Lloyd Dicks is the Sales Director / IT Recruiter & Owner at Star Personnel Recruitment (Pty) Ltd.

Yesterday, I interviewed a candidate. Spent over an hour with him. He was a great match for one of my clients, so I discussed the client and opportunity with him with full disclosure. He was excited about the job and gave me permission to present him to the client. I checked carefully with him that he had never heard of the client before as I knew I was not the only agency working on this assignment and the client had even advertised himself.

While the candidate was still in my offices, I called the client, who agreed to see him immediately. I drove the candidate to my client’s offices, and when we arrived, the client told me that he had seen the CV before. He looked it up and he had received it twice in the last couple of weeks. Once completely unsolicited from an agency, and another from an agency who had agreed to work for them at 8% – but they had rejected the candidate without seeing him based on salary. The agency had either made a mistake or taken a chance hand had on the CV that the Desired remuneration was Double what the candidate was prepared to accept.

We asked the candidate if he had ever heard of these agencies. It turned out that the one (who charged 8%) had never spoken to him before, and the other (who had sent the CV to the client unsolicited) had put him forward a few months ago for another job, but he had never heard back from them and definitely had not given them permission to send his CV to this client. They had never interviewed him but had had a 5 to 10 minute conversation with him on the phone.

The long and the short of it is, that the client went ahead and interviewed the candidate based on my referral in spite of my fee being way more than the other agency. They offered the candidate the job.

Now I wait to see when the other agencies wake up and want to start a fee dispute.

These agencies are just downloading CVs from the job boards, and sending them to the clients. No wonder candidates think poorly of our industry. No wonder some agencies can charge 8%.  They are killing our industry!

Lloyd Dicks – Sales Director / IT Recruiter & Owner at Star Personnel Recruitment (Pty) Ltd.