Recruiter (agency) recommended me for a position but all they have actually done is found the job on the company’s website & sent my CV. They did not even arrange my interviews (time, place, briefing, etc) as the hiring company called me directly and arranged it with me.

Now the recruiter who is supposed to be responsible is away so I guess there won’t be any follow-up for days. This could even ruin the chances of anything happening in the end. Since they couldn’t even follow-up after an interview, I don’t have confidence in the agency to be able to complete or negotiate my salary, etc.

I know the standard practice is that the agency who made the “introduction” by emailing the CV ends up getting commission, but is there any legal obligation for me to do this in CH? I would rather say to the employer I don’t want to use that agency any more, but can I do that without ruining my chances of getting the job ?

I would appreciate any advice if anyone has been in a similar situation.

The service they have to do for you is undefined. There is no contract between you and them. They have however sent a CV to the employer, and their contract lies with them and would be sufficient for them to claim their fee. Pass your comments onto the employer and let them handle it.

They are not giving you a service , they are giving that to the employer. You have nothing to drop. They have nothing to lose if you try to walk away because they have already got your CV to the customer.

Name and shame them here.

I agree with Upthehatters2008... The recruiter has a contact with the company not with you. If you dump the recruiter, most likely you will be dumped by the company (nothing personal here - the company won't allow themselves to be put in a middle of an awkward situation).

If you feel you need to follow up with the company, you can do it directly. In fact, you even have their contacts, in case you have more questions, right?

It is very unlikely the agency negotiates your salary for you. They will just want to close the deal and move to their next project. Even when on commission, the extra money they might get for you is neglectable from their perspective. What the headhunter can do for you is tell you what is their range for the position, to make sure you ask at the higher end.

Just my 2 rappen...

The most important thing is for you to get the job. Stick with the recruiter. And when they collect a fee from the employer for presenting you, then this fee has cost you nothing, and you have not lost anything.

Once you have the job for 6 months, you can name and shame them here and anywhere else you want to - from a position of power.

PS there appear to be a lot of incompetent recruitment consultants around.

Thanks for the sane replies, I am probably not going to take any action and just see what happens with the process anyway.

The job is publicly advertised, with job description PDF and contact names/numbers given on the company's website. I am surprised if they have any contract with the company in question, as they don't seem to know more than the public information.

So far they have only sent the PDF file to me and sent the Word document (CV) to the company. I guess that's what annoys me the most, that they can potentially charge for this "service". At least I would expect some more professional handling and follow-up, and this is my first experience with a recruiter in CH.

The salary is also well-known and I can guess the possible negotiable range, so also not expecting anything from the agency there.

I was annoyed with a similar situation. Recruiter was totally incompetent and wasted everybody's time. I really didn't want him to earn anything, but I guess that's the way it works.

Chill out, it's not you that has to pay for the service, it's the company. Not your problem.

Also, it's quite normal to get introduced to a company through an agent, but for that job to also be advertised on the companys web site.

Good luck with the application.

as already mentioned, you don't 'have' a recruiter, so there is nothing you can 'drop' ...


on the other hand, tread carefully. it is not uncommon for seemingly incompetent recruiters to be .. well ... how do i put this ... sharing their cookie jar with the employer.

Not sure what you even mean with "drop" - why not just focus your attention on maintaining the contact with the actual company which is hiring. E.g. send an email to one of the people you interviewed with, thanking for the opportunity to talk and that the company left a great impression with you and you're looking forward to next steps. A short email like that has never hurt anybody.

Drop means simply by not contacting them any more and not returning phone calls. My recruiter does not have seem to have much follow-up skills, so she would probably give up soon enough.

Other countries I have worked in, I am used to the agency taking full responsibility for all communications with the client, if you contact them by yourself this is definitely frowned upon. Things seem to be different then (more like random) here in CH.

Now I am just taking it easy and waiting, maybe I should just accept this as the normal Swiss way of doing things.. Do very little work, then send an invoice for a large fee after....

Just for information, here is an update.
I (luckily) did not get the job in the end so it did not matter.

After arranging the first 2 interviews by myself, I hoped the recruiter would start to be more active with the possibility of a commission coming. I had to phone literally 10 times to follow-up before getting any reply. What was funny was after finally realizing the possibility of something happen when I the 3rd interview came up, the recruiter suddenly tried to be friendly and invited me for a coffee (I had never met them before in person).

I have learned a lesson from this case, I now look much more by myself for jobs advertised directly, a good site is jobs.ch These days there must be few companies who do not advertise directly on their website & you will have almost the same information as many of the recruiting agencies. I already got a few interviews myself by going directly.