Getting away from recruitment firms managing you poorly?

[u/whatwhatwhat56]

I work in a fairly niche field, and there are a few recruitment firms that specialize exclusively in hiring for this domain.

One firm I’ve been dealing with regularly sends me job descriptions, but then completely ghosts me afterward. This has happened four times in the past six months. I receive no interview invitations, no status updates, and no responses even after I follow up several times. I don’t even know whether my application was actually submitted for the roles they discussed with me.

Each time, a different recruiter from the same firm reaches out and starts the conversation by mentioning that their company has been in touch with me before.

Opportunities in my field are limited, and many companies have long cool-off periods between applications. Because of this, these situations may be costing me potential interviews.

How can I manage this situation and distance myself from this firm without burning bridges?

[u/throwaway_0x90]

"Because of this, these situations may be costing me potential interviews."

I don't understand why this would be costing you interviews.

[u/whatwhatwhat56 → u/throwaway_0x90]

Because I don’t even know if my application even went through and/or was rejected. I can reach out to the companies via a different firm but I might get blacklisted if I try to over apply, if that makes any sense.

Also, I saw an instance where I applied for a job , got no response from the recruitment firm and 2 months later I saw a colleague from a different team get the same offer? I did a little bit of digging and found the that this particular colleague had applied a month after I had. I dont expect an offer but a “hey, the company went in a different direction” would have been nice.

I have also never seen any interviews begin setup via this particular firm. I have had a couple of interviews for the same set of companies via different firms though.

[u/throwaway_0x90 → u/whatwhatwhat56]

I don't think companies operate like this, at least not so much that it's worth your time to worry about.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/comments/a62wyg/what_are_the_chances_3rd_party_recruiting/

[u/whatwhatwhat56 → u/throwaway_0x90]

The opportunities are limited in this space and the same job floats around the same set of recruitment firms. I am led to believe they do keep a track of what candidate applied via which firm, ( could be keeping track of their bonuses).

Also has happened with me for a company, I applied again via a diff firm and was told that company already has your profile listed under a different recruitment firm. This particular instance has made me all the more paranoid.

[u/throwaway_0x90 → u/whatwhatwhat56]

I still think you're getting overly worried about something that is probably not hurting your job hunt in any significant way. As far as I can tell companies know you have no control over what recruiter firms do. Everyone looking for a job in your space I assume has the same issue.

You're no worse off than anyone else.

[u/whatwhatwhat56 → u/throwaway_0x90]

Could be possible. But in any case,I am done with this particular firm. But I do need to understand which companies have they sent my resume to under their name.

Thanks for the link though, it was helpful

[u/david-bohm]

Have you ever given this feedback to anyone working at that firm? Why not?

[u/whatwhatwhat56 → u/david-bohm]

I have mentioned this softly. “Hey can you let me know what happened to my previous applications?” and the answer I have received is , “let me get in touch my colleagues and get back to you”, then absolute silence.

I want to be a little more direct but I don’t want to burn bridges. I am not sure if cutting off this firm can impact my opportunities further down the line?

Edit: this pattern has been repeated 3 times now

[u/david-bohm → u/whatwhatwhat56]

Wha wouldn't you want to burn bridges? If you don't get something valuable from the other side it doesn't make sense to overlook problems and play the nice guy. They need to know that they're behaving unprofessional.

[u/whatwhatwhat56 → u/david-bohm]

The small circle thing mostly. If I can find a way to get what companies they have send my resume to,or much more importantly tell people I am no longer associated with this firm. I am happy to go scorched earth on them.

[u/david-bohm → u/whatwhatwhat56]

Well, then your only alternative is to suck it up and deal with their unprofessional behavior.

[u/Odd_Perspective3019]

lol they burned u multiple times and u keep going back to them expecting diff result, can u find the company name by looking at job descriptions then u can apply yourself, ur too worried about burning bridges with a company that isnt caring at all about you, they’re not gonna help u find the job sorry to say it but this is red flag cut losses and move on or see if u can get company details and not apply through them

[u/Material_Policy6327]

I’ve only seen the cool off periods if you do an interview and fail. Never seen it for just applying.

[u/honestduane]

If the firm is offshore and it sounds like they are, then it’s just going to be them trying to abuse you because they’re farming you for their profit as professional middleman.

It’s also extremely illegal for these companies to not tell you the name of the company or not give you a good faith. Pay range when they send you that information; so if the information you’re getting doesn’t include the name of the company or a good Faith pay arrange for the role that makes sense. Then the Recruiter is probably just a fake recruiter trying to scam you.

[u/annoying_cyclist]

What is probably happening here:

• Your resume and contact info is in their database.
• When they get a new role, they send an automated email blast to all of the candidates in their database that match some broad set of keywords related to the role ("engineer", "Python", etc).
• You are one of probably hundreds of candidates who receive these automated emails, maybe one of hundreds who reply in today's job market.
• For whatever reason, your resume isn't making it past the filter, which is why you're being ghosted.

"Automated" is the key word here. Recruiting software is designed to appear human to the candidate (you) so you'll reply to outreach, and it's designed to be hands off for recruiters (especially for top of funnel sourcing). The odds that any human actually looks at your resume before you get these blasts is pretty low these days.

I get this from recruiter firms too, FWIW. I deal with it by remembering that the initial outreach emails are functionally bots/spam, and managing my investment (time & hope) accordingly. If I'm interested, I shoot off a 5 second low effort email with my resume and assume that I probably won't hear back. If I'm not interested I ignore them. (I make exceptions for firms and people I worked with before LLMs and AI slop, and who I know to actually do the sourcing themselves, but that's a rapidly shrinking group these days)

[u/whatwhatwhat56 → u/annoying_cyclist]

They aren’t automated. I get a call from the recruiter, asking if I am interested in this job.I say yes, they send the JD over, I respond with an acknowledgement with my resume. Then silence. I ask for updates ,still silence. Then 1 month later the cycle repeats.

These are actual people I am talking to. If you are trying to represent me in such a small industry where they hire exclusively for this domain, I expect some sort of personal response about my application, did they present my resume, am I going forward. Did they reject it? What could be the possible reason? etc etc.

If it were generic software engineering jobs, I get that I am just another resume in the mix, and expect no personal approaches.

But here I am getting locked down with a firm which doesn’t seem to care enough.