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Do Recruiters Blacklist Candidates in Ireland?

  • 12-04-2019 10:58am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 37 LeVaterIzVet


    Hey guys, something has been troubling me a lot lately. I have been applying for jobs non-stop for the last 3 months but I'm getting absolutely nowhere. I would give more details about myself, but my paranoia has convinced me to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

    Everything was going fine initially, recruiters were constantly reaching out to me on LinkedIn and I met with several of them. Upon meeting with these recruiters, I became suspicious of their intentions. I'm very good at reading people and figuring out their ulterior motives, or so I thought? The roles in which I expressed interest in during the interviews seemed to be used as bait to reel me in, only for me to then be offered alternative jobs later. Maybe I wasn't qualified enough for the roles I wanted and they were too polite to say? If so, why would I have been interviewed in the first place?

    Ultimately, I was due to attend an interview with a large firm that I had expressed interest in, however for a role that didn't really suit where I wanted to go. Disaster struck the morning of the interview, I woke up to a flat tyre and missed the interview. I contacted the recruiter immediately, however bear in mind that this was at 6am and the interview was scheduled for 9:30am. (I was commuting that morning from home)

    The recruiter didn't seem to mind once I spoke to her, she contacted the firm and everything seemed to be fine. Maybe it's naive of me to think this? Afterwards, the tone of our conversations changed and she ceased contacting me. This is obviously understandable and she's well within her right to do so, I feel terrible about what happened and to have potentially negatively impacted her career/reputation.

    To cut a long story short, do recruiters place candidates like me on a blacklist? And if so, would this be something that could spread to other recruiting firms? I think it would be naive to think that recruiters don't talk to other recruiters in the industry, but would this not be a form of defamation? Not that I ever intend on taking legal action, but what is to stop a recruiter from blackening the name of a candidate? Any input here would be greatly appreciated. Thank you


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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 7,134 ✭✭✭Lux23


    I had to leave an interview once because I was feeling unwell, and that recruiter certainly never called me again. I have had contact from other people working there since though. So although I believe some recruiters might give up on candidates, I doubt they all get together to create an official blacklist.


  • Registered Users Posts: 37 LeVaterIzVet


    Lux23 wrote: »
    I had to leave an interview once because I was feeling unwell, and that recruiter certainly never called me again. I have had contact from other people working there since though. So although I believe some recruiters might give up on candidates, I doubt they all get together to create an official blacklist.

    Thanks very much for your input! Hopefully I'm just being paranoid.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,415 ✭✭✭touts


    They don't have a blacklist. That would be the sort of GDPR violation that would close most recruitment companies.

    However if an individual recruiter thinks you are wasting their time they are unlikely to contact you again. Remember they only want to send quality candidates to companies because if the HR team in the company think a recruiter only sends them rubbish then the recruiter will lose the business.

    Chances are the issue is more with your CV, cover letter etc. Every job application you send out should have a CV that is customised to make sure it hits the points the company is looking for. If you are sending the same CV to lots of different companies then I'd say that is the problem.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭ Sawyer Sticky Tongue


    I doubt there's any official blacklist, but I'm not surprised this recruiter doesn't want to work with you anymore. In her eyes, you're unreliable and you embarrassed her in front of what was probably a major client.

    Calling at 6 am to say you couldn't attend an interview three and a half hours later because you had a flat tyre also shows lack of initiative. Could you not have got a lift? Got a bus or train? Taken a taxi? Combination of the above?


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,067 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Lux23 wrote: »
    I had to leave an interview once because I was feeling unwell, and that recruiter certainly never called me again. I have had contact from other people working there since though. So although I believe some recruiters might give up on candidates, I doubt they all get together to create an official blacklist.

    Creating a "blacklist" like that would be illegal.

    Thing is that recruiters are useless. they are the real estate agents of the job market. There's plenty of sites that will put up fake jobs just to harvest CV's. That way they can say they have X amount of candidates on file.

    The recruiters themselves rarely know what the job they are selling is. Especially in tech.

    I took redundancy, went back to college for a year and then went looking for a job. I spend nearly a year looking. In that time period I heard back from about 10% of the jobs I applied for. However I was also reached out to by recruiters for jobs I'd never applied for and had no interest in because i wasn't qualified for them.


