Can recruiters tell your current employer?

[decemberstars]

Looking for clarification - if someone sent their CV to a recruiter, is the recruiter legally allowed to contact and tell your current employer you're job hunting?

I wouldn't have thought it was unlawful but its obviously very bad form.

Does anyone know if it's against company policy at recruitment agencies - could they get in trouble with their boss if a complaint was made?

I would have thought it would be a data breach under GDPR.

What's happened?

I've known it happen, only once but the individual applied for a job via a recruiter who was a supplier to their employer.

They might, but unless you’ve got special marketable skills that set you apart and make you somebody that recruiters want to stay on the right side of, it’s unlikely that any recruiter would be penalised by their employer.

Recruiters make money by selling candidates to employers. That is pretty much all they care about. The relationships that are important to them are with people who can take their candidates: senior people at companies regularly recruiting staff, in other words.

I’m curious about why you think that a recruiter to whom you have sent your CV might seek to deliberately reveal to your employer that you are looking. Are you suggesting that a particular recruiter might do so spitefully, rather than by accident? They wouldn’t try to put your CV forward to your current employer, and would look quite stupid if they did, so I assume the former.

I’m curious whether that is the case with the OP, whose posts seem to suggest that it is not an accident. Otherwise why the questions about whether the recruiter has broken a law or will ‘get into trouble’ with his or her line manager?

No they should not disclose to your current company that you are looking for a job. Nor should they send your cv to any company without your permission.

The consultant who did that would get in trouble , how much trouble though depends if it was a genuine mistake or deliberately vindictive.