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Hi all, here is the situation.. recruiting agency A contacted my friend about a potential job and she said OK, submit me to the role. A few days later, she finds out that her friend works for agency B, and that they are also working to fill the same role. She would rather go through Agency B for many other reasons aside from "her friend that works there". It's a more reputable firm that has done A LOT more work with the client itself, and offers better benefits.
Could my friend tell Agency A that she no longer wish to work with them and if they could retract the submittal?
I don't see why she couldn't call Company A and ask them to retract. They'd probably want to know why, and when, not if, they found out, there would at a minimum be a burned bridge, and possibly a lawsuit as well.
If I was in this position, I think I'd go through my friend to meet and talk to the hiring manager, explain why I wanted to get onboard via Company B, and see what they think. They could probably talk to Company A and tell them, "Look you aren't getting this referral for whatever reason. If you want to make a thing about it, you won't get any more business from us."
But this can be a very sticky, very problematic thing for the client company. Keep that in mind.
Yeah, but I just feel like the candidate submittals are all at-will, so she can retract anytime. I guess at this point, she wouldn't want to move forward with Agency A anymore due to further research, and she is suspecting the recruiter had lied about some things in order to submit her so she is uncomfortable. If that's the case, it's almost no point for Agency A to sweat over losing her because she no longer wish to work with them?
Hi all, here is the situation.. recruiting agency A contacted my friend about a potential job and she said OK, submit me to the role. A few days later, she finds out that her friend works for agency B, and that they are also working to fill the same role. She would rather go through Agency B for many other reasons aside from "her friend that works there". It's a more reputable firm that has done A LOT more work with the client itself, and offers better benefits.
Could my friend tell Agency A that she no longer wish to work with them and if they could retract the submittal?
Agencies will never retract a submittal to a client company, nor would they ever agree to do so.
Your friend's only hope is that Agency A has not yet submitted her/his name/resume to their client and they agree not to send his/her paper to their client.
If your friend tells Agency A s/he wants to go through another agency with the same job order, it would be quite natural for Agency A to either drop everything and make sure they get your friend's paper submitted or tell her/him it is too late since once you have been submitted by one agency, you would be causing a sh*t storm by having another agency do the same thing.
In fact, Agency B would not agree to submit your friend if they knew your friend had already agreed to have Agency A rep her/him to their same client.
It is more than likely s/he has already been submitted. If Agency A can't turn that submittal into an interview, there is not much you can do about it.
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If Agency A can't get your friend an interview and Agency B agrees to submit your friend (knowing or not knowing Agency A had already done so) to the same client and if Agency B successfully gets your friend an interview (even if her/his resume was already submitted by Agency A) and the client makes your friend an Offer and your friend accepts, then Agency B will be legally entitled to be paid, even if Agency A already submitted your friend prior to Agency B doing the same thing.
There are 'rules of the road' regarding the referral process and unfortunately, most employers won't observe them or recognize them and will simply reject a duplicate referral.
However, so you know, if Agency A submits to HR and Agency B submits to the Hiring Authority and the HA agrees to see your friend and subsequently makes your friend an offer and s/he accepts, Agency B is legally due a placement fee, regardless of what that company's HR may have to say about all this.
So, your friend can try using the system to her/his advantage:
If Agency A does not come up with an interview, after submitting your friend's resume, then your friend can ask that Agency B submit, suggesting that it would be best if they submit to someone else than the person/department to which Agency A submitted her/his resume.
If you are lucky and Agency A tells you they submitted to a HA or HR, then, after waiting to see if Agency A gets you an interview and does not seem to be successful at making this happen, then your friend would want Agency B to send her/his resume to whomever did not get the resume by Agency A.
This is a dangerous game and unfortunately, if HR gets wind of all this and does not see your friend as being so unique as to be worth fighting over, they will simply round file her/his application and threaten to cause trouble for their HA if that person chooses to continue the process.
There are too many maybe's here. Simply have your friend write a note to Agency A, letting them know your friend no longer wants them to be representing her/him and thereafter, that friend should deal exclusively with Agency B.
