The staffing and recruitment sector is evolving and moving more toward automation. Many of the new processes and procedures that companies use today seek to provide a system to track and verify applicants for employment from any source. Hiring companies today can receive candidates from myriad sources including recruiters, job postings, referrals, social media, or direct applicants through their own career portal. As you can imagine, it can be huge undertaking just to quantify where all the applicants come from and easy for your resume to be lost in the shuffle.

What is a Right to Represent (RTR)?

An RTR is a candidate’s consent to be represented by a recruiting agency and at what rate. As a candidate, I would prefer the agency not to be involved in rate negotiation, but the RTR protects you in regards to the rate being locked in with the agency.

What is the purpose of an RTR?

As someone who was (and still is) approached by recruiters in the HRTech/HRIS industry, it’s really only Indian recruiters often used as downstream sourcing firms by larger staffing agencies who use the RTR acknowledgement to “claim their prize” (commission) when the candidate receives an offer and is placed.

Hiring companies require RTRs for submission of candidates by third party vendors because they are aware of the unscrupulous tactics and misinformation some recruiters will entice a candidate into being submitted.

It used to be common for candidates to be submitted for roles without their knowledge or consent. Companies that have a VMS system (e.g. Fieldglass, Beeline, Coupa) require personal information such as last 4 of a candidate’s social security number and their birth date — which alleviates any chance of a “blind submission”.

What happens if you don’t sign an RTR?

My personal policy is not to sign an RTR as I do intend for this document to be used against me in salary negotiation later in the process. There are times where you being such the great fit, they will waive the need to sign such a document. But, If I feel it will hoist a red flag to a recruiter, preventing the opportunity to be submitted to the client, I will insist on a wide, generous salary range before signing.

Is it possible to sign multiple RTRs for the same role? What would happen if I did?

Absolutely! For many of these roles, surprisingly, there really is no formal job description. An agency account manager leveraged their notes from speaking with the hiring manager, who then delivers their (often incoherent) notes to their primary agency recruiter who then passes the vague information to downstream, 3^rd party sourcing firms. These downstream firms are ESL (English Second Language) which causes even further deviation of the correct job title, requirements, and location.

If a candidate appears 2x in a VMS, based on MSP policy, the candidate would either be rejected or accepted at either the first rate of submission… or naturally defaulted to the lowest rate regardless of the submission sequence. Remember, an MSP’s (Managed Service Provider) job is to leverage all tactics to save their client money!

Companies will post and repost the same role several times. While it would make sense to be “carried forward” to the next opening, this does not occur as there is the assumption that you would no longer be in the market since valuable time has passed.

Money On the Table

So, an RTR… To sign or not to sign?

It’s your call! Just be conscientious of the fact that not all “paperwork” is harmless and could really impede your earning potential if a client is ready to make you an offer for the role. In addition, agencies know the typical bill rate for these types of roles. Their job is to take advantage of your financial desperation extending you a low pay rate while they pocket the different between this pay rate and the bill rate (the difference between the pay rate and bill rate is often called ‘markup’).

Don’t be a discount.