Best training or recognised qualifications help

Sandtree

Anyone with Agent in their title have a bad reputation but they also have valuable books of contacts etc. Agents find perm, contract and temp roles, most agencies specialise in certain sectors and agents in certain engagement models. Certainly in more basic roles their margins can materially damage your take home (other than for perm) but its less pronounced at higher levels and if you are in a strong negotiating position you can at times get them to sacrifice part of their margin to you.

Just remember that they don’t work for you and they go for low hanging fruit so dont expect them to be proactive or too excited to be hearing from you unless you closely match something they are working on.

Savvy_Sue

Recruitment agencies are not allowed to charge fees to workers. They get their money from employers. Yes, some are better than others, and some specialise in different areas of work. Some supply more temps than permanent staff, and vice versa. If you're willing to temp, you may find yourself going to different places from week to week, but if you're liked you'll be asked to stay if they still need someone, or asked for in future if there's another vacancy. 

Savvy_Sue

As for how you get your skills down for other jobs, if there's an application form, you look at the questions asked, you look at the job description and you look at the person spec. For every required characteristic, you give an example of how you have experience that meets that requirement, and you do the same for as many desired characteristics as you can. 

General_Grant

Savvy_Sue said:

Recruitment agencies are not allowed to charge fees to workers. They get their money from employers. Yes, some are better than others, and some specialise in different areas of work. Some supply more temps than permanent staff, and vice versa. If you're willing to temp, you may find yourself going to different places from week to week, but if you're liked you'll be asked to stay if they still need someone, or asked for in future if there's another vacancy. 

Probably not relevant to the OP but acting jobs are an exception to the fees ban.

Also some agencies have been known to try to charge for extra services like CV preparation.  It's legal but not recommended.

Savvy_Sue

General_Grant said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Recruitment agencies are not allowed to charge fees to workers. They get their money from employers. Yes, some are better than others, and some specialise in different areas of work. Some supply more temps than permanent staff, and vice versa. If you're willing to temp, you may find yourself going to different places from week to week, but if you're liked you'll be asked to stay if they still need someone, or asked for in future if there's another vacancy. 

Probably not relevant to the OP but acting jobs are an exception to the fees ban.

Also some agencies have been known to try to charge for extra services like CV preparation.  It's legal but not recommended.

Thanks. Should have been aware of that as I have a friend who does Voiceover work and pays to have work found!

Back in the days when I had to use agencies, I found they also 'used' those on their books - I was put on their switchboard for a while so that 'switchboard experience' could be added to my list of skills ... I can't remember if it was THEIR switchboard which had wires and plugs to make connections, or the first one I was sent to operate as a temp. Either way, it was so long ago I'm sure some readers have no idea what I am talking about. 

Sandtree

Savvy_Sue said:

Recruitment agencies are not allowed to charge fees to workers. They get their money from employers. 

 
This one of those silly rules though isn’t it when you consider temps or some contractors... whilst in some cases the agreement will be that the agency gets the candidate rate plus 10-20% in other cases the client sets an overall budget and its down to the agency to decide what they take -v- what they give the candidate. 

In my call centre days we paid our two agencies £15/hr for temps and were blind to what they paid the candidates. This meets the requirements of the employer paying the fees but one agency paid their candidates notably more so it’s semantics really on if the poorer payer is taking the extra £3/hr from the candidates or not

General_Grant

Savvy_Sue said:

General_Grant said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Recruitment agencies are not allowed to charge fees to workers. They get their money from employers. Yes, some are better than others, and some specialise in different areas of work. Some supply more temps than permanent staff, and vice versa. If you're willing to temp, you may find yourself going to different places from week to week, but if you're liked you'll be asked to stay if they still need someone, or asked for in future if there's another vacancy. 

Probably not relevant to the OP but acting jobs are an exception to the fees ban.

Also some agencies have been known to try to charge for extra services like CV preparation.  It's legal but not recommended.

Thanks. Should have been aware of that as I have a friend who does Voiceover work and pays to have work found!

Back in the days when I had to use agencies, I found they also 'used' those on their books - I was put on their switchboard for a while so that 'switchboard experience' could be added to my list of skills ... I can't remember if it was THEIR switchboard which had wires and plugs to make connections, or the first one I was sent to operate as a temp. Either way, it was so long ago I'm sure some readers have no idea what I am talking about. 

Did it have "dolls' eyes"?  To signal that there was a call coming in a round disk would move to get the operator's attention - useful when operating the switchboard was not the major part of your job.

Alter_ego

I've known quite a few people get into NHS jobs (admin etc) by volunteering in NHS for a few months then applying.

Savvy_Sue

General_Grant said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Back in the days when I had to use agencies, I found they also 'used' those on their books - I was put on their switchboard for a while so that 'switchboard experience' could be added to my list of skills ... I can't remember if it was THEIR switchboard which had wires and plugs to make connections, or the first one I was sent to operate as a temp. Either way, it was so long ago I'm sure some readers have no idea what I am talking about. 

Did it have "dolls' eyes"?  To signal that there was a call coming in a round disk would move to get the operator's attention - useful when operating the switchboard was not the major part of your job.

Yes, I believe it did, but it was a LONG time ago ... 

Savvy_Sue

Alter_ego said:

I've known quite a few people get into NHS jobs (admin etc) by volunteering in NHS for a few months then applying.

It's also a good way to get your foot in the door with charities - and the OP might not realise but charities large and small do need the kind of skills they have. It is more difficult right now: we've just started having admin volunteers back in, but several of my colleagues volunteered with us before getting work here, and we've seen other volunteers move on to great jobs - including one who was trying to move from manual labour into accountancy, they volunteered one day a week while studying, then got a temp job in the local emergency services, which is now permanent.