I rarely use LinkedIn, but every time I visit my account, I see that at least one new recruiter has added me to his/her network. I don’t add them back because I have my own business now and I am no longer interested in working for anyone else other than myself. Today, I just did a quick research on LinkedIn and I came to a conclusion that nearly every other LinkedIn member is a recruiter.

I then remembered what a friend of mine told me a year ago, that recruiters make a huge amount of money from doing very little work. Let me explain: My friend is currently working for a large multinational (a three letter company that starts with I and ends with M) as a project manager, he found his job through a recruitment agency (actually they found him), and here’s how it goes (pay wise):

• The recruitment agency pays my friend $92/hour.

• I[x]M (change [x] to the correct letter) pays the recruitment agency $120/hour. (that’s a $28 profit every hour for the recruitment agency for essentially just getting my friend the job).

• I[x]M clients pay I[x]M $165/hour for my friend’s work.

As you can see, the recruitment agency increased the overall cost to the end client by 17% (thus massively contributing to inflation in business costs), which demonstrates that recruitment agencies are just needless parasites making a decent living off the current broken business system where companies prefer to hire mercenaries than actual full-time employees. No wonder that employee loyalty is as at an all time low at the moment (remember the good old days when people used to work for 30-40 years for the same company?)

These parasites thrive in social networks – especially LinkedIn – where they can meet people of great talent who can be suckered into working for less than what they’re worth so that these parasites can even make a better living. The rude part is that these parasites often regard themselves as admirable and successful men and women and ultimately create a cult of suckers followers who believe in them! Words like leadership (well, we have to thank them for this one, at least the word “Leader” is no longer synonymous with a mad dictator), pragmatism, agility, etc… are frequently utilized by these parasites. Not to mention, of course, the occasional blogs here and there lecturing other people on how to become parasites and the advantages of becoming one – of course, these blogs are usually written in a patronizing tone that impresses the cult even more, and even attracts more followers. It’s a mad, mad world we live in, and, with the current growth rate of parasites, I’m no longer sure it’s even sustainable.

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