Recruiters are untrustworthy and lazy – and this is why the industry has been experiencing such decline, or so claims a damning new survey of HR managers.

The report, called Consultants or car salesmen? Time to arrest the decline, aimed to reveal the reasons behind the recruitment industry’s drop in invoiced sales over the past three years.

Leeds-based recruiter SevenHR commissioned an independent survey of 20 FTSE-listed retail and fast moving consumer goods companies for the report.

Those surveyed complained that agencies often withheld the whole truth about candidates and the amount of effort they put into finding the right person for the job was in no way proportionate to their fees. In addition, they accused recruiters of being too busy chasing placements and fees to focus on finding the right candidate.

The report added that agencies failed to understand a client’s business. One HR manager moaned: “The market is saturated with poor quality providers. They all look and sound like used car salesmen.”

SevenHR’s managing consultant Antony Smith commissioned the research after he faced a growing amount of disillusionment among clients. “It confirmed a lot of my suspicions,” said Smith, “but there’s ignorance among clients too. They often don’t understand the amount of work that takes place to ensure the job’s done properly.”