Just a Rant: Annoyed at Agency Who Lied About a Job

cmw1212

PasturesNew wrote: »

Annualised, my rate was about £15k. I think they probably charge 50% more. It was for 2-3 weeks.... probably.

Crumbs- looking at what SQL database admin jobs pay should have been twice that at least. No consolation to you but I cannot help thinking that it sounds like a mess up on behalf of the company as well this position sounds like it should have gone to a contractor/specialist agency but they just went to your agency who tried to fit you in.

Idiophreak

If this really is complex SQL / data mining stuff, they should be looking to spend a good £50/hour getting someone in on such a short term contract - probably more...It's the company's fault for going to any old recruitment agency - if they need specialised IT skills, they should go to a specialised IT recruiter (the agencies I deal with know IT pretty well). It's also the agency's fault, obviously - they've completely shafted OP just to get a bum on a seat for a day. A waste of time for all concerned...

teabelly

Sounds tough. Sure you can't do it with a copy of 'data mining for dummies' with you?

Agency are a bunch of berks though!

annie_tanks

Ive suffered the same fate,being sent by an agency for jobs that turned out differently than I was led to believe it was.Ive had to learn on the hoof with little help, on less money than the perm staff was on,was at times quite stressful;coupled with the expense of getting there .Agencies use temps as cheap labour..because they can.

PasturesNew

teabelly wrote: »

Sounds tough. Sure you can't do it with a copy of 'data mining for dummies' with you?

Agency are a bunch of berks though!

No time to get the book, no time to read it - and they expect me to be an expert already. This isn't a slow, do what you can, job; this isn't a 'find your feet, do what you can' role. . . this is a big 'ole important data thing. It is needed - and needed on demand. Big stuff. Nobody else ..... has to be done. No room for people who need to spend an hour or so refreshing their memories from 10 years ago, nor 1-2 hours trialling the results because they've never done that join/reiteration before. Needs to be done.... finished yet?

FATBALLZ

T800 wrote: »

there mostly just interested in the massive bounty payments they get for matching up a worker to a client. Some of them are commonly in the region of 2k per employee.

I'm afraid you're underestimating, I was once accidently copied in on an email from an agency I'd been talking to about another guy who they'd got a 6 month contract for. They were saying their commission was £8500. Someone even replied with this image:

http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/people_jerry_springer.jpg

I then got a grovelling apology when they realised what had happened. But it was quite funny.

Premier_2

So you took the job without ever having met the employer?

Sounds like the employer didn't pen a vey good job description including skills & experience requirements (if one was done at all)

Have a read of the way I deal with agencies - it should help avoid this type of trouble in future:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=33940695&postcount=8

Premier_2

FATBALLZ wrote: »

I'm afraid you're underestimating, I was once accidently copied in on an email from an agency I'd been talking to about another guy who they'd got a 6 month contract for. They were saying their commission was £8500. Someone even replied with this image:

http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/people_jerry_springer.jpg

I then got a grovelling apology when they realised what had happened. But it was quite funny.

Commission from agencies obviously varies considerably based on how much work is involved in filling the position, their salary, and how the person is to be employed.

With permanent employees, a typical commission is about £2k (but whoever headhunted Alan Crozier into his multi-million pound job at the ITV probably got a lot more, whilst a supermarket wouldn't pay the job centre £2k to recruit a shelf stacker!)

It would be unusual that an employer would pay £8.5k for recruiting someone into a 6 month temporary position (unless it was a highly paid position, requiring very specialist skills & experience, and where the recruitment agency were expected to handle almost all aspects of the recruitment)

Usually contract positions are paid by way of ongoing commission. I know some agencies that take as little as 4%, whilst I know at the other extreme, some agencies take as much in commission as the employee earns (i.e. 50%). There may also be a small finders fee for very short term contractual positions, but this is usually at most about £500.

Evilm

a temporary placement often depends on the agency to choose the correct person - in this case they failed badly.

I've worked out the difference between my pay rate and the agency's rate that the employer pays before tax on occasion and its somewhere between 35-45% on top of your hourly wage. They do have to pay the taxes etc but it still sounds like a lot!

shikoku

I once spent an entire day trying to work out the alleged bus route to an agency job; ten minutes research confirmed there wasn't one, but the agency woman insisted there was and so I looked and looked on the internet, went out and fetched bus timetables, telephoned the bus companies, I spent all day on this fruitless quest - only to confirm that the result of my first few minutes investigation was correct. There was no public transport to that area nor to anywhere close enough to walk from.

That was my final straw with agencies!