A recent and concerning trend has started to crop up in within legal support recruitment.

One frustration is the short cut a number of legal support agencies are currently taking. With increasing regularity, more than one agency in the legal support market is regularly submitting candidates without gaining their permission prior to their resume being sent to the hiring manager. Of these, several candidates have applied for a role only on a job board and have not had any or at the very least, minimal communication with that agency. This could lead to a serious breach of confidentiality, which of course, could have serious repercussions for a job seeker in the relatively tightknit Sydney legal market.

An internal recruiter recently asked me, “well doesn’t everyone do that? The legal support market is busy and fast moving” Absolutely not! people2people takes time to interview every candidate and will always gain permission to represent them. This is non-negotiable, otherwise how can we work integrity with our clients and candidates?

Candidates are frustrated with this poor practice and happy to back this up by email. Hiring Managers are fed up of becoming caught up in extensive and time consuming fee discussions.

How can we stop this unprofessional and lazy practice? I would strongly suggest that hiring managers ask job seekers for feedback on their agency’s performance and how they were briefed on the firm and role. Candidates ask about how the agency works – are you comfortable with how they operate? Let’s be passionate about maintaining and improving industry standards. The Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (RCSA) has a very clear code for professional conduct and clearly states that “a member should not present a workseeker unless they have clear permission to represent them to a Client”.

This seems to be such common sense but clearly in many cases this is not happening. Don’t use an agency that takes these short cuts!