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  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 18,390 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kimbot


    MOD Moved to Work & Jobs, please note the local charter.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,318 ✭✭✭✭Dial Hard


    Grayson wrote: »
    The recruiters themselves rarely know what the job they are selling is. Especially in tech.

    Years ago when I was still working in admin a recruiter rang me to ask would I be interested in a role. I was like "Well, tell me a bit more about it" and they went "So it's a C++ Administrator..."


  • Registered Users Posts: 37 LeVaterIzVet


    touts wrote: »
    They don't have a blacklist. That would be the sort of GDPR violation that would close most recruitment companies.

    However if an individual recruiter thinks you are wasting their time they are unlikely to contact you again. Remember they only want to send quality candidates to companies because if the HR team in the company think a recruiter only sends them rubbish then the recruiter will lose the business.

    Chances are the issue is more with your CV, cover letter etc. Every job application you send out should have a CV that is customised to make sure it hits the points the company is looking for. If you are sending the same CV to lots of different companies then I'd say that is the problem.

    This comment has literally made my day. I had been getting quite down recently at the thoughts of potentially ruining my career before it even started. Thank you so much!


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,594 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    Grayson wrote: »
    Creating a "blacklist" like that would be illegal.

    Provided it's based on facts not prejudices, it's not illegal.

    Anyone who calls me at 6am about work goes on my personal black list!


  • Registered Users Posts: 37 LeVaterIzVet


    I doubt there's any official blacklist, but I'm not surprised this recruiter doesn't want to work with you anymore. In her eyes, you're unreliable and you embarrassed her in front of what was probably a major client.

    Calling at 6 am to say you couldn't attend an interview three and a half hours later because you had a flat tyre also shows lack of initiative. Could you not have got a lift? Got a bus or train? Taken a taxi? Combination of the above?

    That's completely understandable! Unfortunately the commute would have taken over 2 hours and there weren't any other options. That's rural Ireland for you! lol


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  • Registered Users Posts: 37 LeVaterIzVet


    Provided it's based on facts not prejudices, it's not illegal.

    Anyone who calls me at 6am about work goes on my personal black list!

    I emailed her work email at 6am, I never said that I called her.


  • Registered Users Posts: 37 LeVaterIzVet


    Grayson wrote: »
    Creating a "blacklist" like that would be illegal.

    Thing is that recruiters are useless. they are the real estate agents of the job market. There's plenty of sites that will put up fake jobs just to harvest CV's. That way they can say they have X amount of candidates on file.

    The recruiters themselves rarely know what the job they are selling is. Especially in tech.

    I took redundancy, went back to college for a year and then went looking for a job. I spend nearly a year looking. In that time period I heard back from about 10% of the jobs I applied for. However I was also reached out to by recruiters for jobs I'd never applied for and had no interest in because i wasn't qualified for them.

    To be fair to her, she's a great recruiter! It was completely my own fault for missing the interview. I'm just concerned that maybe, as was pointed out above, that she found me unreliable and placed me on the company blacklist.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,167 ✭✭✭Fr_Dougal


    In my experience, you’re better off applying for roles directly with a company. Avoid recruiters where possible.


  • Registered Users Posts: 156 ✭✭joe199


    Scroungers is what they really are let's be honest hear.


  • Registered Users Posts: 565 ✭✭✭frosty123


    OP I was about to start the same type of thread..I've been looking since sept,
    and i've got next to nothing in replies from recruiters and companies, granted im pushing 40 long term unemployed but I thought id get at least some response ..but all I got were 2 interviews and about 6 email replies :-(


  • Registered Users Posts: 28,006 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Age can be an effective blacklist for some people


  • Registered Users Posts: 565 ✭✭✭frosty123


    ^^^^^^

    I was thinking that...can anyone in the recruitment/HR game confirm this??

    Should I go as far as to lie about my age on my CV?? cause im desperate at this stage


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,134 ✭✭✭Lux23


    Dial Hard wrote: »
    Years ago when I was still working in admin a recruiter rang me to ask would I be interested in a role. I was like "Well, tell me a bit more about it" and they went "So it's a C++ Administrator..."

