Every place I've ever worked where I had any visibility into hiring, at the start of the search the company makes a decision as to who they want to deal with: hire an inside recruiter, retain a single outside recruiter (or several), or accept referrals from all outside recruiters. Once they've made that decision, when a recruiter sends them a resume, either the recruiter they're willing to work with and whose fee they've already decided they're willing to pay, or it isn't. In the latter case, they respond saying "we've got our own recruiting arrangements, thanks" and toss the resume. In that case, if the same resume comes in through a different channel later, they're under no obligation to the recruiter, and they'd be perfectly happy to hire you.

I suppose if they were working with a recruiter, and later ended the relationship, that could cause the problem you describe, but I haven't seen it happen (as a job seeker, a member of many interview panels, and as a hiring manager a couple times).

In theory, the recruiter isn't supposed to send resumes without the job seeker's approval, which means that when they do so, they've probably broken any agreement they have with the hiring company, so the company probably isn't bound by that agreement any longer. Whether you'd be able to convince the hiring company to take the risk of a lawsuit (that they'd presumably win) is another question, of course.

No, I've seen this happen where someone's resume was spammed by unscrupulous recruiters and made them effectively persona-non-grata.

I think that's an exaggeration.

That scenario could easily play out. However, if the employer genuinely has no connection to the candidate (other than having received their CV a couple of times, in different incarnations) then I don't see why they wouldn't pursue the candidate without the recruiter being in the loop.

I can tell you why...at my Last firm, the "first submitting agency" was tied to your name on FieldGlass. You could not get around it. It was the only system you could hire thru firmwide.

How about you provide the recruiter with a fake name, and use your real name with a more accurate CV to contact the clients directly?

> They all answer that they got your CV from the recruiter

I've never known recruiter scum to send out a CV without my name, contact details, and references stripped out.

Why would the company agree to a rate they can't afford?

And how can this possibly be enforceable when you haven't given that recruiter any exclusivity?

Sounds like a good lawsuit against the recruiter.

Try proving it...the evidence is stuck in some corporate recruiter system.

The firm that said they had already received the CV and couldn't contract has all the evidence that is needed. Surely a firm would unite with a potential candidate to bring down scum recruiters?