Recruitment Agencies Are Useless!!

19lottie82

brightonman123 wrote: »

I saw my OWN temp fee invoice once, which had a £4 an hour markup (plus vat) = £160 a WEEK, to the agency.. i had very good rate of pay for the job, so wasnt that bothered..

easy money.. for a making a few phones calls?!

Right, first off I am not PRO employment agencies, I have never been a recruitment consultant But.......

This attitude is really short sighted.

You hear people saying I am on £x an hour and saw an invoice from the agency that was charging my place of work £x + 4 an hour, I couldn't believe it, how unfair!

An agency is a business, they are not government funded like the job centre. They have numerous cost to cover before they make a profit, including

- NI / Tax contributions / Holiday pay for you
- Wages for the recruitment consultants, receptionists, cleaners
- Rent
- Utilities
- Marketing
- Taxes

The list goes on.

It's like going into your local newsagent and complaining "I can't believe you've charged me 70p for this Mars Bar, they only cost 40p each when you buy them in bulk from the cash and carry.

richardw

There are some agencies that prefer to work on reasonable mark ups and go for volume instead.

Caroline_a

I have had a variety of success with agencies. You have to learn to play the game! Firstly I have always ensured that I'm registered properly with them - gone in and met the recruiter, etc. Then I pester them 3 - 4 times a week to see if anything is happening, plus I call in to see them. The ones I do this with I've had lots of success with, and when I was last looking for something over 12 months ago I had 4 agencies calling me offering me interviews.

Casey_Ryback

I would really love to know why these lot even exist?
They are a kind of species worse than a used car salesman!
They mislead you,lie to you and the Client too.
If you complain you are out of temporary work and will never be placed again.
Like toddlers in the nursery. They think they are God almighty and you must obey or they mess up your life! No use to complain cause most of the time the director is sitting next to them in an office look alike it was a shop last week.
Worse the director of the company is just as s*it as the agent promising you the moon.
The agency culture should be wiped off from the surface of this planet!
These liars should go out on the field and collect Berry or potatoes...to learn how a real work looks like...

tea_lover

I was made redundant in December. I was offered a different job at the same company before I left, but it wasn't officially available until June. For the 5 months in between I worked there via an agency, then became a permanent employee again in June.

The agency charged £4500 for the temp to perm contract, on top of the % they charged each week when I was technically working via them.

Everything was arranged via HR at work, I never even went to the agency, just emailed them a timesheet each week.

Seems to be a licence to print money.

scheming_gypsy

It's not really a license to print money.

You work for the agency at a client site. The agency charge the client x amount and pay you y amount. The difference is used for:
profit
paying your employers NI
paying the staff in the agency
paying your holidays and sick pay
paying the factoring company because you get paid weekly while they get paid on 28 day invoices
paying hire / maintenance on equipment

Agencies have running costs that need to be paid for.

The fee for temp to perm is compensation for lost staff (it's not like they can put you in another role) and a 'finders' fee.


If it was a license to print money my Dad's wouldn't have closed about 6 years ago because they weren't making enough money to keep going.

CCFC_80

DKLS wrote: »

Like all industries there are good and bad recruitment consultants,

Haven't come across any good recruitment consultants but boy plenty of bad ones. Some of them make your typical estate agents look like saints. Full of liars, bulls*****rs and in my experience some of them might have murdered their own grandmothers to get a sale.

dangleberry

I keep getting spammed by a bunch called Premier IT.
More than 6 times I've told them I don't live even remotely near the jobs they advertise, and everytime they say "oh, sorry, please send me your updated CV" ..No more, No thanks, I don't want to be on your books, talk about desperate!
Then the last time I tried to ask them to stop sending me irrelevant jobs, they asked me for my home address...erm...WHY?! Naturally I ignored the request instead of pointing out their incompetence to them but guess what I got in my email again today? Wow, I bet your data's really safe with these clowns!! I would definitely advise people to avoid an agency that can't seem to understand something as simple as "I don't live in your area"

Shazza122

I must be really lucky as the agencies I have registered with have been fantastic so far (touch wood!!!).

melysion

I have registered for agencies in the past and not heard anything from them at all. I give them a wide berth now.