Dealing with recruiters is as nice as dealing with faecal matter. You'd better flush as soon as possible.

Why Recruiters Are Universally Hated

Why Recruiters Are Universally Hated

On 14. January 2013 I was invited for a job interview in London by Mr Ethan James of recruiting company
TestDriven IT Group on behalf of his client, a start-up looking for Ruby on Rails developer. Mr Ethan 
James proposed I should fly with a low cost jet to get full reimbursement on my tickets. Hower I prefer 
rail and sea transport to air travel beacause of their smaller environmental footprint so we agreed that
TestDriven IT Group will cover only half of my travel costs. The interview went well, I wasn’t hired so
I traveled back to my home country through the snow covered Europe, sent a scan of the tickets to the
recruiters upon my arrival and waited for the reimbursement to come.

And waited for the reimbursement to come.
And waited for the reimbursement to come.
And waited for the reimbursement to come.

I pinged back Mr Ethan James many times in vain. Finally I got a short reply “Next payment run is the
04/03”. Fourth of March passed by, no money has arrived in my bank account. I contacted once again Mr 
James just to  be informed that “This should have gone through cc’d in is the Director who handles 
payments”. I dully cc’d  my inquiry to the Director, Ms Mary Cristian. Again no reply. I called Ms 
Mary Christian on the phone and her secretary assured me I would get a call back as soon as possible.
Which of course never happened. As my patience was growing thin I sent the following e-mail this time
cc’ing their client:


Dear Ethan and Mary,
I haven’t received any response for my last emails concerning the reimbursement of my travel expenditure
for  a job interview organized through your company on 14 January, 2013. We have made out an arrangement
with Ethan in an email from the 7 January that I’ll get a reimbursement of at least 50% of my travel 
expenses and I’ve sent you all relevant documents with the price  of the journey in an email on the 7 
February. You promised to pay on the 4 March.

Long time has passed without any adequate action from Test Driven IT towards my payment request. I am 
afraid  the only choice I have been left with is to share my experience on social and other media, as 
well as post the case on relevant mailing lists.  Thus I believe I might help other people in a 
situation similar to mine to  and companies make the right choice in a recruiter.


Tadaaam! In less than an hour Ms Mary Cristian replied:


From the correspondence I see no payment terms so it will be at my discretion when we release payment
which  will in no way be speeded up by contacting any of my colleagues clients.


Soon after this my 92 years old grandmother’s health rapidly deteriorated. She went through a surgery 
and haven’t been able to walk ever since. Taking care of her took all my time in the following months. 
At last she got better so I finally have time to tell the world what a bunch of fucking liars TestDriven
IT Group is.

Good to know.

I am contacted by Ethan a lot. And have always remained courteous. Won't be doing that any more.

I do not particularly like recruiters either, but when i read your post, there was something that made me want to prove to you that every rule has an exclusion and then i remembered. Her name is Dobrinka, we got to meet her on Nellie's wedding and she is gorgeous. You've got to meet her and you should appear in your Harvard look as she has got style :) And, yes she is a head hunter....Other than that, TestDriven IT Group what a bunch of s..heads and what a stupid name for a company.....