Why Won’t a Recruiter Tell Me Who Their Client Is? | Job Search Radio

They want to meet with me to discuss the job and won’t tell me who their client is.

On this show, I discuss 3 reasons why recruiters won’t tell you the client this.

recruiter-sticking-tongue-out

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Here’s a question I received:

“What does it mean when a recruiter won’t tell me the name of the company that they are representing?”

“They want to meet with me 1st before talking in detail about the job.”

I’m not going to talk about ethics here because, even though you may think it is unethical, it is actually a non-issue.  Here are the issues from a recruiters perspective:

1.  You may attempt to circumvent them before you have a chance to talk with them about the job.  By circumventing, you take the information you’ve been given and apply directly to the firm. They are out $20,000, $25,000 $30,000 $50,000, $75,000 $100,000 in fees, all because, frankly, there are some people out there (I’m not saying you) who are swine.  Who are awful contemptible people, you think it is smart to steal things from others and cheat them out of what they rightly deserve.

2.  Another issue is control.  The desire to meet with you is indicative of control.  They want to control the situation. They are between you and your client.  They want to see you 1st and assess you 1st before revealing anything further.  That is 1/2 step down from. “I won’t tell you anything because I’m afraid you will steal it from me.”  They want to meet with you and discuss it in person. After they have a chance to evaluate you.

3.  Another thing is, what’s in it for them?  Perhaps their client has a brand that is not a positive and they can speak with you in person excite you about the job and then reveal it is this firm that has a pretty bad reputation in the market area, but has a unique opportunity.

Those are a few reasons why recruiters do it.  There are many more but these are going to be the top 3 reasons why recruiters don’t reveal things.

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Do you think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.
The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

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