Herb Cannon

There is a well known consulting and publishing firm in our industry that has developed a policy of recruiting their client's employees in order to earn a placement fee.

I was the victim of this policy about six years ago when I was the Chief Operating Officer of an architectural firm. I hired this consulting firm from the back of the phone book to help with some Human Resource issues. Their services consisted of interviewing a random selection of our employees and preparing a report.

Unfortunately for our company we were overcharged for what was basically a transcript of selected comments from their interviews. They bound up these comments in a snappy binder with their logo, added some boiler plate comments of their own and called it a "Management Audit". The report revealed nothing that we didn't already know and offered no solutions of any value.

It soon became clear as to why why the report was of little value. Over the next month or so, many of the interviewed employees were contacted by this consulting company to be placed elsewhere. It seemed that they were more interested in identifying key employees that they could place with a competitor and earn a hefty commission.

Needless to say I was not thrilled with this unprofessional and unethical behavior and called the owner of this firm. I was astounded that he offered no apologies and was only willing to not recruit any of our employees as long as he had an "active assignment" with our firm. Wow what a deal! As long as I paid for their overpriced services of little value, they wouldn't recruit my employees!

At my seminars I have related this story to many of my attendees and guess what? They have had the exact same experience with this company.

I find it actually laughable that the founder of this company goes around accusing contingency based recruiters of being sleazy. He talks about it at seminars, industry events and in his newsletter. The problem is that communicates his message with such a passionate belief that people actually believe him.

I guess the word must have leaked out after many years of this practice and he came up with an innovative solution - he renamed the recruiting division of his company and moved it to the front of the phone book. Don't be fooled - the stench of unethical behavior by any other name is just as great.

It is certainly beyond my comprehension as to why anyone would do business with this company. However I am a realist and know that many companies are unaware of their unethical behavior. If you do nothing else, please get them to sign an agreement that they will never recruit, refer or earn a commission on any of your past, present or future employees.

Just to be clear, AEC Management Solutions, Inc. is not involved with recruiting in any way, shape, or form - we consider it to be a conflict of interest.

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