Competition for strong positions in good firms is intense. People are getting frustrated. And recruiting “faux pas” are beginning to surface again. It bears repeating that there are certain scenarios that will reflect poorly on you the candidate, and often by association, your recruiter.

One of these is having your resume sent to the same firm twice. A lot of associates are testing the waters now because they are nervous about their job security. They may pop a resume in an email while surfing job postings during their lunch and completely forget about it.

Or they may be trying to leverage all possible approaches with direct submissions and multiple recruiters.

In either event, when I get the email from the firm telling me that they have already received a resume, the tone of the email is never friendly and often the message between the lines is “can’t you and your candidate get your act together?” So, the candidate’s chances of being considered by this firm takes a distinct downturn.

You should keep a spreadsheet of every firm that has received a resume from you in the previous six months. Most firms will accept a resume from a new source after six months have passed.

If you are working with a good recruiter, they will keep you very well informed of exactly where your resume has been submitted and the current status of the submission. If this is not happening, you need a new recruiter. You should keep track of the recruiter submissions in your own spreadsheet.

When a recruiter asks where you have been submitted before, they are not trying to do anything tricky. They are making sure that you don’t look bad with multiple submissions and they are gauging whether there are still options where they can be of help.

For everyone’s sake, keep good records and be straight with your recruiter. And I would advise taking a few days at the beginning of your search to choose a recruiter who will communicate well with you and go to significant effort to cover the market for you while protecting you from appearing careless with duplicate submissions.

It will pay off in the long run!