Take charge of your job hunt and how you work with staffing firm recruiters. Here's a list of your Bill of Rights.

1. JOB SEEKER BILL OF RIGHTS
Most recruiters love their job and are in this line of work because they like to help people. But some recruiters or
staffing firms have gotten a bad reputation. This usually happens because a job seeker’s expectations of what they
will do for them (i.e., find them a job), and the reality of what they can actually do, are not understood.
I’ll admit there are some recruiters who are, well, a tad bit too eager to make a job placement, and they do things
that give other recruiters a black eye. You have rights when you deal with recruiters or staffing firms! Insist on them.
• You have the right to be treated respectfully and courteously. If you aren’t, don’t work with that recruiter.
• You have the right to insist that recruiters never send your resume to a company without your permission. After
all, it might be a company you were fired from, or a company you would never want to work for, or a company
where an employee knows your current boss and tells her you’re looking for a new job!
• If a recruiter or staffing firm who you’ve never talked to calls you and says their client wants to interview or hire
you, be wary! They probably pulled your resume from an online site and sent it around to their clients without
your permission. Don’t work with someone who does this.
• You have the right to know where you stand in comparison to other people with backgrounds similar to yours –
they are the people you’re competing against. Just ask your recruiter how you stack up.
• You have the right to know that if a recruiter calls you about a job, and you’ve already interviewed with that
company or applied there any time in the past year, the recruiter will not be able to submit for the job opening,
even if you’re the perfect candidate. Why? Companies feel they ‘own’ the candidates in their database or who’ve
they EVER interviewed, and won’t pay a recruiter a fee for having rediscovered you.
• You have the right to know that while creative staffing firms would love to be able to work with new graduates or
entry-level workers, they are rarely asked to recruit them for their clients.
• You have the right to negotiate any contract or agreement the staffing firm asks you to sign – and be sure to read
such documents carefully.
• You have the right to register with as many other staffing agencies as you want. If you do, then just remember
that it’s the first recruiter to call or email you about a job opening who gets to present you to that company. This is
important to know since a company may have as many as 10 staffing firms all recruiting people for the same job,
and so you may be contacted by several different recruiters. To make sure that multiple recruiters don't try to
submit your resume to the same job/company, you have the right to know the name of the company when a
recruiter calls you about an opening. You should insist on knowing that.
• You have the right to say ‘no thanks’ when they call you about a job, without them feeling slighted or making you
feel bad.
• You have the right to know that for contract jobs, recruiters mark-up the hourly rate they pay you anywhere from
50 to 70% and that is what their client pays them. The difference in the pay and bill rate is what they use to pay
their staff, rent, utilities and other bills, and hopefully make some profit and stay in business.
• You have the right to know that if a recruiter places you in a full-time job, the hiring company pays the recruiter a
fee that is a percentage of your salary, usually from 15 to 25%.
• Once you’ve started working a contract job through a staffing firm, you have the right to change your mind and
quit, as long as you give the staffing firm two weeks’ notice just as you would give to any other employer.
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