Getting past the Agencies

sexki11en

andy46 wrote: »

Also as for advertising fees it would be considerably cheaper to place a large advert in the local press

Sorry to pick one part of your post but one 1/4 page ad in our local paper: £5000+ (honestly! One reason we don't use it anymore) Add to that the man hours required to sift literally hundreds of CV's, contact and interview selected candidates and reference them - at least 3-5 days work on a manager salary. Hazarding a guess at around £700+
Average fee for an agency placement at the moment: £800 - £2000

In Bristol they are opening a new Primark in August. An article in the local paper last week showed there were 420 jobs advertised. Over 14,000 replies to those adverts alone!!! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to sift that many CV's and contact every person? There is no way every applicant could be given an interview - suitable or not. And you can bet your bottom dollar every single candidate was not contacted with a 'thanks for replying but you weren't chosen for interview' letter/email like *some* agencies do at the moment!

I think the point all the consultants are trying to make here is that we are NEVER going to be able to please all the candidates all of the time. Please can you all not just realise, that it is an impossible industry to work in at the moment. We all have to do everything possible to survive right now and sometimes that will mean rejecting suitable people due to the volume of applicants, or getting behind in replying or even (horror) picking candidates over you who simply had more experience.

Seriously - a good attitude towards your consultant really will work wonders right now! If I have a candidate with a good attitude (and I really don't have many) I will do everything in my power to find them a job even going so far as to placing one in my office working for me last week just on the back of the fact I really liked her attitude. Did she have the relevant experience? No way, but she'll learn.

SK x

sexki11en

ktsj2005 wrote: »

Im just about fed up with agents.

I sware this week has cemented my opinon that we would be a whole lot better off without them.

I got phoned mid week about a job opportunity .. yadda yadda everything go's well, i get asked for an interview. Half-way though the interview i get asked about skill's i don't posses, so truthfully i say that i have a limited understanding of the skills in question. Only for the interviewer to push my CV accross the desk and say "If you don't possess Skill XXX why does it say here on your cover note that you are extremely strong in XXX?" I peered at the piece of paper that was supposed to be my CV to find that the agent in question had edited my CV adding skills to it that i DO NOT POSSESS!!!

Not only that as the interview progresses further talks with the employer revealled that the job in no way shape or form resembled the job i thought i was applying for so the agent had also lied to get my bum in that seat.

I can see why the agent did it, i do possess 99.999% of the skills the employer needed and could do the job with my eye's closed, and even without the missing skills im a strong candidate for the position. However that is compleatly beside the point as i would never have taken a days holiday from my current job to interview for it, had i known the truth as it's not a job that i want.

Very very annoyed!! He's made me look like an idiot, ruining my credability should a suitable position come up in that company for me in the future.

I feel like i'm in a situation and a line of work, that if i don't use agent i don't get interviews? However on this occasion I can assure you i have taken the agents name and agency name and i will not be dealing with either again in the future.

That's really awful and I will agree, happens a lot unfortunately.

I hope you can take (small) comfort in the fact that the company will more than likely never touch that agency with a bargepole again.

I'm going to generalise now and say it's *usually* big name agencies that do this. They get given business because their name is known and their rates are low (because of the volume of business they get based on their name). Small independants like the one I work for have to survive purely on their reputation. And that goes as much with candidates as it does clients. A bad name will finish you in no time. The way I look at it? If I didn't have good candidates - I wouldn't have any clients. I really wish other agencies would realise this.

SK x

CCFC_80

sexki11en wrote: »

Sorry to pick one part of your post but one 1/4 page ad in our local paper: £5000+ (honestly! One reason we don't use it anymore) Add to that the man hours required to sift literally hundreds of CV's, contact and interview selected candidates and reference them - at least 3-5 days work on a manager salary. Hazarding a guess at around £700+
Average fee for an agency placement at the moment: £800 - £2000

In Bristol they are opening a new Primark in August. An article in the local paper last week showed there were 420 jobs advertised. Over 14,000 replies to those adverts alone!!! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to sift that many CV's and contact every person? There is no way every applicant could be given an interview - suitable or not. And you can bet your bottom dollar every single candidate was not contacted with a 'thanks for replying but you weren't chosen for interview' letter/email like *some* agencies do at the moment!

I think the point all the consultants are trying to make here is that we are NEVER going to be able to please all the candidates all of the time. Please can you all not just realise, that it is an impossible industry to work in at the moment. We all have to do everything possible to survive right now and sometimes that will mean rejecting suitable people due to the volume of applicants, or getting behind in replying or even (horror) picking candidates over you who simply had more experience.

