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Recruitment Agencies Are Useless!!

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  • CCFC_80
    CCFC_80 Posts: 1,289 Forumite
    This post cracks me up. Most of you have absolutely no idea what recruitment involves, the comments show your ignorance and it's no surprise that you've had no luck finding a job.

    Complaining that the agency makes a mark up on your contract of £4 p/h haha - do you realise how little profit this is? IT's probably 15% - 20% ish - do you know how many other SERVICE based organisations work to this margin?? NONE!

    Look at restaurants, do you ask to see how much their wholesale food costs them? You'll pay £5 for a desert that costs £1 or less but god forbid a recruiter makes 15% margin.

    Good recruiters make a lot of money, £80k - £100k + isn't unusual, if they do so little for this money and it's so easy why don't you try it instead of moaning about how little they do for you.

    The reality is that recruitment is difficult and it's made harder by idiots applying for jobs that they're completely unsuitable for then wondering why the phone never rings.

    We get paid on commission, if you're any good, we'll call. If we don't call then guess what...



    Which Post? You have resurrected an old thread which hasn't had a response for over 6 weeks.
  • The whole thread.
  • Never had that but did make me smile!

    To be honest I realise people have a good reason not to like them but they did get me out of a hole after leaving uni, between a rock & a hard place with agencies..



    Yep, a s[EMAIL="samantha.heritage@reed"]amantha.heritage@reed[/EMAIL] emails me practically every Friday afternoon, bang on, bless her, although to be fair I haven't 'unsubscribed' from the reed service at all (in 2 minds..) but am aware it is a long time before they shall want anything to do with me - and it wasn't all my fault ! :cool:


    Just finished an assignment through an independent stellar 1 woman band agency, who also did personnel for same company.. and would have got me permanent in the end :)gave me up to 3pm same day as leaving to change the mind, so my beef if any now is probably more still with the high street ones for update to this thread
  • I agree with the majority of this thread. I was a victim of the 2008 credit crunch like a lot of the country, and so ended up unemployed frantically trying to look for work. Recruitment agencies nor job boards ever helped me find work. I instead was met with unfriendly recruitment consultants only on the look out for themselves and false advertisements. I have had odd jobs here and there but nothing permanent since.

    I read an article about a new website called Work'd - workd (dot) co (dot) uk - which basically said it is going to turn the recruitment industry on its head and make it fair for job seekers again, balancing the playing field. It said it is going to match clients and candidates like a dating website. So no job browsing and having other unqualified people apply for jobs they're not qualified but you are and slowing the process and wasting peoples time.

    The industry needs fixing and making fair again so I've registered my interest with my email address but not sure when the site is due to launch. The article was about a month ago so it can't be long I hope.
  • regprentice
    regprentice Posts: 685 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Complaining that the agency makes a mark up on your contract of £4 p/h haha - do you realise how little profit this is? IT's probably 15% - 20% ish - do you know how many other SERVICE based organisations work to this margin??

    last time i worked for brook street the were charging a clear 100%. I was a student in london,circa 2002, being paid 10 an hour to do bookleeping and processing my own invoices charging £20 an hr before vat. In the end we split the diffrence and my wage went up to £15 and i left the agency.

    My problem with agencies is they appear to have something like 95-98% of the market in my field. I see virtually no jobs on the net that arent with agencies and i'm reviewing close to 60 roles a day.

    My current employer has a large competitor i would like to work for. They are having cutbacks so while there are jobs they are only being offered as fixed term contracts. Their policy is to advertise permanent jobs themselves on their website and temp and contract roles through an agency. So now i have one agency im stuck with dealing if i want a comparable job to mine in a similar business. They re utterly useless yet i have no choice in the matter and im sure if i fail to get the first or second role they put me in for then i will be blacklisted and will lose any chance of getting a job there. Of course at the moment i'm still waiting for that agency to even bother calling me back.....

    When im looking for a new job im looking for a step up in responsibility, a better salary, a better company, better conditions.... agencies simply dont think like that or accept that logic and as such arent much use to me.
  • I've had a terrible experience with Reed lately. They advertised a 6 weeks temp job in March. They made me fill countkess forms, they contacted me 10 times requesting all possible references from the last 5 years (this should have been a giveaway of a scam, but I was desperate). At the end they told me I wasn't good enough. Eventually I contacted the company I should have worrked at, and the HR told me they knew nothing of that agency and they only recruit direct.

    What a scam! Only to fish for references!
  • bamgbost
    bamgbost Posts: 482 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    wow. I didn't know agencies were this bad - esp to ciaccino!

    I have encountered good and bad agencies. My last 2 roles have been through agencies. But only by shear luck!!!

    Like many have said they are really sneaky. Someetimes I do not even think they have jobs. They only call to find out if there is avacancy in your current business, and who is the best person to speak to @ the company, to secure new hires. Another trick they use is to ask about interviews you have been going for, to see which companies are recruiting.

    All sneaky, at my expense most of the time!!! But some of us have no choice, as they have most of the jobs. Just gotta kiss a few frogs to find that dream job I guess!
    365 Day 1p challenge - £371.49 / 667.95
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  • Stylehutz
    Stylehutz Posts: 351 Forumite
    bamgbost wrote: »
    wow. I didn't know agencies were this bad - esp to ciaccino!

    I have encountered good and bad agencies. My last 2 roles have been through agencies. But only by shear luck!!!

    Like many have said they are really sneaky. Someetimes I do not even think they have jobs. They only call to find out if there is avacancy in your current business, and who is the best person to speak to @ the company, to secure new hires. Another trick they use is to ask about interviews you have been going for, to see which companies are recruiting.

    All sneaky, at my expense most of the time!!! But some of us have no choice, as they have most of the jobs. Just gotta kiss a few frogs to find that dream job I guess!


    And also to want to send their candidates to compete against you for that particular role reducing your chances of getting the job. In the words of Captain Mainwaring ,"Don't tell him Pike"
  • demi60
    demi60 Posts: 43 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 3 May 2015 at 2:14PM
    Last Bank holiday, I joined Your World agency who found me work in an NHS laboratory. I worked 52 hours however during my last shift before 6th April bank holiday I suffered a chemical injury to my right eye, I couldn't see properly so went off sick. However, the agency wasn't happy I couldn't restart my contract, however I wasn't happy with the laboratory's health & safety as I was never issued with safety glasses when I asked and the lab never reported my incident so I was reluctant to return there.

    I have emailed the agency regarding my pay but I never received any reply to my emails.

    My umbrella company said they sorted it out but still no pay and this leaves me in financial difficulty !
    I am owed £1092.00 as stated in the contract, I was being paid £21.00 an hour. I am thinking of starting legal proceedings but are recruitment agencies overseen by an Employment Standards regulator? I been looking for one where I can report such bad practices, surely there has got to be protection for all who use recruitment agencies as without us, they would be unemployed ! Thank you for reading this and taking time to reply.
  • Got a call this morning at 9am. I was half asleep. Initially I though it was a 5 year old girl who dialled the wrong number. It turned out she was some non-entity working for an agency asking me random questions. I asked her what her name was and the name of the agency and she declined (but I got the name of the agency by googling her phone number). She said, in a very broken council estate-chav sort-of English: "I have been asked to make some calls". That's it.

    I said: "How can I help you?"; she asked me how long I had been in the country and if I was still unemployed. Then she said "somebody maybe will call you later or maybe not".

    I have no words!
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