid duplicate submissions, all recruiters have been asked to obtain a written exclusive representation form or at least an e-mail from each candidate giving them permission to submit their profile for that specific job requirement. This process was set-up to avoid duplicate submissions, but since its inception, the Axis team has had more double submits than ever before.
This one client is not the only one to experience these double submittals. In a tight marketplace with fewer requirements for service firms to work on, competition is more cutthroat than ever before. The biggest contributing factor to these double submittals is some vendors essentially “stealing” a candidate’s identity. These companies may talk to a candidate and tell them they have a job to submit them to, without ever sharing the client name with the candidate, and still other companies simply pull a resume off the internet job boards, submit to a client and if/when said client expresses some level of interest in the candidate, the staffing company will contact the candidate. Certainly there are accidental double submittals, and even those caused by the candidate themselves who do not pay attention to or keep track of where they have been submitted. But in most cases, it is the unfair practices of a “body shop” that lead to the double submittal.
What happens when a double submittal occurs? Usually the end client, not wanting to get in a battle with different vendors, declines the candidate all together. Sure the client may lose out on a great resource, and the vendors lose out on their fee. But it is the candidate who has now lost out on a precious job.
One way to avoid double submittals from happening is for the recruiter to reveal the name of the company they are working with. In my opinion, the client name should always be discussed with a candidate up front. If the recruiter has developed a good working relationship with the company, then they should feel comfortable providing this important information. It surprises me how often an individual will tell me or a member of my team that the recruiter did not want to disclose the name of the company. The question the candidate needs to ask is why not? If a recruiter requests permission to submit your resume, then you as the job seeker have the right to ask and know what company you are being presented to. This simple step in the process avoids duplicate resume submissions, wasted time and frustration from the hiring manager reviewing stacks of resumes and could save a job opportunity.
And to my fellow Recruiters in the IT industry – I know the job market is tight and the IT industry is itself extremely competitive even in good times. But in good times or bad, let’s remember who we are ultimately working for, and maintain our professionalism by working from a similar set of ethical standards and fair business practices. By not doing so, the entire staffing services industry looks bad and endangers everyone’s livelihood. Working hard and being competitive is something we all do, but we ALL must be open, fair and ethical for the people – both candidates and clients alike, that we are working for.
Post contributed by Cary Ashby, Recruiting Manager at Axis Technical Group
Want to learn more about Cary and the Staffing Services Axis offers to candidates and clients? Email Cary here
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