Recruitment agencies - should I trust them?

Spiritof72

Hi all.
I've recently been put forward for a couple of jobs via a recruitment agency and reached the final stages for both roles.
I was the only person put forward by the agency for one role but one of two people put forward by the agency for the other role. In both cases I believe there is limited additional competition.
I was eventually offered one of the roles but I was still keen to progress the other (potentially better) role and asked the agency to continue with this application before my making a final decision. However the interview for this second role is supposedly being delayed. This will soon force me into making a decision on the first role.
Can I trust the agency or are they deliberately stalling so that they can get two people placed rather than one? Does anyone have experience of this?
Thanks,
Spirit

dawyldthing

Agencies will generally do what's best for them as they want the placement fee. Depends on the niche of your market but if you keep on a good side of good agencies and they can keep you going work wise

Charlottest93

Don't get greedy.

Spiritof72

Thanks for replies.
Not being greedy ... if anything my 'preferred' role will pay less than the one I've been offered. It is more of a career / job satisfaction perspective.
Yes agencies will do the best for themselves. I'm hoping that the long-term value they may receive from keeping me sweet might outweigh the short-term benefit of them placing two people. Not holding my breath though :-)
Does anyone have any experience that might support / oppose this viewpoint?

liney

The agency won't have the power to dictate interview times to their client. The client will tell the agency when they will be interviewing, not the other way around. The client is the customer, and is in charge.


Also, the client may have it's own applicants plus applicants from other agencies that you don't know about.

DKLS

Spiritof72 wrote: »

Thanks for replies.
Yes agencies will do the best for themselves. I'm hoping that the long-term value they may receive from keeping me sweet might outweigh the short-term benefit of them placing two people. Not holding my breath though :-)
Does anyone have any experience that might support / oppose this viewpoint?

RCs are essentially sales people, so if you have one offer in the bag, its unlikelynvest any effort getting you another offer, (unless the 2nd job has a higher commission), much better to stick you in the first role and line up another candidate for role 2.

Spiritof72

Thanks for the further replies.
Tend to agree the agency won't spend much energy getting me a further offer. Yes the client will dictate the time of any interview but I guess the agency could say that I am now 'off the market'.
I have a week to decide on the first offer. Will be interesting to see if the interview for the second role does go ahead.

lufcgirl

As soon as I read this thread and your situation, I immediately thought they were out to delay the second interview so you would accept the first.

I say this because I'm a Recruitment Consultant and I know of people who do exactly the same thing a lot of the time. My type of recruitment is slightly different to others in that there's always generally just the one candidate for each role and that's it.

But I can guarantee if you turn the first role down they'll be scampering to book the second interview for the other company as quickly as possible!

SuzieSue

They will usually do what it most beneficial for them. A few years ago I was offered a position with one company just after I had had a interview for another position at another company. Both roles were very different, so it would have been difficult for me to decide which to take if I was offered both and so I didn't want to have to make that decision.

I therefore told the RC to tell the second company that I had already decided to accept the first job and that I didn't want to be considered for their job. But he didn't do that and he rang me the next day to say that I had been offered the second job too.

I still took the first job (and have been there nearly 15 years so it was probably the right decision) but the RC basically ignored my wishes probably because they would have got more commission on the second job.