Recruiter’s approach to ethical and sustainable work practices

Placing candidates responsibly

If you work in a recruitment or worker placement function or role, you should be aware of employment-related risks when placing a candidate (prospective worker) with a client (business or organisation requiring workers).

If you want to be seen as a trustworthy recruiter or employment broker, you need to make sure the hiring companies you work with have ethical and sustainable work practices. Placing a worker in a workplace that has unlawful or unfair work practices is likely to affect the worker’s welfare and may affect your reputation, too. This could impact your agency’s ability to attract clients and workers in the future.

Please note:

• it is not in your candidate’s best interest to be placed in a workplace that has unfair or illegal work practices, and where their legal rights and entitlements are not respected
• placing a worker into such an organisation, either on a contract or on as an employee, may contribute to poor practices continuing
• you need to be able to make sure that the workplace you are putting a worker forward for is fair and complies with employment standards. This will protect your reputation and the worker’s wellbeing.

A Guide for Recruiters and Employment Brokers [PDF, 1.6 MB]

You should undertake due diligence on any employer before placing any workers with them. This should be incorporated into the systems and processes of your agency.

Due diligence questions for employment recruiters and brokers