Headhunters show their human face

But spare a thought for the grief they have to put up with. Consultants have a litany of complaints about absurd, unhelpful and sometimes offensive behaviour from job seekers and their clients, many of them more common now during the economic downturn.

Understanding these problems can help anyone making use of a recruitment firm get more from the experience. Simon Vaughan-Edwards, a director of headhunter Alexander Mann, cites a story that is all too common - the application from someone who is patently unqualified for the position. "We had an advertisement for an equity analyst. A response arrived from someone who had spent the past five years as a tennis coach in Nice. He had no relevant work experience whatsoever."

Gilbert Swann, a consultant at Sheffield Haworth, tells of a completely serious application for a corporate finance job that came from a shoe salesman. "They were Kurt Geiger shoes, quite up-market, but I'm afraid that didn't make any difference."

In a less extreme way, countless applicants make the same mistake. If an advertisement specifies experience in private equity, for example, consultants say there is no point in someone applying if their background is in mergers and acquisitions. It irritates the recruitment company, as it has to spend time dealing with them, and it suggests they are desperate for any job. This makes the company less likely to help them in future. It also diverts the applicant's focus away from job opportunities where they have a serious chance.

Another frustration is the failure of many job seekers to present themselves effectively. Their curriculum vitae may mark them out as ideal for a position; but if they come across badly when talking to a headhunter, the headhunter knows all too well that they will do the same when they meet the client.

Duncan MacKay, a consultant at Penna, says: "Many see themselves as the perfect candidate, able to get any job they want with any firm they want. They do not feel they have to put any effort into their job hunt."

Vaughan-Edwards says reticence can be just as bad as arrogance. "Rocket scientist types can be chronically unable to sell themselves to an employer. You have to explain to the client that it will take half an hour to warm up this applicant and hope they will have patience."

The moral for a job seeker is to take note of any steer on presentation given by headhunters. They are not doing it to annoy, but to make sure applicants get a job and they get a fee. A simple change of manner can make all the difference.

Clare Harris, a consultant at Longbridge, says time-wasters can be another problem. Some candidates pretend they want another job, so they can secure an offer that will help them push for a pay rise at their present company.

Exaggerations on CVs are also a problem. These are often subtle, as job seekers know that outright lies are likely to be detected. However, when it emerges in a final interview that a candidate did not really play as stellar a role in a deal as they have made out, the angry employer sometimes accuses the headhunter of putting forward a second-class applicant.

These days employers often cause more anguish for headhunters than job seekers do. The director of a global search firm, who declined to be named, says: "Some of it is deliberate. The banks are getting their own back in the downturn after years when they felt we overcharged them."

Another headhunter says some banks call in recruitment firms just to get hold of all their CVs, without any intention of hiring in the short term. One bank sent a batch of CVs received from one search firm to a rival headhunter, as a favour. Another e-mailed a poorly written pitch for work by one recruitment firm to consultants at other firms, as an exercise in humiliation.

Some consultants complain of straightforward bullying. At lunch in the City of London a few weeks ago, the managing director of one firm was interrupted in mid-dessert by a tirade of abuse on his mobile phone from a senior human resources executive at a US bank who wanted something done. The shouting was audible to other diners.

"He wouldn't have treated me like that in the past. Now he knows he can get away with it. If I shout back, he'll go to another headhunter," says the consultant.

Sometimes recruitment firms complain that banks do not pay them for work they have done. Such disputes are rarely publicised, though in 2001 Sheffield International sued Lehman Brothers for failing to pay 1.4m (e2m) in fees for the hire of senior employees. These included research analysts for which Sheffield International claimed 90,000 each.

It said at the time that the bank had paid some invoices only after being put under considerable pressure and had failed to pay others. The case is understood to have been settled after protracted negotiations, although both sides declined to comment.

A headhunter in continental Europe complains that another bank boasted it had placed a full-page advertisement for jobs in a national newspaper, when in fact it had no jobs on offer.

It was purely a marketing exercise. The headhunter says: "The bank knows I won't talk about it publicly, or I'll never work for it again. It thinks it can get away with anything it likes."