recruitment agencies - email CV or go in? *updated*

Brallaqueen

Silly question but I have no idea. Do you have to go in and hand in your cv? Should it have a covering letter? Should I dress smartly?

or can I avoid the whole speaking to people thing and email a cv in to them (am feeling very fragile at the moment and look worse)

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Well I went in to three agencies and they all were very much 'thanks for coming in, please email me your CV' so I did. One did seem keen on my experience ( 5 years admin) and promised me a telephone interview for a similar position at 11.00 today - however they did not call. I don't understand?

Aryndeneth

You can normally submit online or via email but I think you benefit more from going in. You can actually talk to someone in more detail about what you're looking for so there's a better chance of them finding you something suitable.

There's no requirement to dress smartly but it doesn't hurt to make a good first impression on someone who might be recommending you to employers. Also, if you're feeling fragile at the the moment, dressing a bit smartly might help you feel more confident.

If you're not feeling like speaking to people, going to talk to a recruitment advisor might be a less stressful opportunity to get you feeling better about this. There aren't many jobs where you won't need to speak to people or have some kind of interview and meeting someone from the agency first might help you transition back into feeling like you can do this more confidently. Good luck!!

CCFC_80

Either way they will ask you to register with them and they will make you jump through several hoops just to register.

You will probably be on their books for ever with no offers of work and you will have to chase them regularly ideally by phone.

BTW, Don't ever email them as they say they are too busy to answer emails. If however you say that you are an HR person looking for 6 staff to start straight away they will email or get back to you immediately.

Overall not the most pleasant people to deal with but you could be lucky.

InsideInsurance

Emailing alone puts you into a very long list of other people that did exactly the same. Randomly dropping in probably means you only see a receptionist if its an agency of any size and so is little different from emailing.

If you need to deal with the joys that are agencies/ agents then it is important to actually get to speak to the agents themselves. On the phone is generally fine but face to face is always more personable and gives you more chance to stand out.

Generally speaking if you are being seen by them you should dress up as you would to an interview arranged by them. When they meet you they will be trying to judge if their clients will be interested in taking you on and if you're dressed in dirty jeans, unironed t-shirt and warn out trainers itll be much harder for them to guess what you look like scrubbed up (or if you even know that you should dress smart for an interview).

Keep on their case, they will deal with a lot of candidates and have a massive database of CVs, its much easier to remember the guy you just spoke to on the phone than the CV you read last week or the woman you met last month

Admittedly once you get to a certain level in your career things change a little and you find the agents chase you rather than the other way round at which point you can call the shots more (and get a few free drinks/ meals) but then an agent will get over £100 a day from their client for providing me and I have been with the same agent/ client now for 380 working days

sapphireeye

Whenever I've been in recruitment agencies recently they've turned away people who have just turned up at the door and told them to ring/email a CV and make an appointment to come in and register. I think at the moment a lot of them are overrun with people looking for jobs and there aren't enough consultants to go round if people just turn up.

bargainbetty

It helps if you phone in regarding a specific job you see them advertising. YOu can forward them your CV via email or arrange a meeting that way.

Don't just drop in - they usually have a diary system in place for appointments and you might catch them at a busy time.

Good luck