Agencies, recruitment consultants

[Polecat03]

I've just had to ask one to stop harassing me, essentially.

Really horrible experience and has put me off applying for jobs through agencies - why do they have to be like this?

I understand they're motivated by their own interests and presumably commissions, but good grief do they have to be so pushy?

Numerous phone calls per day (from different numbers when I failed to answer the first time).

The bloke would speak so fast he sounded breathless, it was all so sales-y.

Why did he keep pushing for where else I'd applied?
Many times, asking to know all the other jobs I'd applied to, specifically.

Just so off putting and obnoxious.

They are sales people. They are largely commission based and under a lot of pressure. Many of them are relatively inexperienced because it’s not too hard to get a Recruiter job with a lot of agencies because they will take on anyone they think can sell and just sack them when they don’t.
Some are great and very professional and those are the ones who tend to be successful long term and who last.
People really need to realise it’s a hard core Sales role - I have been in sales and trained sales people for over 25 years and I would never touch it so while some recruiters are better than others they aren’t working for the candidates they are working for their employer/themselves.

I totally get that, do you know why they ask where you've applied though?

It felt really intrusive to have that demanded of me, and when I answered vaguely (oh a few admin roles here and there), it was "which company? Where? How are you spelling that?"

I too have worked sales, I understand the pressure - wouldn't go near recruitment with a barge pole.

They can be horrendous!
We were looking for a temp cover for my maternity leave and the calls were coming in everyday! The calibre of CVs they sent over wasn't great at all.
They were so demanding, eventually we would answer and tell them the manager is busy, they would then email and then call again.
it's really off putting.

Sorry you’ve had a bad experience. He’s asking that so he can get leads. Essentially he will contact who you have mentioned to try and win the business to work the role by putting other candidates in front of them. They are not all bad, you could maybe try signing up with a smaller agency. Good ones will want to meet you (even virtually) they will probably still try and get the odd lead off of you but will back off if you decline to divulge that info. Good luck with your job search

It’s probably because they want to contact that company to offer their services. They will say they have an ideal candidate- maybe you, maybe a made up one and offer to fill the role.
They may also ask you to agree to let them represent you and try and claim the commission even if you have already applied

They ask where you are applying for jobs because they will then approach that company themselves to tell them that they have so many amazing candidates for the job they have going.. trying to gain themselves even more commission... by putting forward their candidates for the job you just applied for ..

They ask about what you've applied for so they can try and get their own candidates in there and earn a commission.
They sometimes put out 'ghost jobs' just to get people interested, with the sole aim of finding out where they work so they can backfill their role, and where they're applying so they can also put forward CV's. It's a hard sell world.