Why candidate resumes are a free commodity.

Years ago, almost twenty, when I entered the executive recruiting world recruiters "owned" candidates.  Candidate ownership was a rule within search firms, the same as Realtors own property listings.  Within recruiting firms and between affiliated firms, executive recruiters did "splits" based upon percentages of candidate ownership in order to divvy up fees.

When Career Solutions Group was founded in 1995, we felt the concept of candidate ownership was an unethical practice and an unprofessional way of running a recruiting business.  So, we never allowed it internally and rarely split fees externally with other firms.

While we may have been progressive at the time, technology has finally caught up with us.  The social democracy of the internet has so reduced the value of "candidate ownership" that it's nearly obsolete.

Large contingency recruiting firms and franchises like Management Recruiters (MRI) are having the foundation of their business model challenged by the devaluing of owning a candidate's resume.  If you can find a candidate's resume for free or a minimal charge on the internet, what's the value of paying a 25-33% contingency placement fee for it?  And, corporations are finally doing a much better job of training managers how to deal with unsolicited resumes so that they don't become unilateral contracts.

We believe that the devaluing of resume ownership focuses the true value on the service and expertise that executive recruiters and, especially that, retained search firms provide to companies and hiring managers in the areas of passive candidate development and finalist candidate selection.

To help professionals on the job market and to raise the professionalism of the recruiting industry, the 'No Resume Required' site is a FREE RESUME EXCHANGE zone.