    I keep getting an email from some guy asking me would I be interested in interviewing for a Health & Safety role? I work in Public Relations. At least you can how they made the mistake with that call.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,340 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    frosty123 wrote: »
    ^^^^^^

    I was thinking that...can anyone in the recruitment/HR game confirm this??

    Should I go as far as to lie about my age on my CV?? cause im desperate at this stage

    Why would you have your age on your CV?
    Granted some qualification dates or even names could indicate your age but there is no need for an age or DOB on a CV.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,922 ✭✭✭mikemac2


    Everything was going fine initially, recruiters were constantly reaching out to me on LinkedIn and I met with several of them. Upon meeting with these recruiters, I became suspicious of their intentions. The roles in which I expressed interest in during the interviews seemed to be used as bait to reel me in, only for me to then be offered alternative jobs later.

    Completely normal. Happened me a few times to apply for a cool job and when I went to the agents office that job never got discussed and they start talking about roles I had no interest in


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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,134 ✭✭✭Lux23


    frosty123 wrote: »
    ^^^^^^

    I was thinking that...can anyone in the recruitment/HR game confirm this??

    Should I go as far as to lie about my age on my CV?? cause im desperate at this stage

    Your age shouldn't even be on your CV.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,733 ✭✭✭OMM 0000


    Recruiters work in the present.

    Who is available today for a job being advertised today.

    It's a high pressure job, and in general the recruiter cares little for the jobseeker. They care about the employer - they are the customer.

    So I would just switch recruiter. Try to develop a relationship with your recruiter too. Don't just forward your CV to them. Talk to them on the phone. Let them know you're reliable and won't embarrass them.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,870 ✭✭✭Ohmeha


    Grayson wrote: »
    Creating a "blacklist" like that would be illegal.

    Thing is that recruiters are useless. they are the real estate agents of the job market. There's plenty of sites that will put up fake jobs just to harvest CV's. That way they can say they have X amount of candidates on file.

    The recruiters themselves rarely know what the job they are selling is. Especially in tech.

    I took redundancy, went back to college for a year and then went looking for a job. I spend nearly a year looking. In that time period I heard back from about 10% of the jobs I applied for. However I was also reached out to by recruiters for jobs I'd never applied for and had no interest in because i wasn't qualified for them.
    Even worse is the in-house company recruiters hitting you on linkedin not knowing their arse to their elbow about their own roles sending you on some senior management role about 6 levels above your blatant skillset and qualifications. You have to be careful fobbing these guys off when down the line you may need to apply to a relevant role in the same company


  • Registered Users Posts: 288 ✭✭yoursaviour1989


    frosty123 wrote: »
    ^^^^^^

    I was thinking that...can anyone in the recruitment/HR game confirm this??

    Should I go as far as to lie about my age on my CV?? cause im desperate at this stage

    I'm a recruiter. To answer your question, age isn't a problem here, the fact that you've been unemployed long-term is.
    Recruiters are paid to find the very best candidates. That means people with recent experience in a very similar role who can hit the ground running quicker than any applicant they'll get from a standard advertisement.
    If you've been worked in an industry that's heavily regulated and ever changing then chances are your experience is no longer applicable as you're not up to date on current regulations and policies.
    Your best best is to go to employers directly and have an explanation for the gap on your CV.

    Sorry if any of the above sounds harsh, I'm just trying to show you how the industry works.
    Hope you find something soon.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,097 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    Hey guys, something has been troubling me a lot lately. I have been applying for jobs non-stop for the last 3 months but I'm getting absolutely nowhere. I would give more details about myself, but my paranoia has convinced me to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

    Everything was going fine initially, recruiters were constantly reaching out to me on LinkedIn and I met with several of them. Upon meeting with these recruiters, I became suspicious of their intentions. I'm very good at reading people and figuring out their ulterior motives, or so I thought? The roles in which I expressed interest in during the interviews seemed to be used as bait to reel me in, only for me to then be offered alternative jobs later. Maybe I wasn't qualified enough for the roles I wanted and they were too polite to say? If so, why would I have been interviewed in the first place?

