I read Vicki Brassington’s article (Recruiter, Bloggers with Bite, 18 May) on the main errors recruiters make when taking on trainee recruiters and was, in particular, disappointed to read her third point, ’Rejecting a candidate’s CV without listening to them speak’.

This, for me, raises two key questions: 1) Why the hell can recruiters not put good CVs together?! and 2) If the only skills recruiters look for is sales, are we ever going to eliminate the pushy (maybe this is being too kind) reputation recruiters are stereotyped with?

On the first point, I find it unbelievable that recruiters can’t put together a good enough CV to warrant a face-to-face interview. Surely on a day-to-day basis a recruiter is reviewing vast numbers of CVs and if they are worth their salt, then they will have a firm grasp of what a good CV looks like. I have lost count of the embarrassingly poor CVs I have received direct or via rec-to-recs that simply tell me nothing whatsoever about a candidate’s skill set, sales track record, market understanding etc.

If, as is implied in Vicki’s article, recruitment is simply a sales job and sales skills are the key skill required, then why do we see so many ex-sales people fail in recruitment? My view would be that the sales person generally sells a product or service, which is in the main tangible selling Mars bars to Tesco is more around price and volume than whether Tesco actually wants the Mars bars or not. However, the recruiter deals with that most variable of commodities people! The client (line manager or HR) and the candidate change their mind regularly, and for a sales person they often do not know how to manage this process (the Mars bar never changed its mind before).

Reading some very interesting commentary online recently, I know that the growing fraternity of in-house recruiters is getting more and more frustrated with low-level sales calls that are simply chasing vacancies, fees etc and take no time to understand a client, their needs or build rapport (rapport building is not asking how the client’s weekend was, by the way).

I am a firm believer in the graduate recruitment model but it is not an intelligence point: candidates who have had three years’ life experience, living away from home, fending for themselves often managing a part-time role while partaking in a variety of extra-curricular activities will, in my opinion, make not only better recruiters but also better managers and directors of the future.

Given the shortfall of graduate opportunities outside of the recruitment sector, our sector now has a far greater choice of higher calibre individuals in market than we did four or five years ago. So, given that knowledge I would encourage businesses to invest in bright, personable graduates but don’t expect them to work from day one. They may take time to understand the role so as they progress, continue to invest time and resource in them when you get it right, the return you will get will be exponential versus the time spent up front.

David Jenkins, managing director, Exsurgo