Look, I've been in recruitment for over twenty years, and one of the things that's driven me crazy about this industry is how some agencies treat candidates' CVs like they're handing out flyers at a shopping centre.
Your resume is your professional reputation on paper. It represents everything you've built in your career. Yet too many agencies are sending it out left, right and centre without your permission, without proper context, and often to clients they don't even have a real relationship with.
After two decades of watching this happen, it was one of the main reasons I wanted to start DMC Recruitment - to actually do things the right way.
Here's what happens at a lot of agencies: they get your CV, think "this could work for a few different roles," and start firing it off to multiple clients without asking you first. Maybe they tell you after the fact, maybe they don't.
The problem? Once your CV is submitted to a company, you're essentially blocked from approaching them through another channel for 6-12 months. If two agencies submit you for the same role, you look disorganised or desperate. If an agency misrepresents your salary expectations or experience, you're the one who cops it in the interview.
At DMC, we never send your CV anywhere without explicit permission for that specific role. We tell you the company name, walk you through the role, discuss the salary, and only move forward when you're comfortable. Your CV, your call.
This one really gets me. You have an initial chat with a recruiter, tell them your salary expectations, they say "yep, that aligns with what the client's looking for," and you go through two or three interviews. Then suddenly it's "oh, the client's budget is actually 20% lower than we thought" or "they've decided they want someone more senior at that rate."
Absolute waste of everyone's time. Yours, the client's, and it makes the recruiter look either incompetent or dishonest.
We have direct conversations with our clients about budgets before we even approach candidates. If your expectations are $150k and the role pays $120k, we need to sort that out at the beginning, not after you've invested hours in their process. If there's flexibility on either side, great—we'll explore it transparently. If there's not, we won't waste your time.
You know this call: "Hey, I've been briefed by [Company X] on an exciting opportunity that's perfect for your background." You ask for details and they send you a position description that's clearly been copied and pasted from a LinkedIn ad or scraped from a competitor's website.
That's not being briefed. That's seeing a job ad and hoping to wedge themselves into the process by submitting you cold.
When we say we've been briefed, we mean we have a formal engagement with that client. We've spoken to the hiring manager, we understand their culture and what they actually need (not just what the ad says), we know the interview process, and we have the credibility to position you properly.
If we're not formally engaged by the client, we're not submitting your CV. End of story.
I didn't leave a stable career to just replicate the same rubbish I'd seen for twenty years. DMC was built on some pretty straightforward principles:
Every single time. No surprises.
If there's a gap between what you want and what the client's offering, we address it upfront or we don't proceed.
Proper briefs, approved budgets, understood processes. We're not cold-calling your CV around town.
Our clients trust us because we don't flood them with irrelevant CVs. Our candidates trust us because we're straight with them about opportunities.
This isn't just about being a nice guy - it's actually better business. When clients know that every CV we send is genuinely considered and when candidates know we're not playing games with their careers, the relationships stick. Placements work out. People refer others to us.
Whether you work with us or another agency, here's what you're entitled to:
If your current recruiter can't give you that, you're well within your rights to find someone who will.
Your career's too important to be part of someone else's numbers game. Work with recruiters who'll treat your CV with the respect it deserves - because it represents a professional who deserves thoughtful, strategic career support, not just another submission to hit their daily target.