Be Wary of Recruiters!

[Gene_]

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I have noticed that recruiters love our "Unfilled Positions" thread. Please keep in mind that the job of recruiters is simply to place bodies in positions. This position may or may not be right for you. Sending your CV to a recruiter establishes a business relationship that you may ultimately regret. Just be aware. I have no personal experience, just warnings from others. Maybe others can post their experiences.

 

[Sulfinator]

What have others warned you about, specifically?

 

[earmuff]

What have others warned you about, specifically?

That they may find you a job, and then you wouldn't be able complain about the job market anymore. All "street cred" would be lost.

 

[Substance]

I'm assuming that recruiters might work a bit like real estate agents. I'm guessing you have to sign up for them to represent you for x number of weeks.

The caveat to this is that if you find a job outside of the recruiter's portfolio, or you find a job through another recruiter, you are penalized for breaking contract. Am I right about this?

 

[Whetherby]

I'm assuming that recruiters might work a bit like real estate agents. I'm guessing you have to sign up for them to represent you for x number of weeks.

The caveat to this is that if you find a job outside of the recruiter's portfolio, or you find a job through another recruiter, you are penalized for breaking contract. Am I right about this?

Nice speculation but no, it doesn't work like that. You don't sign a contract, you just give them your information and then they contact you if they see a job that they think you might want. How would they penalize you anyway? You're not paying them anything. Are they going to spank you?

Personally I don't see any problem with using a recruiter, or multiple recruiters. I did, and they gave me several job leads...none of which I ended up taking, but it doesn't do any harm to get some leads.

 

[rollwithit]

How would they penalize you anyway? You're not paying them anything. Are they going to spank you?

Recruiters get paid by the business where the "recruited" employee/partner/etc. ends up. The job searcher isn't paying anything in cash, but you can damn well bet that your compensation reflects the additional expense incurred by the person hiring you.

Nothing is free!

 

[Whetherby]

Recruiters get paid by the business where the "recruited" employee/partner/etc. ends up. The job searcher isn't paying anything in cash, but you can damn well bet that your compensation reflects the additional expense incurred by the person hiring you.

Nothing is free!

No kidding...of course they are getting paid by the group that hires them. I realize they're not doing their job out of the goodness of their heart.

I have no idea how much they make, but whatever it is I doubt that it comes directly out of your paycheck once you're hired. It's one of the many expenses incurred by a group as part of the recruiting process, along with things like flying you there, hotel, dinner, etc. I don't think they keep track of those expenses and deduct them directly from your future salary either.

The point I was trying to make is that giving your information to a recruiter is not the same thing as signing a contract with a real estate agent or any other kind of contract. It's not an exclusive thing, and there's nothing they can do to penalize you if you end up using a different recruiter or signing with a group directly without using a recruiter at all. In my opinon there's no danger in giving your information to the various recruiters that contact you...although I suppose some people may be hesitant to give out personal information in general.

 

[Substance]

I think its kind of odd that there are recruiters for pathology.

Medicine is one of those fields that should really stay away from being turned into a commodity. Any physician should be able to set up infrastructure to practice their craft.

It seems that with path, there are a LOT of major corporate labs that hire doctors to work as cubicle-monkeys, pocketing half of their billings. Though the pay overall is not bad, the fact that you are making half of what you should is the kicker.

Why hasn't this happened with radiology?

 

[2121115]

Why hasn't this happened with radiology?

1. It is much more expensive to set up a radiology suite and buy an MRI/CT/etc/etc machine than it is to set a lab making H&E slides. There is low overhead with pathology operations.

2. It is in fact starting to happen in radiology. The radiology job market is not what it used to be (not because of this issue specifically but in general) although it is still better than pathology.

 

[trent05]

It my experience recruiters in pathology are looking for one thing, your CV. They are representing their cleint's, the employers, and want a nice big portfolio of CV's. They are not interested in finding a job for you, at least in pathology. They often ask specifics like have you gone on any interview's? And want to know exactly where the place was, I wonder why???? Gave out my CV to many recruiters and despite a great fellowship I never got a single lead on a single job. They just wanted my CV for their portfolio.

 

[2121115]

Some recruiters play dirty. If they find out that you got an interview with a practice that they didn't put you in touch with they may call ahead to that practice claiming that they represent you and that the practice will need to pay a referral fee if they hire you. If it is a close competition for the job the practice may go with the option where they don't have to deal with the recruiter (whether they intend to pay them or not).

If you are using a recruiter I would make sure that they don't know about your other job search endeavors and keep them in the dark until a contract is signed.

 

[trent05]

Some recruiters play dirty. If they find out that you got an interview with a practice that they didn't put you in touch with they may call ahead to that practice claiming that they represent you and that the practice will need to pay a referral fee if they hire you. If it is a close competition for the job the practice may go with the option where they don't have to deal with the recruiter (whether they intend to pay them or not).

If you are using a recruiter I would make sure that they don't know about your other job search endeavors and keep them in the dark until a contract is signed.

Right. Also, I suspect that if you tell them about a job interview you went on recently, they will call the job and try to entice them with their portfolio of other applicants--competition you don't need.