Do you think its unethical to charge unemployed people for help ?

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on January 27, 2009 at 7:13pm

Man, you asked for it. Be ready to duck.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Probstein on January 27, 2009 at 7:21pm

==> :)
hi maureen....
did you see this new site ?
www.TopJobLeads.com

its up for discussion in Crain's : http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090125/SM...

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Panet on January 27, 2009 at 8:09pm

I've always been wary of sites that charge job seekers money. In my entire life (45 years so far), I have only heard one person say they honestly benefitted from making an additional payment.

It's not really a question of ethics. If you can really help someone get a job, then it might be worth it. Yes, I'd pay $1,000 for a $120,000 job. However, you'd have to do a lot of convincing to get the money from me, especially if money is tight due to unemployment.

The few people I know who have tried to make a living at this do so with face-to-face networking. Those people seem to last a year or two, then they disappear (back to corporate America).

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Permalink Reply by Rick Probstein on January 27, 2009 at 8:14pm

kevin, well stated...
thanks for the reply...
rick

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on January 27, 2009 at 9:13pm

Yes, I think it's unethical. Bad Karma too.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on January 27, 2009 at 9:26pm

I think charging candidates for the names of hiring managers is not good. Now granted - this is just my personal/biased opinion so please take it with a grain of salt. In my other reply I asked what you thought an out of work person would do with a contact name and number......my personal guess is NOT MUCH.

The idea of now turning the tables on candidates in this tumultuous time is bad business.

Yes it is a tight time in recruiting. It is for most in the field. But let's not give up our core values here........

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Permalink Reply by KarenM on January 28, 2009 at 8:43am

In Majority of States is it Illegal to charge an employee w/o being bonded. To know which state one must be Bonded to be able to Charge an applicant a fee, Not only does one have to be bonded in these states, but there are actual fee limits, guarantees, and other legal obligations that a firm must meet. One can contact ASA for the list.

When I last saw their list it was back in 2003 and even that list unfortunately based upon my own Personal experience and knowledge was not complete. There were a couple of states that had incomplete information.

The bonding fee varies from state to state, but due to interstate commerce and the fact that there has been some cracking down on this effect, probably a lot of really sour candidates I would suggest proceed with caution.

There have been quite a number of Closures of the companies who have been calling themselves Outplacement Counselors. A lot of them were closed because they were not following the regulations per state.

I have some limited information on this topic, and have done my own personal research on quite a number of the States - feel free to contact me for more information.

Karen M
acssearch@prodigy.net
twitter.com/hirecentrix

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Permalink Reply by Gino Conti on January 28, 2009 at 4:07pm

I can understand the thought process here, but I just don't think it is the right thing to do unemployed or not. I would never feel right taking money from a person just to pass them a name and contact information for a hiring manager, especially since there is no guarantee of a job and that information could very well end up being totally worthless.

Just because a candidate has the name and number for a manager as opposed to a gatekeeper does not necessarily help them. First of all, most job seekers are not professional salespeople or recruiters and might not know how to approach the manager in a manner consistent with getting anything other than a hang-up. Further, even though you say these leads are for companies that are actively hiring, how can you guarantee the manager they call will have a job open? Last, how would you like to be the manager on the receiving end of the call?

Speaking only for the people in my building, our managers are so busy they hardly have time to work with the recruiting team as it is. The priority for most managers is the work they do. They do not want to field calls from candidates, which is why companies have HR and recruiting departments - to screen out the people who don't fit our needs. They certainly don't have the time to field what essentially are cold calls directly from candidates! In fact, I don't even like giving manager contact info to candidates who have come in for a first interview because I don't want them being bothered for feedback.

Regardless of the fact that I find it unethical to charge somebody for a lead that you can't guarantee will actually result in a job, I would be incredibly perturbed to be on the receiving end of those calls.

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Permalink Reply by Debbie Goodin on January 28, 2009 at 6:46pm

I can't stand these companies that prey on the unemployed. How do they sleep at night? They are high pressure sales people that give conscientious recruiters a bad rap. These companies aren't allowed to charge a candidate to place them in a job and are very careful in wording what they will or will not do for the candidate. The candidate is so desperate emotionally they think this is the final straw and will charge the fee when they don't have the money. Unethical is the best way to describe these companies. They don't have any more sources than the person coming in the door. They are crooks. Read my lips....crooks. A good outplacement agency is hired by the company that let the person go to have peace of mind that they at least want to help them. The bad ones prey on the unemployed...can you tell this starts my blood boiling?

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Permalink Reply by Samson on January 28, 2009 at 8:45pm

Yep, totally unethical. No other way to slice it.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Panet on January 29, 2009 at 4:03am

Now, just out of curiosity, if you can’t help the people who are contacting you because it is not your specialty, where do you tell them to go?

I’ll always accept a resume for the data base and try to keep my eyes and ears open. However, lately, I’ve been sending people to www.Indeed.com because it pulls job postings from multiple sites, from the larger job boards to many smaller more obscure sites. I’ve never seen anything like it. Does anyone know of similar or better sites? Where do you tell people to go (in a kind and positive direction)?

-Kevin

P.S. I agree that it is loathsome to prey upon those without jobs. I must have received a dozen of those vulture calls after I was laid off in '06 when the company shut down. Most of them had the nerve in their initial v-mails to sound like legitimate recruiters with positions in hand.

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Permalink Reply by Gerry Crispin on January 29, 2009 at 11:17am

No. Only if the promise doesn't match the result. Unfortunately a large segment of those charging unemployed folks are ripping them off by making promses that are unrealistic.

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