Today I learned (as fact) that a recruiter, whom I have never spoken to, submitted my resume to firms. The resume was obtained either through that recruiter's colleague or via a semi-public resume board. I have been exploring opportunities and working with multiple recruiters, each one on a specific and defined set of potential firms. This recruiter is most likely creating problems for me and my legitimate recruiting contacts. Does anyone have advice on how to deal with the recruiter who has been blasting my resume around without authorization? I know exactly who the individual happens to be.

1) Put their name up here2) Contact them directly and tell them that you will be advertising their shady practices to every employer and quant you speak to nless they cease and desist immediately

Naming and shaming may be a good start. Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have legal recourse, too, although I have no expertise on that. One minor note of caution, though. If the offending recruiter in fact got your resume from a "colleague", you may find that in having made your resume available to said colleague you actually authorized *his firm* to contact potential employers on your behalf. Since recruiters in my experience never document the legal relationship between themselves and the candidates they represent, this is on the whole a very murky area. Perhaps Dominic could shed some light on it for us?

Be careful about spoiling anyone else's reputation in a public forum. The retribution may be greater than the minor satisfaction which you get. Most people on this forum are only passing the time and abusing each other anonymously. Once you get vindictive and they recognize your post and identity, you should expect that they will retaliate.

I wish this was not becoming a FAQ....As a recruiter who doesn't do this sort of shit let me share how to hurt this bastard.Be aware that HR departments really hate recruiters who pull this stunt, it is standard for the contract between the recruiter and the bank to explicitly forbid it and for there to be other clauses that basically say "supplier will check the candidate is good for this job" and other checks.They absolutely will not want to be part of any invasion of privacy; HR in many respects is a semi-detached part of compliance, a core part of their job is keeping the bank out of legal trouble which this recruiter has now dropped them into.1: Contact those firms to whom your CV has been sent explaining the situation calmly but clearly. Senior HR people at various firms are easily found using LinkedIn and Google.If you can't work out which person is the right one, send a couple of letters/emails, feel free to phone them if you prefer.Also send it to the "inhouse recruiter" at these firms; they compete with external recruiters and thus may be motivated to help hurt them.Whilst you are in that mode, pick (say) 5 large firms and contact their HR explaining that this firm has been doing this and asking them to confirm that they are not part of a breach of privacy.This will hurt the firm for which he works.2: Phone the recruitment firm and ask to speak to compliance, if they are a British or EU firm they are required to have a specific named person who handles subject access requests.Explain that you are contacting their major clients and potential clients and if they wish to discuss the matter they can choose to put you through to either compliance or a member of the board of that firm.Do not be fobbed off with anyone who is not a board level director, politely but firmly say that if junior management had been doing their job properly you wouldn't need to escalate the matter.There is a finite chance that this was a rogue recruiter, of course this is not the same as them saying it was a rogue or mistake. You want to hurt the individual and the best way of doing this is by setting his own management on him.If the director you speak to is not truly horrified then you are speaking to the wrong person.Ideally google their firm's directors, pick one and ask politely for him.Probability >0.5 they will flatly refuse to connect you do not sound angry, instead sound pleased, saying that you will continue to contact their clients since it appears that the director is too important to deal with privacy issues.Then contact (say) Goldman Sachs HR by phone, explain the privacy breach.What one hour and call the firm, say that because director X was too important to speak to you and that your next call is Morgan Stanley.Email MS and ask them to confirm that they are not part of this privacy violationFor each contact explain that you tried to contact the recruiter but they are refusing to respond.Repeat for Blackrock, Barclays, Koch, etc until they call you.If you are called by a minion, politely explain that you have an issue above their pay grade and say that you are disappointed that this issue is not being taken seriously.Rather than just put down the phone, ask the calling minion to excuse you because it is time for you to contacts Joe Bloggs at Pimco (or whoever is next on your linkedin search)Thank them for their time, say that you understand the difficult situation his boss has put him in.Think up some really awkward time for them to call you, like 8:15 AM or PM, explain that you are quite happy to continue this process until the recruiting firm takes the issue seriously, thank them again for calling and put down the phone.At some point they will contact you.You need to have a clear idea of what you want.Firstly it is a list of places to which your resume has been sent.Do not tell them which firms you know about because they will of course claim that these are the only ones, and if the list they produce doesn't contain the firms you know about then you will know they are lying.Explain to them that "with all due respect, if your firm had respected my privacy, I would not have to do this and part of the process is this check that you are being honest with me"You probably want them to write to every one of these clients explaining that your resume should not have been sent to them and asking for it to be removed from their database.This is necessary because else they will "own" you for between 6 months and a year at those firms stopping you from getting a job there.They will resist this and so say that if they do not contact what is hopefully a small number of clients, you are quite happy to work your way through your list and contact the HR departments at every firm that they might have sent it to.Of course you have your browser open, so explicitly name HR managers and firms that you will be contacting.Of course you can't believe them if they say they've contacted these firms, so you need to require them to get the HR departments to contact you with a confirmation.If the clients are a firm who does business in the EU, UK or Sg then their HR departments will already be familiar with data protection laws and not want to possess personal data that is unauthorized.

QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976Be careful about spoiling anyone else's reputation in a public forum. The retribution may be greater than the minor satisfaction which you get. Most people on this forum are only passing the time and abusing each other anonymously. Once you get vindictive and they recognize your post and identity, you should expect that they will retaliate. Stop being a pussy. In my experience, financial firms appreciate it when their people have the balls to stand up for themselves.

QuoteOriginally posted by: QuantOrDieQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976Be careful about spoiling anyone else's reputation in a public forum. The retribution may be greater than the minor satisfaction which you get. Most people on this forum are only passing the time and abusing each other anonymously. Once you get vindictive and they recognize your post and identity, you should expect that they will retaliate. Stop being a pussy. In my experience, financial firms appreciate it when their people have the balls to stand up for themselves.Couldn't disagree more