When looking for work, it’s understandable that you want to make sure your resume is getting in front of the right people and you’re not missing out on any good opportunities. However, when working with a recruiting firm, it’s also important to know to whom your resume is going, as well as for what position you’re applying and/or being considered.
Too often, when I ask someone if they’ve already been submitted to my client for an opportunity, they don’t know. They tell me that the firm with which they’re working will not tell them the name of the hospital to which they’re sending their résumé, or that they simply can’t remember if their résumé was submitted to that particular hospital.
The problem with this is twofold: First, if you don’t know where your résumé has been submitted, you cannot prevent it from being sent to the same organization multiple times. When a hiring manager receives the same résumé from multiple firms, the candidate may be perceived as desperate or, at the very least, disorganized. The hiring manager will assume this résumé is being sent anywhere for anything and may no longer see this candidate as a specialist, but merely as someone who’s actively looking for the next project, whatever that may be.
The second issue with not knowing where your résumé has been submitted is that it may create a problem for the recruiting firm with which you’re working. The firm that submits a résumé a second or third time may appear as disorganized and unprofessional as a candidate who does the same. Oftentimes, an organization works with a recruiting firm to hire someone they feel they can’t get on their own. The firm’s value is based primarily on the people they know and the relationships they’ve fostered. If a firm submits a résumé that the hiring manager received from someone else the previous day, then they loses all credibility.
As a result of the latter, a staffing firm may choose not to work with someone who has no idea where their résumé has already been sent. Or they may work with them, but not submit them for a great opportunity because the candidate is unsure if they’ve already been presented there. In both cases, the individual is missing out on potential work.
In my opinion, there’s no reason why a firm should not tell you where they’re sending your résumé and for what position. This is information you would need to know on the front end to determine if this is an opportunity in which you’re interested. Then again, if a firm doesn’t trust you enough to tell you where they’re submitting your résumé, can you really trust them?
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