How your recruiters treat candidates can cost you

As an accounting manager and the default HR department for a small, family-owned business, I worked with staffing firms from the employer side many times.

Now, I’m on the other side of the coin, finding myself unemployed after my company was acquired and my department eliminated. Because I am highly skilled and have excellent references from my former colleagues, I thought I would have a reasonable experience working with staffing firms as a candidate. (My previous experience with staffing firms as an employer had been disappointing.) Unfortunately, I’ve been treated over and over like I don’t matter. I find the lack of respect and outright dishonesty I have seen appalling, and quite frankly, wonder how any manager can allow it. Here’s an example.

Put down the phone. A staffing company posted an ad on Monster for a position as an accounts payable clerk a short commute from me. Sure, some might consider that a step down, but I did not want a management position and had maintained my skills in all accounting principles. The ad appeared at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday and by 5 p.m. I had an interview scheduled for Monday morning with the agency. It was a lengthy drive, but I was hopeful about the position.

When I arrived, I was asked to complete 10 pages of documents. (This couldn’t have been done online?) When the interviewer finally came for me 30 minutes past my appointment time, she said she’d been making lunch plans with her son.

So on with the interview. It turns out the job had already been filled. I asked why she had me come in if she knew the job was filled; she simply said it was her job to find out more about me to see if she could place me somewhere else.

I’d driven all that way, so I stayed, only to have her take two phone calls from her son about their lunch. (What would you do if a candidate took calls during interviews?) Afterward, I started to get emails from her for positions I wasn’t even qualified for. Bilingual in Mandarin? No. In fact, I can’t even say “no” in Mandarin. And the locations were always far outside my stipulated driving area. Recruiters should pay attention to what their candidates want and need, not just add them to a bulk email list.

The best policy. Another time, a recruiter called me after having found my résumé online and asked me to interview directly with the client. It sounded ideal: the company was family-owned and local, and the position was what I was looking for.

I met with the HR manager and the controller. The controller told me about the company and the open position and asked me just one question: why I left my last job. When I asked him if he wanted to hear about my skills or qualifications, he said the recruiter had told him all about me. I later asked the recruiter what she told him, and she said she told him I came highly recommended from my previous employer and that my skills were outstanding. We’d never met and I knew she’d never spoken with my past employer. All she had was my résumé. I told her I wasn’t comfortable with her agency if they were going to openly lie. As I suspected based on how the interview went, I didn’t get the job. But I never heard that from the agency. The client’s HR manager called to tell me.

One recruiter didn’t understand how certain skills can cross over to other job areas. Another wanted to submit me for a position she could not even describe to me, but that I was “perfect for.” I could go on.

The bottom line is while I still need a job, I refuse to let a company profit off me after treating me the way I’ve been treated. I am a loyal, hard worker. If a staffing firm ends up placing me with excellent skills, it will only be one that has exemplary workers who know how to respect their temps.

Patricia Schaefer is a former accounting and HR manager.