The job seemed like a perfect fit.

The Port of Houston Authority was looking for a security network engineer, and Michael Garrett figured he had all the qualifications.

So did his recruiter, IS&T, who brought Garrett in for an interview, verified his education and job history, ran a criminal backmground check and presented him to the port. But then the application hit a snag.

It turns out that Garrett, like many job seekers, had posted his résumé on more than a dozen job boards and worked with several recruiters over the years. With so many copies of his résumé floating around, it’s not hard to imagine another headhunter hit the send button first.

And that’s exactly what happened: Earlier in the day another recruiter submitted Garrett’s résumé, which Garrett said was done without his knowledge or permission.

By the time Tony Pannagl, managing partner for IS&T in Houston, said he could prove he was the only recruiter representing Garrett, the port identified another candidate for the $80,000 to $85,000 a year job.

Those kind of disputes have become increasingly common as recruiters fight over the commissions – which typically range between 20 and 30 percent of the first year’s compensation – that come with placing the right people in the right jobs.

“A lot hadn’t even met the candidate or hadn’t qualified them,” said recruiter Marsha Murray, president of Murray Resources in Houston, who estimates that she runs into a double submission situation at least once a week. “It’s a name and a piece of paper.”

Some companies have a policy of paying the commission to the first recruiter that hits its in-box. Others agree to pay the recruiter that did the most work.

Or like the Port of Houston, it asks the job seeker which of the recruiters is the true representative, said communications manager Lisa Ashley-Whitlock.

Avoiding a fight

But oftentimes an employer doesn’t want to get enmeshed in a commission battle that could become litigious, so it disqualifies the candidate. “They just throw their hands in the air,” Pannagl said.

Garrett is like many applicants – or in recruiter lingo, “inventory” – who don’t have a clue as to why their résumés seem to disappear down a black hole.

“I never got the opportunity,” said Garrett, who lives in Spring and has been looking for a full-time, permanent job since May. “I feel really irritated for not getting a shot for the job I was qualified for.”

John Reed, district director for Robert Half International, said the fact his agency also submitted Garrett’s résumé to the port is not why he wasn’t considered.

From the timing of events, he said, the port clearly had another candidate in mind.

Reed also contended that his company was indeed authorized to represent Garrett, who had initially contacted Robert Half in February 2008 about job openings. He said it was only after Garrett heard about a higher salary range from another recruiter that he disavowed a relationship.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Reed said, referring to the way job candidates play recruiters off one another.

Approved recruiters

One Houston company solved the problem of multiple submissions by limiting applications to a handful of pre-approved recruiters.

In exchange for a reduced commission, recruiters could submit an application for a specific position, said Kathleen Kelley, who helped set up the system when she was vice president of human resources for Ion Geophysical.

Recruiters had a pass code and had to be the first one to submit a particular candidate, she said. If Ion Geophysical discovered the recruiter didn’t have permission to represent a job seeker or didn’t pre-screen a candidate -and it checked regularly – the recruiter was dropped.

“We controlled it from the front end,” said Kelley, now a human resources consultant.

“A lot of people are good on paper, but in person they’re not worth your time,” she said. “That’s what you pay an agency for. We didn’t pay them to flood our applicant tracking system with applicants they’ve never seen.”

Skipping the recruiters

Another way to avoid the multiple résumé dump is not to routinely hire recruiters. The Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County doesn’t have the budget, and besides, it has found that paying referral bonuses to staff members is more cost-effective, employment manager Charlotte Simmons said.

And in those rare instances when the agency has an especially hard specialty position to fill?

Pre-approved recruiters typically call first and ask if their candidate is already in Simmons’ database.

If not, she said, it’s the recruiter who presents the résumé first.

“It’s all case by case,” said Willie French, director of talent acquisition for the Methodist Hospital System, who has found him- self in the middle of more than one representation dispute.

Previously submitted

One particularly thorny issue occurs when a recruiter suggests an applicant who had earlier – and independently – sent in a résumé but who hadn’t been considered.

One way French has handled that in previous jobs is to strike a deal with the recruiter to pay a portion of the fee for putting forward a candidate he might not have taken a second look at.

“People want to get credit for their work,” he said. “They want to keep up the relationships.”

Until now, Garrett didn’t think much about talking to recruiters or posting his résumé on 15 to 20 job boards.

“It seems like it would be a good thing to get double-submitted,” Garrett said.

But not anymore.

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