Baited and switched during interview: WTF?

[tuq]

cbloom,

You are a pretty jaded dude about all of this. I'm not saying it's unwarranted, but I am saying it's unproductive.

A lot of chop shop recruiting firms hire people for near-minimum wage and "hope" they work out. As you might suspect, the failure rate is incredibly high, probably >95%, since there are very few barriers to someone getting hired in that position, but very real barriers to them succeeding. The house takes a large chunk of their commission, and if they don't work out there is always someone else to fill that seat.

However, there is another side of the equation which keeps recruiters in check: hiring managers count on recruiters to identify QUALIFIED people. If they're repeatedly missing the mark and presenting them over/underqualified talent then the relationship will sour and they will be effectively fired. If a candidate of mine gets turned away, my standard response is "thanks, can you tell me why he/she wasn't a fit so we don't make that mistake in the future?" Wasting a client's time = wasting our time.