Your friend is not doing anything unethical but on the other hand, messing with the system can result in your friend's not getting interviewed by Agency A's/Agency B's client.
In the 'old days', it used to be that a knowledgeable HA/HR would suggest to both agencies they will hire their common candidate only if they both agree to split the fee between them. Once both agencies agree to receive half each of the fee, then HR/the HA would make the offer and if it is accepted, then each agency gets one half of the fee due. Unfortunately, nowadays, most employers won't agree to this and will simply drop the candidate in favor of interviewing other candidates with no baggage.
Paul...........
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Last edited by HeadhunterPaul; 03-20-2017 at 10:28 AM..
Reason: text edit
Yeah, but I just feel like the candidate submittals are all at-will, so she can retract anytime. I guess at this point, she wouldn't want to move forward with Agency A anymore due to further research, and she is suspecting the recruiter had lied about some things in order to submit her so she is uncomfortable. If that's the case, it's almost no point for Agency A to sweat over losing her because she no longer wish to work with them?
Your logic is that your friend controls the process.
This is not true. Once your friend agreed to be represented to Agency A, Agency A was free to submit your friend and unfortunately, even if for some reason they had not when your friend calls them to ask they not submit her/him, it is not at all likely the Agency would agree to not submit your friend and in most cases, would simply tell your friend it is 'too late' and the referral has already occurred.
So your 'at will' conversation does not exist. You are not an attorney and cannot re-invent the employment agency process.
The only thing a candidate can do is put it in writing they no longer want to be represented by an agency. There is no form or process for this and for good reason. It is not in the interest of an agency to agree not to be able to send an applicant's resume to clients, hoping to turn the referral into an interview which would hopefully resolve into an Offer.
And as for 'not wishing to work with them', well, if the Agency A calls your friend and says they have an interview pending for your friend, would your friend say 'no thank you'?? Not likely.
So as I said in my other post, once your friend submitted her/his resume to Agency A, s/he can only hope Agency A stops referring her/him once they get your friend's note, asking they drop her/him.
"...no point for Agency A to sweat over losing her..." is again a made up conversation by you/your friend since if your friend is a high value candidate, there is incentive for Agency A to continue to refer his/her resume, hoping to get a client who will agree to interview that person.
The 'no sweat' concept is in conflict with the fact employment agencies are in the business of earning placement fees. These can be anything from a few to several thousand dollars. Agencies do not simply walk away from this kind of money without a compelling reason to do so.
Have your friend wait to see if Agency A gets her/him the interview and if not, have her/him go to Agency B, explain everything s/he had already done with Agency A and see if Agency B wants to risk running into a duplicate referral situation.
Then let the chips fall where they may. And in the meantime, have your friend send that note to Agency A and then be sure s/he deals exclusively Agency B thereafter.
But, as I said, your friend should not be surprised if Agency A calls out of the blue, one day, several/a few weeks later with another interview opportunity at another company.
Once the doors have been opened, there is no guaranteed way to corral the horses.
I don't see why she couldn't call Company A and ask them to retract. They'd probably want to know why, and when, not if, they found out, there would at a minimum be a burned bridge, and possibly a lawsuit as well.
If I was in this position, I think I'd go through my friend to meet and talk to the hiring manager, explain why I wanted to get onboard via Company B, and see what they think. They could probably talk to Company A and tell them, "Look you aren't getting this referral for whatever reason. If you want to make a thing about it, you won't get any more business from us."
But this can be a very sticky, very problematic thing for the client company. Keep that in mind.
So you know, almost none of what you describe, above, exists.
A company will not call one agency, telling them they have to defer to another agency's subsequent referral.
This is a duplicate referral situation and as I described in this thread, usually causes the hiring company to discard the resume and move on to another candidate with no such baggage.
