A friend of mine in recruitment told me that it was illegal for recruiters to put out job adverts for roles that didn't exist, i.e. each advert had to be for a specific role. Is this true?Also, how many adverts on this site do people think are for "genuine" specific roles?

I can't stand the fake job ads. You know, the ones where you phone up the recruiter about the 'IT Strategy Consultant' advert they are running, then they go "uhhh... ummm... errrrr.... uh, well... can you tell me about what you're looking for. Can you e-mail me your CV?"After a while, you develop a sort of 6th sense as to which adverts are the time-wasters!

There was an outfit advertising on this website some time ago for Swiss based roles paying huge salaries. I applied to them, and got bombarded with emails trying to get me to part with large sums of money to go on some distance learning course.

DJL - that particular company was blacklisted as an advertiser as soon as we learnt of the way they were treating our readers, you'll have noted they've not been on the site since. We do police things as best we can - as ultimately we're only in business for as long as we can remain consultants' number one choice for finding a new consulting role.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

I asked because I saw an ad by some guy called Pradeep at Consulting Point for;Operational Excellence Consultants - London40k-80k base + excellent packageThe first paragraph is ripped off Curzon & Company's website, while the second paragraph is from Newton Industrial Consultants' website. I don't think the two are related so am a bit confused as to what that means.

Maybe he's recruiting for both companies and they have similar requirements?

Yes I know of recruitment consultants that will run one advert to cover 2 separate but similar roles. Also recruiters occassionally need to make sure their competitors don't figure out who they're working for, and a bit of misdirection can work wonders with this...

The benefit of a job ad for a contingency recruiter is to attract candidates they can place rather than to fill a specific role.Hence if a job ad attracts lots of candidates then they will keep rerunning it. It is not in their interests to check whether the "client" has filled the position. So it probably was a real job once but may not be now.This is why you see the same jobs readvertised over an over. I would add that some of the client recruiters are behaving strangely in the current market. They advertise but then drag it out for months without interviewing anyone.

I think if you search the threads for Consulting Point & Pradeep you will find a number of previous threads questioning various aspects of their recruitment methods.I'm not taking a stand point either way but you may want to have a read of them and make your own mind up as to whether the ads are for genuine roles.

HiTrust me: in the current market where advertising costs money and we are inundated with candidates we can’t place we have no interest in advertising fake jobs. However sometimes ads remain after the requirement has gone because 1) we are too busy trying to survive to spend time on our processes and fail to take them down (not condoning: just explaining) 2) job boards “borrow” ads and they sometimes stay on indefinitely ie we don’t know anything about the ad. Trust me: we know it’s irritating and I squirm when a candidate calls and I realise the job has gone and I’ve wasted his time/raised his hopes

Got to agree with 'recruiter too'. I'd be really surprised if firms are posting fake ads on 'pay-for' jobs boards. And I've heard of job boards 'keeping on' adverts after they've expired, but I can assure you this hasn't happend on Top-Consultant.com. Bryan.

My main problem is with the following type of ads:1. The ones that offer "potential earnings of £250,000+" and then want you to give them £20,000 to go a 5-day training course.2. The generic ones. "Top strategy consultants required!! Apply now!!!". And when you phone up, nobody has a clue what the ad was about.3. The 'fishers'. The ones where they want to know EVERYTHING about your current role and employer. Then, two weeks later, your boss gets flooded with sales calls.4. The outright scams. I for instance received a very well written e-mail this morning. I can't post it all here, but here's an excerpt:"Career and BenefitsYour main task will be receiving money transactions to any bank account you would like to use for the purposes of this job; and then forwarding these transactions to the next party of the Payment Protection process according to our instructions. You will benefit from the commissions, which are 5-7% of each transaction and depend on the quantity of the completed transactions and the speed of your work. Besides, you will be paid a basic salary of 1500 GBP per month."Thankfully however T-C seems to have legit advertisers and does carefully vet everything, which is reassuring.

There is no value in the intermediary recruiter. If companies performed recruitment in house they would make substantial savings. The fact that HR folk are blantantly stupid, lazy and you are constantly asking what in earth do they do, it is no wander that companies rely on agencies. As for the agencies, they either a) Establish relationships with clients, determine the resource need and then post (cut and paste the job spec) onto the thousand websites and sit back and wait. They receive responses and act as if they HR for the company, asking rediculous questions that should be directed more to the employer than this monkey. If they satisfied they pass this onto the HR/manager, hound them and the candidate to get together to talk/interview. They waste so much time in pointless phone calls and paper pushing. b) Put false ads out to entice candidates to talk, to send there CV, salary expectation and even talk about there company. The agent uses this information to his advantage, but also just builds a database full of candidates with varied skills. They search companies who are looking for people and search their database for a match. ... you are getting the general process of how this all works. My advise is simple: Go find the company/job without using a monkey to only take and pass your CV onwards.

Blunt, you missed out c)Our clients tell us what they want and we find the right person through thorough research without advertising. This is called "Headhunting" and if you don't know about it then you are either very junior or crap. I totally agree there is no value in using monkeys who clog up the job boards with the same roles though. The whole process becomes soul destroying for all parties.

I can't resist telling the truth and some agent clawing back at the third a-hole job they do. I don't mind you doing it, rather you than me, it just stinks. Call it headhunting or cold calling, call you a job agent or consultant, pedantics. There is no VALUE in what you do, irrespective of how you try and convince us, and in your case, layer it with the fluid brown stuff that comes out of your mouth. If you 'claim' to be better than the rest, then you are perhaps rare. Maybe you are, but don't take me down to your level, again.

Blunt - I think you need to get out more...meet a girl (or boy)....have a laugh....see the world....get out of IT....you get the picture.Recruiters/Headhunters do a job that clients for whatever reason don't want to do, can't do, can't be ar5ed to do or don't have the time or inclination to build the capability to do. Much like your clients I'm sure don't have the time or capability to contribute the significant value to their business that I'm confident you do. Or at least you are.

Blunt. Looking at your nonsensical ramblings I have no doubt that we are indeed on different levels.I struggle to see any value in your posts. Common sense dictates that Consultants attract recruiters depending on their skills, experience & personality. If you have little of the above, then neither will the recruiters you speak to. This is why the higher up the food chain you go, the less animosity there is towards recruiters.