A devil of a job: Inside the wild west of recruitment

Fake job ads, scant vetting, urgent demands for large sums of cash: recruiting, once a crucial candidate-finder, has become a rush to funnel workers into a job at any cost — and employers are paying the price. “I always refer to it as a cowboy industry,” one former recruiter says. “I don’t necessarily think there was anything we did that would be illegal, but there was a lot that to many would be immoral. We did everything we could to bend the rules.”

Between a challenging jobs market and the advent of AI hiring tools, agents appear to be resorting to more aggressive means than ever. From business owners to job candidates themselves, many feel that this current landscape is licensing bad behaviour as recruiters battle to justify their existence.

Recruiters typically charge 15-25 per cent of a candidate’s first-year annual salary, along with VAT — a fee that easily runs into the tens of thousands for many middle-ranking white collar jobs. Those within the industry tell me that they have seen bad actors post fake job ads to make themselves seem in demand; inflate salaries during the hiring process to accrue more candidates — only to slash them at the 11th hour — and encourage people to “take a step back in their career to step forward”, aka take a pay cut in order to ensure the recruiter’s pockets remain lined.

At one agency, a candidate was put forward for a role that required a driving licence — even though theirs had expired

At one agency, a candidate was put forward for a role that required a driving licence — even though theirs had expired; this same agency undertook multiple aggressive chases for fees, despite the workers they offered up having “failed to meet numerous requirements, lacked the necessary documentation, and was not even subjected to the most basic checks by the recruiter”.

This same cycle — put someone unsuitable forward while assuring the client verbally they are an excellent fit; demand payment despite concerns having been immediately raised about their suitability, then deny any responsibility on the basis that “informal discussions” do not overwrite contractual agreements — happened repeatedly. On at least one occasion, the individual sent to replace the first unqualified hire was yet worse than the one before.

The Standard has learned that multiple agencies provide no supporting documents for a candidate when they are put forward and use the fact they have sent on a CV as “proof” that they have done their jobs and thus must be paid — despite knowing those they are suggesting do not meet the necessary requirements.

According to one former user of an agency with a markedly poor Glassdoor rating, “their main interest is their fee and covering their backside”. As a result, reference-checking is “hopelessly inaccurate” — in one case, meaning that debt collection letters for one hire amassed at their employer’s door. Another disclosed that legal action was a necessary recourse in order to recoup the substantial agency costs they had paid out.

Stressful people waiting for job interview.