I often have the impression that recruiters approach me not because of they have a position for me but because of they want to extract info on my current situation (on behalf of third parties).
In worst case scenario I have often the impression that recruiters are reaching me (highly likely contracted by current employer, or maybe they are just close friends) and see if I react to their outreach. Sometimes I answer and have the interview but the job interviews seem very weird and it is evident that they have no real position but are just fishing for info on behalf of my employer (basically proving them that I am job hunting or not).
Are this practice common in the recruitement word and if so are such practices illegal? what are the consequences for the "bad" recruiter if cought red handed doing something like this?
I don't think this is a common practice in the recruitment world or at least I haven't heard of anything like this before.
IMHO I don't think the reason why they reach you out is any of the things you stated, but because that's what they do. They reach people.
There are recruiters that work for recruiting companies and have the sole purpose of finding suitable candidates for specific jobs, and they offer them to companies. They reach out to many of the needed profiles and assemble and maintain a pipeline of candidates. They get a bonus if they manage to refer a good candidate to a client's company.
Once you get into their pipeline, if they find you suitable for a specific job, they'll arrange a job interview with a company's staff. They'll even provide you with tips and tricks on how to pass the interview and get the job. That's how they get a bonus, and you get a job.
Recruiters are salespeople. Their job is to contact customers. You, the candidate, are NOT their customer. - you are what they are selling. They will phone you to get leads. Your boss's name, any projects going on that they can push candidates to.
Don’t agree to the interview with the recruiter unless they provide the job details they are recruiting for. I would avoid the „let’s get in touch about your current situation“ calls.
I've got to admit, this makes sense. Though I'm not sure if they only focus on quantity, as a few bad referrals might hurt their reputation in the long term.
However, this is a great breakdown of how to stay on the safe side with such bad recruiters, sir.
Being unemployed for some time I had to find out non-suitable jobs to apply for to fill out the spreadsheet whilst I was busy dealing with the job ads I wanted to get to.
Few years has passed but I still receive emails about director/management positions for me It seems that every now and again the recruiters change jobs and the new one refreshes the database but never delete records
OP either you are holding a specific position or you're simply paranoid. No company would pay secret agents to find out who's ready to leave the nest. They simply buy market reports to compare where they stand and calculate the risks. These reports are not compiled by sourcing semi-quality data by randomly interviewing people by random recruiters, though yes there's also a specific market for data obtained that way.
Rule of thumb: never reveal details about your current salary, job, etc. When you're causally contacted by a recruiter speak only what you are looking for at your eventual next job (you may do so by manipulating, why not, answering that your current package is 500k pa). If the recruiter starts pushing just tell them firmly you won't share such data.
I get calls and emails from my resume 25 years ago for junior programming positions. As pointed out by others, recruiting is more a quantity game than a quality game. Recruiters try to get as many resumes and CVs as they can in front of managers' eyes hoping that one of theirs gets the job and they get the commission.
I do not envy the challenge of being in recruiting, it's a rough job that goes largely unappreciated. All of my positions except one since about 2002 has been through a recruiter. So I hate them, but I love them.
It's a field full of fly-by-night companies who hire people who can read from scripts and punch numbers on telephones (and not much else) who are only interested in their commissions at the end of the day.
But there are some recruiters who are decent people, working for decent companies. Even then, you're the product, not the customer. The best recruiters recognize that they need to keep both sides of that equation happy.
Back to the OP's point, only one of two things is happening:
the recruiter is trying to get information from you in hope of you becoming a candidate (the product they sell), thus earning them a commission, or the recruiter is trying to get information from you about your company in hope they can place candidates, thus earning them a commission.
recruiting is more a quantity game than a quality game. Recruiters try to get as many resumes and CVs as they can in front of managers' eyes hoping that one of theirs gets the job and they get the commission.
Actually it is no longer like this. Clients expect the recruiters to send only CVs that are relevant. As a freelancer, I have had agencies refuse my CV when I know that I have the appropriate experience from reading the job specs, maybe because my CV misses one or two buzzwords.
I also have friends in the recruitment world who tell me that clients are more selective of the agencies they work with and if they are bombarded with non-relevant CVs they will stop working with that agency.
It is true that agencies "fish" for CVs so they have a larger pool of candidates to search, however, the GDPR rules mean you can request anyone holding your private info to delete it.
Not exactly doing a good job for the clients. Turning down a good candidate in favour of someone who matches keywords. That's about quantity not quality.
I've worked with good recruiters and bad ones. On both sides of the fence - hiring manager and candidate. You need to be on your toes and don't trust them.
As I said, there are some high quality recruiters and recruiting firms, but they are the exception and not the rule.
90%+ of my contact with recruiters falls well within the quantity over quality category. I'm constantly bombarded with calls and emails from the low quality ones, ones looking at some copy of my resume from literally 20 years ago who want to submit me as a Junior Java Developer.
If your experiences are better however, I'm happy for you.
My experiences with them have ranged from so-so to absolute disasters, and I won't deal with them anymore. Apart from maybe two or three, I found most of them to be clueless, incompetent, unreliable and unprofessional. The only use they have is as fillers for the RAV Unemployment sheet. Otherwise, they are just time-wasters.
I get an occasional call now and then, asking if I am still available. When they learn I'm working, they always ask "Where." I answer, "I'd rather not share that information; it's private.
Like any industry there are a few dodgy recruitment companies. The whole recruitment business has changed in the last 10 years. Post GFC a lot of companies moved their recruiting in house. There was software which harvested vacancies on companies homepages which recruiting companies would use to try and place their candidates in jobs.
If you are being approached (or want to be approached) having a good LinkedIn or Xing profile, especially in specialist roles will get you on their radar. If this is done through LinkedIn or Xing then it is more likely to genuine, so err on the side of caution with direct approaches.
I will hardly forget the idiot from a relatively famous UK agency (whose name contains the surname of a famous scientist who lived in the Galapagos to study animal evolution) that tried to convince me to accept a job offer from a company I didn't like (low salary, boring tech stack, heavily German or Swiss-German speaking) "just for 6 months, to get a foot in the Swiss job market...then I'll find you something better", translated "so that I can get my fat sales commission (for making a few phone calls, while I spend my free time Leetcoding and watching System Design videos on YoutTube), while you ruin your career working in a place you don't want to".
Another one, from another UK agency, wanted all the names of the hiring managers I had talked to in the various companies I had applied in the previous few months..."just to know what's available out there", translated "so that we can cold call and harrass them".