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Illegal recruiting practices and extortion of monies by Employment agencies impacts the unemployed

The recession has disenfranchised some of the most highly skilled workers from a diversity of skill sets. White and blue collar workers alike have been left to discern the market without any hope of when the market will improve. Most job seekers look  to a good employment record, luck and a prayer to make it through today’s economic downturn.

 

 Trying to source opportunities with industry recruiters has also been ineffective for some. The economy has allowed many unscrupulous headhunters to turn a blind eye on many qualified candidates, without even a thank you note, or a courtesy call to discuss the candidates background and other potential skills. It’s a use or be used industry, where most headhunters rarely see their jobs as one that requires ethical integrity, that impacts the mother trying to feed her children, a father trying to keep a roof over his head, or a college student simply trying to survive once out of college.

 

Many recruiters manage to manipulate the process by using candidate’s references to source leads for additional sales accounts, while promising interviews that never appear. Companies also use recruiters to lower salaries and take advantage of potential candidates desperate for work - by driving down the standard benefits, and payrates by as much as 25% or more. All the while  the recruiters and sales people are cutting into the candidates pay by increasing their commission with  the placement of the candidate. Recently a federal task force identified several recruiting agencies that were extorting money from overseas candidates while violating Government rules, and regulations. These are one of the many recruiting firm irregularities found by the federal government, however more needs to be done to protect the working class and backbone of this economy. Recruiting agencies and some big forturne 500 companies they represent have been using the recession to abuse the disadvantaged and unemployed by not providing fair and legal recruiting and hiring practices to source their candidates. 

 

Consequently, recruiting firms should be regulated and required to follow standard employment regulations to promote transparency and ensure unfair hiring practices are not being used to undermine the equal opportunity and fair pay act for potential permanent, and consultant candidate opportunities. Candidates should also ensure that they receive in writing the recruiting firms standard guidelines prior to submitting their resume,that should include a job description, their reference check policy, close interview policy for non-hires, salary range for the position if applicable. If all candidates for employment required these standard set of guidelines - integrity to the process would be afforded and the hiring practices would be  transparent under the protections of the law.

 

Companies which choose to use recruiting agencies should support these measures, since they only support the laws that they are guided by ,and ensure potential employees are treated fairly and ethically. It is also to their best interest, since it will provide the most exceptional, and highly qualified candidates to their resource pool.  Candidates should be aware that the number of charges for employment and recruitment bias is at an all time high. Recruiting agencies should be accountable to providing a diversity of candidates that meet the context of the position, and therefore should be in full compliance with federal and state laws requiring fair and equal employment to all potential job seekers. 

 

Unfortunately many recruiting firms do not use common sense when they are sourcing candidates, because agency staff are not always  briefed on the basic legalities of hiring. The legal issues are not always straight-forward and employment law changes sometimes comprise the integrity of the candidate screening, and hiring process. Additionally, the draw of the placement commission and power over the candidate process encourages ethical troubles. As rule of thumb agencies should focus on protecting both the applicant, and their client by ensuring that they are consistent in their practice, and that they are not trying to take advantage of the process for their own benefit. Most importantly federal, and state government sshould provide oversight of these agencies by auditing their records, and ensuring that each candidate is being fairly recruited without bias. Verification of the recruiting firms practices should be made through accurate and verifiable documentation, and clear consistent results. These steps need to be enacted into local, state and federal standards immediately since these agencies act as a permanent conduit to the employment process. Their accountability to fair employment and hiring practices have been ignored while they have used illegal standards in some cases to thwart the legitimacy of their candidate pool.