    Ultimately, I was due to attend an interview with a large firm that I had expressed interest in, however for a role that didn't really suit where I wanted to go. Disaster struck the morning of the interview, I woke up to a flat tyre and missed the interview. I contacted the recruiter immediately, however bear in mind that this was at 6am and the interview was scheduled for 9:30am. (I was commuting that morning from home)

    The recruiter didn't seem to mind once I spoke to her, she contacted the firm and everything seemed to be fine. Maybe it's naive of me to think this? Afterwards, the tone of our conversations changed and she ceased contacting me. This is obviously understandable and she's well within her right to do so, I feel terrible about what happened and to have potentially negatively impacted her career/reputation.

    To cut a long story short, do recruiters place candidates like me on a blacklist? And if so, would this be something that could spread to other recruiting firms? I think it would be naive to think that recruiters don't talk to other recruiters in the industry, but would this not be a form of defamation? Not that I ever intend on taking legal action, but what is to stop a recruiter from blackening the name of a candidate? Any input here would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

    Recruiters often don't even talk to people beside them in the office. Never mind outside of it.

    Did it for a few years, high pressure job.


  • Registered Users Posts: 565 ✭✭✭frosty123


    I'm a recruiter. To answer your question, age isn't a problem here, the fact that you've been unemployed long-term is.
    Recruiters are paid to find the very best candidates. That means people with recent experience in a very similar role who can hit the ground running quicker than any applicant they'll get from a standard advertisement.
    If you've been worked in an industry that's heavily regulated and ever changing then chances are your experience is no longer applicable as you're not up to date on current regulations and policies.
    Your best best is to go to employers directly and have an explanation for the gap on your CV.

    Sorry if any of the above sounds harsh, I'm just trying to show you how the industry works.
    Hope you find something soon.

    So should I increase the dates of my employment to fill up the gaps?

    Or do employers/recruiters check up with social welfare on candidates ?


  • Registered Users Posts: 288 ✭✭yoursaviour1989


    frosty123 wrote: »
    So should I increase the dates of my employment to fill up the gaps?

    Or do employers/recruiters check up with social welfare on candidates ?

    Recruiters won't if we don't have to. Employers will probably require a reference from your previous employer so if you change the dates you'll be caught out there. Also if you work in a regulated industry the employer may do a background check which may result in you being asked to produce documents from social welfare.


  • Registered Users Posts: 28,006 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    frosty123 wrote: »
    So should I increase the dates of my employment to fill up the gaps?

    Or do employers/recruiters check up with social welfare on candidates ?

    If you're going to be a liar, you need to be a very good liar. It's very easy to catch yourself out.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    If you're going to be a liar, you need to be a very good liar. It's very easy to catch yourself out.
    Little white lies aren't that big a deal; inflating the extent of your responsibilities is easy enough, as is embellishing your job title or salary.

    Nobody will ever check with social welfare unless you tell them you were unemployed.

    Modifying dates can be fraught though. A reference will almost always include confirmation of the dates that you worked for the company. A month or so out is no big deal; everyone makes mistakes. But if you said you were there six months longer than you were, then that's going to come up.

    If you know your referees well enough, they may ask you what dates you want them to say, but a HR department will never falsify dates.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,419 ✭✭✭LollipopJimmy


    seamus wrote: »
    Little white lies aren't that big a deal; inflating the extent of your responsibilities is easy enough, as is embellishing your job title or salary.

    Nobody will ever check with social welfare unless you tell them you were unemployed.

    Modifying dates can be fraught though. A reference will almost always include confirmation of the dates that you worked for the company. A month or so out is no big deal; everyone makes mistakes. But if you said you were there six months longer than you were, then that's going to come up.

    If you know your referees well enough, they may ask you what dates you want them to say, but a HR department will never falsify dates.

    References are not carried out to the extent they used to be, now it's more a 'statement of employment', this will include dates. A lot of companies are using HireRight and the likes so dates need to be fairly accurate.

    To put the cards out I am a recruiter, it's not this high pressure KPI chasing role that it's being made out to be above. Even the days of it being massively commission driven are gone.
    I don't get the comments above that call recruiters 'scroungers' etc, I mean the same can be said about any profession then surely. I work in a particular area where my network is my value, the businesses who operate within my space give me a call and they have suitable candidates with them in no time at all. A company couldn't go out themselves and recruit with the speed I can.

    Anyway, to the OP, no blacklist will be kept, you might have a mark against you with that agency but if I was to give advice, call the recruiter at some stage this week and have a proper conversation.


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