Seriously - a good attitude towards your consultant really will work wonders right now! If I have a candidate with a good attitude (and I really don't have many) I will do everything in my power to find them a job even going so far as to placing one in my office working for me last week just on the back of the fact I really liked her attitude. Did she have the relevant experience? No way, but she'll learn.

SK x

This is one of the most frustrating things regarding dealing with agencies.
The fact that it is the clueless people who work for agencies who will not forward your cv to the client when you meet the job criteria.

I must have had half a dozen rejections over the past year from jobs where I have met the criteria but they refuse to send my cv to the employer as they can only send so many.
At least if the employer did not use the agency and made you apply direct and had 200 applicants at least I would have had a better chance of securing that role. It is much easier to take for an employer to reject my job application rather then a clueless agency consultant.

hayley11

I have hate agencies. I have never come across a good one and I have registered at a lot, most in Manchester city centre and then in my local town too.

When I was job hunting last year, I went to an agency in Manchester and told her I was looking for city centre or my local area, I am disabled and I don't drive so I can't get a job that is too hard to get to. She put me forward for a job that was way over the other side of Manchester, it would have took me about 2 hours to get there. When I told her I couldn't go that far and i'd already told her which areas I was interested in, she got really narky and I never heard from her again!

What gets me the most about agencies (and i'm sure it shouldn't be allowed) is they put all these "job" adverts in the window and yet they don't exist, they are just to get you through the door. So you waste your time signing up with them only to find they don't actually have any jobs that would suit you.

One agency I registered with didn't contact me at all after I signed up, then about a year later I got a call asking if I was still looking for work...er yeah course I am, i've been sat around waiting for your call all this tme! :rolleyes:

Strider590

Had a call today about a job I applied for, im way over qualified but the money was "ok".

Got a phone call about the job, the consultant said "the decision maker at the company, is away for 3 weeks, but ill forward your CV anyway". He wanted me to send him an updated CV, my CV was up to date, he just hadn't read it. He then asked me to pop into the agency for an informal chat and to get me onto their books.

I take this as "the position is filled and we're just fishing for CVs".

Ninja_Seb

If I was Prime Minister I would close down all recruitment agencies. I don't care how many people the sector employs..

I would then get some Google bods to develop and maintain a national job website, where all companies can advertise for free.

sexki11en

Strider590 wrote: »

He then asked me to pop into the agency for an informal chat and to get me onto their books.

I take this as "the position is filled and we're just fishing for CVs".

I would NEVER forward a CV of a candidate I hadn't met unless there was a VERY good reason. How can we assess if your personality fits the company if we've never met you? How can we find out what you really want to do if we haven't sat down and discussed it with you? :rolleyes:

Not a clue some people. I think i'm capable therefore i'm suitable. Sadly not the case.

SK x

hayley11

sexki11en wrote: »

I would NEVER forward a CV of a candidate I hadn't met unless there was a VERY good reason. How can we assess if your personality fits the company if we've never met you? How can we find out what you really want to do if we haven't sat down and discussed it with you? :rolleyes:

Not a clue some people. I think i'm capable therefore i'm suitable. Sadly not the case.

SK x

I don't get that. When I apply for a job direct with a company, they go off my cv alone, not my personality. So why do recruitment agencies take that into account? I doubt very much that any recruitment agent I have ever met knows the first thing about my personality.

And just because you might not think a candidate doesn't have the right personality, doesn't mean the company will think that too.

I would like agencies a lot more if they just sifted through the applicants, found the ones that were suitable as per their experience and qualifactions and then passed them on to the company.

Louise22

yeah some people but what if you ARE actually suitable? I wouldnt (and I am sure that many other people who have had bad experiences with agencies) apply to something if I didnt have a cats chance in hell, and didnt at least meet the person spec. Like i have said in the past, how can I have an 100% success rate (so far) with jobs when i apply directly to the recruiter, and a 100% fail rate when I use agencies? Trust me, I am not doing anything differently.

I am sure you are fantastic at your job, but myself and many of the others on this thread have not met any agents like you, so no wonder we are starting to get a bit annoyed.

Ninja_Seb

sexki11en wrote: »

I would NEVER forward a CV of a candidate I hadn't met unless there was a VERY good reason. How can we assess if your personality fits the company if we've never met you? How can we find out what you really want to do if we haven't sat down and discussed it with you? :rolleyes:

Not a clue some people. I think i'm capable therefore i'm suitable. Sadly not the case.

SK x

Oh dear, you've just confirmed how !!!!!! recruitment people are..

If a company recruits directly they go by the CV's or applications forms. There is no preliminary interview to assess 'personality' before the actual interview! :rotfl:

In my experience 9/10 times the agency will not fully understand in detail the role they are putting you forward for anyway.

What a joke.