Recruiter asking the name of the company whose offer I accepted

Question

There are some similar questions that have been asked, but I believe the nature of this situation is slightly more unique. I was recruiting for internship positions at multiple companies. I recently received an offer from a company which was my top choice. I had a few other on-site interview requests at other companies, but since I knew that I would not accept an offer from these other companies, I politely declined the interview out of respect of their recruiting resources. The recruiters received this well and even showed interest in maintaining contact for future opportunities (as this is just an internship).

However, after doing so, the recruiter of the company whose interview request I declined asked me the name of the company whose offer I accepted. I'm inclined to give them this information as I cannot see any reason why it could be detrimental. For context, since this is an internship, I'm not 100% sure that I don't want anything to do with these companies in the future (I'm still learning about the type of work/culture that is most suitable for me), so I do want to maintain a good relationship.

So my questions are: are there any cons to disclosing this information? Also, why would they be interested in this information in the first place (I can think of a couple reasons, but just want to hear some insights)?

Edit: I should also mention that this is an in-house recruiter.

Answer 1

It's not detrimental to you - unless the offer you're accepting has confidentiality clauses attached of course but I think that's unlikely here.

Conversely it may actually be of benefit to you:

Firstly the recruiter knows not to bother contacting you about opportunities there (who wants to get recruiter calls about their existing employer?)

Secondly information on who's hiring (and for what sort of candidates), who's just been hiring, etc is all valuable information for recruiters.

e.g. if they know that Acme Corp. hired someone with your skill set and experience then next time they see that Acme Corp is looking for another person in a similar role they can refine which candidates they send over, or they can advise candidates to tweak their CV knowing what sort are successful with Acme corp.

Or if they know the sort of role you just got hired for isn't something a company needs more than one of they know not to bother soliciting Acme corp those sorts of roles right now (you know how it's really annoying to see google ads everywhere for something you just purchased? same thing).

So essentially you have an opportunity to do a recruiter a favor, at no cost to yourself, that will give them positive associations with you so you're building your relationships and network with people who even if they aren't in a position to do anything for you right now might be in the future.

Answer 2

Recruiters ask this question to enhance their organization's data and build their employer network. Knowing where somebody's placed can potentially allow the recruiter to contact the employer and ask if they need assistance hiring, a very simple way to build your network for example.

There are no cons to disclosing the employer, I recommend against disclosing salary if they ask that though. Also, not disclosing the employer shouldn't burn any bridges, recruiters work based on placement fit more so than candidate relationships from my experience.

Answer 3

I would be inclined not to give them that information because there's really no benefit to you. While it is good for the recruiter: more links means potentially more business in future, it is also possible that they might feel they had a hand somehow in getting you your current role, and therefore want payment from your new company in that regard (a situation I was in recently). This shouldn't affect you because your new place will have ways of dealing with this, but you don't really want your new position potentially tainting because of a recruiter argument.