I had lunch with a lovely lawyer (yes, they do exist) a couple of weeks ago who specialises in recruitment law. After a while the subject turned to restrictive covenants and ‘data theft’. There is a little cycle of activity that can happen with recruiters.
Bob applies for a job with ACME Recruitment and in his interview is asked about the setup of the business he is in, the types of companies he works for the candidates he has placed.
He tells them all about his smashing client portfolio and implies he’ll be able to keep their loyalty and bring some of them across with him.
Bob works for ACME Recruitment for a couple of years and then decides to leave
When Bob joins Recruiters R Us he repeats the cycle.
However, ACME Recruitment are outraged and take him to court for stealing clients and candidates. They do this without seeing any irony whatsoever!
It seems to be accepted amongst a large percentage of recruiters that taking clients and candidates with you when you move job is just the way it is. The assumption is that many restrictive covenants are unreasonable and can be ignored and that reasonable ones can always be gotten around, that the definition of “soliciting clients” is very grey and that access to candidates (other than placed temps) can never be restricted.
I know there are some very ethical recruiters out there but many really don’t care about restrictive covenants until they are the ones losing their clients!
Incredibly hard to control but our motto is treat people as you would wish to be treated yourself and act professional at all times!
Spot on Jack!
One of the reasons we don’t recruit from the recruitment industry, I’m afraid. To have someone telling who they are bringing, just makes me think of who they will take when the time comes to move on. But yes, there are ethical recruiters and we need to make our voices heard.
Maxine, that’s certainly the advantage of bringing in recruiters from “industry” rather than from other recruitment firms. Perhaps you should always try to send them off “inhouse” – thus alleviating the problem at the other end too 🙂