I hope it's the promotion you've been looking for

[venta]

Today at work, our nice admin lady popped out to tell me I had a phonecall. This hasn't happened before: personal calls would come in on my mobile, and I have no cause in my ordinary line of work to talk to customers. However, <Mystery Name> from <Mystery Company> was on the line and, in the absence of our usual support person, had asked for me by name.

After some flapping (who? and what were they going to ask? because I'm not meant to be customer facing, I've not yet learned the company song and might say all kinds of inappropriate things), I took the call in an empty office.

It turned out to be a headhunter, acting on a "personal referral". He wasn't hunting for anything in particular, it turned out, more representing a (to quote their own website) "pro-active recruitment service". No, I wasn't interested.

I asked who had referred me - I don't even know whether I believe such a person existed, he might well have just pulled my CV off an agency site, leftover from last summer's jobhunting. He said that people were "understandably apprehensive" and therefore referrals were in strictest confidence.

He asked if I had any friends or colleagues who might be interested in hearing from him and I said that I wasn't willing to give out other peoples' contact details without their permission, since some people do not like it. He expressed surprise, and said he'd virtually never met that attitude.

"So why are people 'understandably apprehensive'?" I didn't ask.

So now I'm curious: I take it as read that giving out people's details is liable to piss them off. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Poll #1136892]

On the plus side: most of this conversation took place when he rang me back at home this evening. I'm not looking to change jobs right now, but thought I'd hear him out in case he was going to offer me a part-time job with a telephone number salary. He rang me back. At the time he said he would. This already puts him ahead of any of the recruitment agencies I spoke to while I was actually jobhunting last June.

Comments

[lathany.livejournal.com]

In part my answer is down to who you are - I assume you'd only give my details out if you had some specific reason for recommending me to the headhunter.

[uitlander]

Headhunters often ask this, and usually offer you a small bung if you put them in touch with someone who then takes a job through them. When put in this position before I've said 'I'll ask and let you have details of anyone that's interested'. I wouldn't pass on anyone's details without their prior knowledge or consent.

I would be very unhappy if a headhunter called me on a landline at my workplace. That's bad form IMHO.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well I thought it was rather bad form. Especially since it wasn't a direct line, but had to come through the switchboard (and, as it happened, caused quite a fuss, though he wasn't to know that).

[reddragdiva]

It is bad form. But I'm suspecting the job market is in the toilet right now, so the recruiters are swarming twice as hard. Most of the calls I get are clearly coming from a call centre. Boiler-room recruiting, say anything you possibly can to get a call back, yay!

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Footnote to my answer: I'm assuming the hypothetical details you'd given out included my public email address. Giving out my private email address to a corporate entity would provoke considerable sulking!

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind personally, but I know a lot of people would, so my response would have been much the same as yours.

If I was feeling charitable I would have offered to pass the headhunters details on to anyone I knew who may have been interested.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

It would depend on whether you knew I was jobhunting... and which contact details you gave. I have quite a few of them, and some can be discarded at a whim.

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

I don't give out other people's details (if nothing else, that would reduce my chances of getting a recruitment bounty to come and work at my place), but have become resigned to folks doing it to me.

Can't complain too much, I've got my last two jobs from pimps cold-calling me.

[nisaba.livejournal.com]

If he understands that people are "apprehensive" about you knowing that they were the culprits in handing him your contact details, then how could he have "never" met the attitude of people not wanting to hand over their friends' details because it might piss them off?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well yes, that was rather my point! Couldn't be arsed to take it up with him, though.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I would charitably speculate that he meant people were apprehensive because they don't want their employer finding out that they give referrals to recruiters, rather than because they think the person they refer will mind. The recruiter probably doesn't know whether the referer works for the same company as the referent, who might shop him to the boss.

how could he have "never" met the attitude of people not wanting to hand over their friends' details

Discarding my above theory, perhaps because he generally only deals with other weasels, who are perfectly willing to do things which will piss off their friends, provided it can't be traced back.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

If you give out my details to someone who might do something useful with them (Like give me a nifty new job.) or who might have a decent reason to want them, I am not going to complain.

Having some dubious business cards printed, and leaving them in a Mayfair phone box I am less likely to be pleased about.

[pm215]

Recruitment weasel in weasel shocker!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Stoatally unheard of!

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

*ow*

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised so many respondents are cool with it if you know they're jobhunting. If you knew I was jobhunting I would want you to give me the recruiter's details, not to give him mine.

job with a telephone number salary

I once had one of those. Unfortunately it was 999.

[edling.livejournal.com]

I'm rather biased against recruitment people at the moment after some delightful bunch started calling our company and asking to speak to [random person's name] saying it was a family emergency and they couldn't get through on their mobile.
After a couple of weeks of this our receptionists started recognising them and put them through to us, and I had an entertaining time pretending to be someone else until they revealed who they were recruiting for (several companies, at least one of which we were working with and had a non-competition agreement with). We then took great delight in contacting the people they were allegedly recruiting for (unsurprisingly, the companies in question hadn't actually hired the recruiters, they were just doing it speculatively based on job ads on the web) and warning them that they probably want to give that agency a wide berth.
We're not sure, but we think you can force people to tell you where they got their details from under the Data Protection Act- you can certainly tell them to remove them.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I said "maybe I'd mind a bit", in that even in the worst case a recruiter is no different than any other spammer. Spam's annoying, but I know how to deal with it, it's not like it ruins my day.

In this case, where the recruiter has no information about at all other than that you're employable, I'd probably be more annoyed than if someone recommended me to a recruiter for a particular job or set of jobs. I don't want to just be permanently "on the books" of someone who has, in practice, little chance of figuring out what jobs I'd even apply for.

Personally I'd actually not mind any more if a recruiter was given my work phone number. Maybe it would offend my employer for a recruiter to call me at work, but they can hardly blame me for that since I've clearly never heard of this person. And if the recruiter doesn't have my mobile number, that's good news too. It strikes me as being a question of etiquette between recruiters and employers, rather than anything I have to worry about. I don't mind my employer knowing that in theory, under certain circumstances, I would take a better job. They'd have to be stupid not to think that, and a polite pretence need only go so far.

I wouldn't accept multiple calls at work from a recruiter, though - that would seem unreasonable. And I knew that the recruiter had got my name and work number from anything work-related, it would feel slightly like soliciting a new job through work activities, which I think is a bit rude.