There are rules that govern which agency should be paid and under what conditions. These rules have to do with such things as the date of the referral and there is also a rule, for example, that says if one entity of the client company does not want to interview the person/make that person an offer but another entity of the same company does and a hire is effected, then a placement fee is due to the agency that made the successful arrangements with the entity that actually hired the candidate. Additionally, if one agency can't get the person interviewed but another agency does, that agency gets paid if the candidate is hired. Unfortunately, even though these rules apply, it will still be claimed that the agency who originally referred the candidate has priority. Under certain circumstances, this will be true and it is up to the lawyers to pick this situation apart to see who is actually due a placement fee. (Yes, some of these 'rules' contradict each other which is why lawyers get involved and agencies scream bloody murder when they feel they have been cheated of a placement fee. You are suggesting the 'friend' enter into this and see where the chips may fall. Not good advice.***)
(Unfortunately, as I described elsewhere here on this thread, many companies don't observe the rules and simply drop the candidate rather than recognize and work within the rules of referral.)
The employer cannot re-invent these rules and it will be that that causes a lawsuit by one or both agencies.
***I firmly believe that CHEMIST and HEMLOCK, who both post here, were ever to be approached by an agency as you describe, above, asking them to give favor to one agency over the other, they would first, throw the agency out of their office, tell their HR department to take that agency off their preferred vendor list and second, scrap that candidate. They would both be wondering what kind of Machiavellian BS the candidate is trying to pull on them and they would have none of it.
This scenario is dependent on whether or not Agency A had already referred the 'friend' and if Agency B wants to get involved, knowing in advance another agency had already submitted the same candidate.
I don't see why she couldn't call Company A and ask them to retract. They'd probably want to know why, and when, not if, they found out, there would at a minimum be a burned bridge, and possibly a lawsuit as well.
If I was in this position, I think I'd go through my friend to meet and talk to the hiring manager, explain why I wanted to get onboard via Company B, and see what they think. They could probably talk to Company A and tell them, "Look you aren't getting this referral for whatever reason. If you want to make a thing about it, you won't get any more business from us."
But this can be a very sticky, very problematic thing for the client company. Keep that in mind.
"If I was in this position, I think I'd go through my friend to meet and talk to the hiring manager, explain why I wanted to get onboard via Company B, and see what they think. They could probably talk to Company A and tell them, "Look you aren't getting this referral for whatever reason. If you want to make a thing about it, you won't get any more business from us." ..."
This is very unrealistic. As I said, no employer is going to tell an agency they are going to deliberately ignore the rules of referral and play favorites with one particular agency, even if lawfully the other agency was due the placement fee.
Placement fees can be as much as $10K or $15K. No agency is going to sit by and watch that disappear on them.
And suggesting the company would no longer be willing to do business with them is a fallacy since from then on, the agency would have good reason to no longer trust that company.
So she just found out that Agency A has lied to her about certain things about the role in order to jump on submitting her "first". In this case, she is going to withdraw herself from that Agency and going to try to work with Agency B.. tsk tsk
So she just found out that Agency A has lied to her about certain things about the role in order to jump on submitting her "first". In this case, she is going to withdraw herself from that Agency and going to try to work with Agency B.. tsk tsk
("This bizarre incident has given them their Yuri.")
That an agency lied is no surprise to anyone here......we hear about that sort of thing all the time.
What does not track though, is your saying Agency A lied to your friend "...in order to jump on submitting her "first"....."
I say this because an employment agency doesn't have to say anything, let alone lie, just to simply submit an applicant for a job they have with a hiring company.
Once someone has signed the agency's application, that agency can then get on the phone and submit that person's name, sending that person's resume at the same time or following the call.
So there is no need to 'jump' on anything....
Anyway, your friend can 'work with' Agency B but Agency B would be foolish to resubmit your friend- all it will do is either get them a bad name for duplicating a referral or for 'starting' an argument as to who is due a fee if your friend gets hired.
Well, she can "withdraw" herself but if Agency B calls and resubmits your friend's name and does not mention she had been submitted already, both agencies will be guilty of poor practices.
And if the hiring company accepts the referral from Agency B, well, as soon as Agency A hears your friend was hired, then it becomes Perry Mason time.
Who will win? Who will get paid?
The agency that first submitted your friend or the agency that got her an interview?
Stay tuned! Same Bat Channel, Same Bat Station!
So much drama with employment agencies. There is a reason I'm not in that business......LOL!
Paul..............
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Switching Agencies
