Skip to main content

A Member of the Bottom Feeding Fraternity of the Awful Recruitment Industry - Compliments from a Candidate


We recently took a registration from a new candidate who indicated that he was looking for work in a high street law firm covering general practice fields. As it happens, we occasionally recruit on behalf of an offshore law firm recruiting general practice solicitors and we included the candidate in a mailout in case of interest. He initially sent back a message "please remove me from your database so I stop getting this utter nonsense". We emailed back to clarify that we had only sent him one email and he replied "I applied for specific positions about which I have heard nothing. Instead I get some utter guff about [an offshore law firm]. I have NO relevant skills for that post whatsoever, as any even slightly completed (sic) agency would immediately appreciate. In spamming all those whose applications you have completely ignored, you have simply identified yourselves and (sic) yet another c.v. harvesting member of the bottom feeding fraternity of the awful recruitment industry. I would have more chance of flying to the moon for a job than you have of ever finding me one."
We really enjoyed this email - it reminds me of the immortal Monty Python insult "your mother is a hamster and your father smells of elderberries". We considered emailing this back to the candidate but then decided it was unprofessional. However we did look up the definition of "bottom feeder" in the Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com).
Bottom Feeder equates to "leech", or in other words a total lack of responsibility to provide for oneself. Relies heavily upon friends, neighbors or anyone really for sustenance. a slacker through and through.
There is an example of the terminology, which illustrates it well:
"Bart wakes up and thinks to himself, "dang, I don't have any money still" so he leaves his wallet at home on purpose and later says to his friends, "Whoops, I forgot my wallet today again, could you please buy my lunch again?" what a bottom feeder." (Urban Dictionary).
I would probably agree with the candidate, he does have more chance of flying to the moon than us getting him a job..


Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals. Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.
Labels:
Location: London, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Overpaid Charity CEOs - top 40 of high paid employees - updated 2022

In 2014, we wrote an article about high pay in the charity sector after the Charity Commission started to require all charities to disclose pay of senior executives earning more than £60,000.    We have updated the list for 2022, with a comparison chart so you can see the difference between 2014 and 2022. We have included the source of the most recent salary levels and the year refers to the accounts year we extracted the salary information from.   2022 Top 40 Chart of High Paying Charities Charity Highest salary Year Consumers’ Association £390k-£400k 2020 MSI Reproductive Choices £240k-£250k 2020 Save the Children International £285k-£300k 2020 Cancer Research UK £240k-£250k 2020 The British Red Cross Society £170k-£180k 2020 Age UK £180k-£190k 202...
25 comments
Read more

Is it possible to work as a Paralegal when you are a Qualified Solicitor

  This question comes up all the time and is quite a common query that we imagine the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) are getting better at answering due to the sheer number of people asking the question. Many years ago the advice seemed a bit varied at times, but we have recently had a candidate who wanted to work in a locum role in the short term and waiting to go back on the Roll and get a practising certificate after some time spent outside the profession. She has been given fairly concise advice on whether she could work as a paralegal whilst waiting to be readmitted which we are repeating here. This article is written as a discussion point and is not intended to be advice in any shape or form. For full advice on your particular set of circumstances please speak to the SRA (or whoever else you like, but please do not depend on the information in this article!). The SRA have a simple online test to determine if you need a practising certificate and th...
Post a Comment
Read more

What questions are asked in an Investors in People Assessment?

Recently Ten Percent Legal Recruitment was assessed for the investor in people accreditation. We worked very hard on this and spent some time as a company ensuring that all our procedures and policies were in place and that our staff were aware of the various requirements of the Investor in People process. We wondered how the assessment would go and also what the questions were likely to be during the interviews. The assessor was very friendly and explained from the outset what she was wanting to do and we were already aware that we would have thirty minute interviews with the directors and managers and twenty minute interviews with the staff. We also had the Investors in People programme so we were able to look and see what the actual questions would be based on, but there was nowhere to indicate what questions would be asked in the investor in people assessments. So if this helps anyone else, here are the questions we were asked in our investors in people accreditation: The assessor ...
Read more