Avoiding the Recruiter by Rob Ridout

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Avoiding the Recruiter  
by Rob Ridout


You finally come across a role that looks like the exact fit. You scroll down to the bottom of the page and there it is the recruiter’s email address. Your heart sinks.

Most candidates at this point either don’t apply or apply and give up on ever getting a response. There is, however, another option to giving up on the recruiter. I have never met a candidate who thought about getting around the recruiter and going straight to the hiring company. 

For an article on becoming a more proactive job seeker follow this link. 

So lets set the scene. Companies do not want to pay recruitment fees! No debate, it’s a grudge purchase. It would be astonishing to me that any line manager or HR manager decline a candidate on the basis that they avoided the recruiter.
Now, this is important, the closer you get to the actual hiring manager with your CV the better chance you have of getting into an interview. It's all about face time.  
There is also no recruitment or HR police running around throwing people in recruitment jail for breaking the communication rules. Actually, the irony is that recruiters use all sorts of tricks to get jobs directly from line managers by avoiding the HR Manager, sounds confusing but its the same as the candidate avoiding the recruiter.

One of the major drawbacks of the recruiter specification is lack of detail. Recruiters almost never use the full original specification. The reason for this is very simple. Recruiters do not want you to know who they are recruiting for otherwise you will in all likelihood go straight to the client and the recruiter will lose a fee. This is a massive drawback for the candidate as you never quite know what you are applying for. So getting the original specification from the client is an enormous advantage to the candidate. 

But first, let's examine how companies use recruiters to advertise roles. This perspective will provide you with immediate insight into why you should try to avoid the recruiter. 

Most companies will use recruiters (remember grudge purchase) because they either don’t have the time to recruit themselves and the people they are trying to find is just too hard to find. The recruiter, therefore, gets the specification and essentially handles this specification as an extension of the companies recruiter. Now here is the thing to understand - the recruiter does not have exclusivity (even if they say they do) on the job. Therefore you will not get a red card for sending your CV directly to the client. The key is to find out who the client is and then engage.  

So here show its done; 

  • Often the recruiter accidentally leaves the client name in the specification - check!


  • Look for words in the specification that are unique to the company. Then use these words in google to find the company. 


  • Look for company value statements that are left in the job spec that are unique to a company. You can google this sentence to find the company.


  • Look for the job title on google, especially if the title is unique and see if you can pick up the title on a google search. 


  • Copy and paste the entire job spec into a google search to see if you find the job on the web. 


  • Often the job specification will be found on LinkedIn as companies often advertise their job specifications on LinkedIn first. 


  • Companies often lose track of all the recruiters and job portals they advertise their jobs on and especially with the harder roles. This is to your advantage as if you spend some time on the web especially sites such as indeed you may just get lucky. 


  • Look for the roles on the job portals such as career junction and careers24. 


For most candidates working with the recruiter is inevitable. Of course, not all recruiters will stall your employment process in a matter of fact some recruiters will enhance your process to a point where it will be life-changing experience These are the recruiters that must be part of your ongoing recruitment plan. Good luck trying this approach and remember whats the worst that can happen. 

Rob assists his clients as a career coach and CV/Resume writer. His business CVforLife based in Johannesburg and with his team of professional writers and designers assist clients with bespoke solutions.#CareerCoach#CVwriter#ExecutiveCVwriter#Resumewriter#LinkedInwriter

CVforLife CV Writer CV Writers Rob Ridout Resume Writer
















Location: South Africa

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