canadian headhunter

Bad Moon On The Rise

John is a young, bright, lively, up-and-coming custodian. He wants to change his job. He starts working on his career with a contingency recruiting firm. That's a firm that does not have an exclusive claim to work on any opening and does not get paid unless it places someone.

In December, the contingency firm tells John about a new opening as a caretaker at Don Cherry Secondary School. He says he's decided to go to Florida for the winter and will be back early March so he's not in a position to look at a new job. Now, this is important - the contingency firm sends John's resume to Don Cherry anyway, without telling John. Don looks at the file and decides that John is too junior for the job and the matter ends there.

In March, John returns and sees an ad for a Senior Custodian on the Caretakers Association website. He responds and the headhunter who placed the ad decides that even though John is a bit junior, he might be good for the role anyway. But where is the job? At Don Cherry SS. But note this - it is not the same custodian job that the contingency firm was working on; it's a second role. Moreover, the second headhunter has been retained to work on it, meaning no one else can submit candidates for this role.

Now, the retained headhunter goes to Don Cherry with his candidate's file. Don says he has seen this guy and rejected him. But the retained HH convinces him not to dismiss John so quickly. He's better than he looks on paper. So Don says "Send him in."

The Retained HH calls John to set up the interview but in the meantime, John has spoken to his old buddy the contingency recruiter who hit the roof when he heard that John was working on Don Cherry with someone else. So when John gets a call from Retained, he wants to beg off.

Now, Retained is mad. This is not the same job as the first one. It's a new role. Moreover, he has the exclusive right to fill it. And, even though John's file had been seen by Don Cherry, it was dead in the water until Retained revived it.

What's should all the parties do?