Qualitative Research Recruitment

Just received a copy of a letter sent to the Market Research Society on Friday. I have the author's permission to post it on my blog.

The letter:

I would like to write in response to the article concerning Qualitative Research Recruitment as I believe the industry knows exactly what is happening but wont face the fact that it is a lot worse than this article indicates.

I have been involved in the Industry for 30 years in many different roles. As I have daily contact with all aspects of the Industry I am in a very unique position to fully expose the extent of the problem. I have a catalogue of data and knowledge of cheating recruiters, greedy field agency bosses, badly trained and ignorant field executives, moderators who consider themselves are trained but either don’t pick up the rogue respondents or just don’t care, the cheating public and clients who expect too much.

The one thing we all know is that the methods of recruitment of respondents for the Qual industry is not TRANSPARENT monitored or checked. There are no guide lines or open discussions on how respondent data is collected - absolutely nothing. It is all shrouded in secrecy by the freelance Recruiters and Field companies. It functions without any legal guidelines or framework – eg, is it fraud or a criminal offence to attend a group falsely and if so what should/could be done about it?
How many employees of a Qual Field Agency have actually visited a recruiter to see how their subcontractors work? How many recruiters would actually let a Qual Field Manager around their office and look at their storage/databases and how they record attendees to a group? How in 2006 can an industry be so closed and secretive, with no legal obligation , no rules, and allow large multinationals to pay huge amounts of money for access to respondents who nobody properly monitors for the most part.

We have an industry largely based on old ladies who have been operating for 20 years plus, with little books and cards, who supply and recycle people for Qualitative projects and don’t give a **** about the industry. Even though they are producing the SERIAL ATTENDEE they don’t even see that they are cheating because the industry as a whole has condoned it for years.

Most recruiters in London and some of the larger cities who do Consumer Recruitment only have a database of 2000. Most of them earn more than 20K per year (which is recruiting 22 people per week =1000 people per year at £20 per head), The vast majority, earn way more than that but how can they with a database of only 2000? – statistically impossible. They constantly recycle, in some cases for 30 years, so why has nobody picked this up.

Within these recruiters – there are those that downright cheat – where the respondent is asked to lie about the criteria by the recruiter because they don’t fit exactly and it becomes a very unhealthy relationship where over a period of many years the recruiter knows that if she phones “x” they will go along and lie. There are also recruiters who send ladies as their maiden name so that they can attend more groups. Some recruiters only have this type of respondent. These particular types of recruiters are more likely to constantly produce perfect respondents because the respondents have been fully briefed by website/email/word as to what they should be and therefore unless they make a slip up – the moderator thinks everything is perfect. We spoke to a respondent last week who had attended in excess of 200 groups – what a lot of money they both have made over the years!! These recruiters produce the serial attendees.

Then there are those that stick to the recruitment spec, but ignore the past participation rule. Again the respondent is asked to lie in order to attend more groups but they are actually correct in terms of recruitment. They work for lots of companies and manage their respondents so that even with a database of 2000 people they can still do 4 groups a week. (4 groups x 8 people x 45 weeks per year = 1440 people). I would also point out that there are very few who only recruit 32 people per week, some are doing 100. Some are VAT registered and have to be using 2500+ people a year. Some are driving Mercs on the back of a card box full of respondents!!!! These recruiters produce the serial attendees.

The whole situation is getting worse since the onset of the internet, as the general public has realized that attending focus groups is a good source of income. Now we have the FAKE RESPONDENT with different names and email addresses. I know of 2 people that I could put you in touch with who attend focus groups as a JOB. As a company we DAILY pick up respondents who are working the system. We must have a central register where we can all register these people. At the moment we circulate emails to other interested parties notifying them of the rogue respondents and those that have got onto multiple databases – but – legally are we allowed to? Is this OK with Data Protection, Human Rights?

The way forward

If all recruiters were licensed, had to sign legal and binding documents (Trading standards has been mentioned) and had to register with the Data Protection Act then I suspect that the seriously cheating recruiters who lie about criteria and past participation might all retire. You could of course ask for voluntary registrations and see who registers, saying that this is the first step towards full registration /licensing and vetting (possibly by the Data Protection people) and see who actually comes forward. A lot of them are nearly 60 and have made an enormous amount of money using the same person over 20/30 years and life would become too difficult for them if the industry was properly regulated and someone came to vet them before they could get a license and operate. This would remove a large number of the serial cheating recruiters and the serial cheaters/attendees for ever.


ID has to be produced to attend a focus Group. No ID = No attending of a group = no payment for Recruiter and Respondent. With the full backing of the Industry this could be stopped very quickly.

If no one believes me lets get some facts together – number of recruiters, database sizes, number of groups recruited per year, number of groups taking place in the UK each year. Some of the bigger Field Agencies are turning over £4+m per year.

BUT who in the Industry is actually going to deal with the issue and move us all into a Qual Industry that we can be proud to be part of.

Name withheld as requested
Member of MRS, AQR, ICG,

End of letter.

I don't know how you get strangers to show up at a central location, on time and sit in a room with a one way mirror, while unknown watchers listen and observe and judge.