Agencies for High End IT jobs

TheMonster

What would be the best agency(ies) to talk to about looking for a developer/analysts role towards top end of the scale(11+ years experience).


TIA

DOLEMAN

Well, Eolas Recruitment do a lot of IT roles, but all they'll be doing is firing out your CV to as many employers as possible, hoping one bites...

IBM are looking for senior people if interested?

redman

IT People

Niall Kelly

01 2843423

BTW: Scary number of posts suits your name ;-)) (when it was 666)

TheMonster

redman wrote:

IT People

Niall Kelly

01 2843423

BTW: Scary number of posts suits your name ;-))

lol thanks for that

mountainyman

Don't be a sap monster, the answer is all of them; you never know who will have your dream job. don't put all your eggs in one basket.

DOLEMAN

mountainyman wrote:

you never know who will have your dream job.

This is not how agencies work though. When they say "We have a few roles coming up", what they actually mean is "We were looking at doleman's website and we saw IBM and Symantec are hiring. Please give me your CV and I'll send it to these companies for you, following it up with a phonecall, and hope for the best."

Agencies just do what all jobseekers do - fire off CVs and hope for the best. While this is not so bad in itself, the real problem is that they make false promises and give false hope. They'll tell you anything to get your CV.

Very very very few agencies actually officially hire for companies.

TempestSabre

TheMonster wrote:

What would be the best agency(ies) to talk to about looking for a developer/analysts role towards top end of the scale(11+ years experience).


TIA

Theres no such thing. They are all dire. You're best bet is to trawl the websites of the big companies, try and avoid the agencies. At the same time fire your CV to all the agencies. Do a lot of networking to see what roles are comming up.

misterq

In general I would agree with you TempestSabre, but I have to give Eolas a mention as standing out from the crowd, having used them from both sides of the fence I've always found them very professional.

That said, don't put all your eggs in the one basket.

DublinWriter

Another trick I've seen agencies use (especially in the UK) is that they'll call you up saying that they've a few jobs knocking around that might suit you and could you forward them your latest CV including referee details.

When they ask for your CV *plus* referee details they are basically looking for sales leads and will cold-call anyone you mention by name on your CV.

It doesn't happen here as much because Ireland, being Ireland, everyone tends to know each other.

Agencies don't tend to specialise in "high-end IT jobs".

Would have to agree with earlier poster, Niall Kelly of IT People is a top guy.

BossArky

I would recommend spamming every agency you can find on jobserve.com

DOLEMAN

DublinWriter wrote:

When they ask for your CV *plus* referee details they are basically looking for sales leads and will cold-call anyone you mention by name on your CV.

Ahhh sneaky little buggers!

mountainyman

Identify the companies you want to work for and contact them yourself.

MM

TempestSabre

misterq wrote:

In general I would agree with you TempestSabre, but I have to give Eolas a mention as standing out from the crowd, having used them from both sides of the fence I've always found them very professional.

That said, don't put all your eggs in the one basket.

I wouldn't rate Eolas that highly myself. It depends who you get in the agencies.

dazberry

DublinWriter wrote:

When they ask for your CV *plus* referee details they are basically looking for sales leads and will cold-call anyone you mention by name on your CV.

They don't have to even go that far. I made the critical mistake of sending my CV into computer futures once. A couple of days later I got a call asking for the IT manager, I twigged something was up and since it would have been me per say - I gave a fake name - you'll never guess what happened next - faxes, letters... If you actually saw how prospective employees were "sold", you'd never go near them.

I have now dealt with agencies from both sides of the coin and make no mistake about it - they are always there to answer my calls, respond to my emails etc., when I ring with the employer hat on. Ironically enough the same doesn't seem to happen when I have my employee hat on. I haven't mixed the agencies - so I haven't dealt with one in both capacities - yet.

Had dealings with Computer People recently (as an employee). Absolutely terrible.

D.

DOLEMAN

dazberry wrote:

They don't have to even go that far. I made the critical mistake of sending my CV into computer futures once.

Computer Futures!

A few years ago I was living with my parents. A sales person from computer futures left 4 or 5 abusive messages on my parents answering machine because "I didn't turn up for the interview".

Thing is... this was the first I heard of this interview. I rang them to ask "why the **** are you leaving abusive messages for me on my parents answering machine" and they were extremely rude and unapologetic.

They obviously had me mixed up with someone else (fair enough, we all make mistakes), but leaving multiple abusive messages, on someone elses answering machine for me? Unprofessional is too kind a word...

TempestSabre

I asked Computer Futures not to get me a contract out too far from my home because I needed to be around because a family member was sick. They found a contact, agreed everything except telling me where it was, but was assured it was only 30 mins away. Last week on the contract I was on I found out the new contract was 70 miles away. Hour and half commute each way. :mad:

DOLEMAN

TempestSabre wrote:

I asked Computer Futures not to get me a contract out too far from my home because I needed to be around because a family member was sick. They found a contact, agreed everything except telling me where it was, but was assured it was only 30 mins away. Last week on the contract I was on I found out the new contract was 70 miles away. Hour and half commute each way. :mad:

The reason they did this is because they are sales people. Recruiters have no HR qualification, nor a HR mentality. Everything is abouit reaching targets and getting people to interviews/getting people hired. Your interests mean nothing to them. Only their targets and commissions matter.

TempestSabre

DOLEMAN wrote:

The reason they did this is because they are sales people. Recruiters have no HR qualification, nor a HR mentality. Everything is abouit reaching targets and getting people to interviews/getting people hired. Your interests mean nothing to them. Only their targets and commissions matter.

Agreed. But its hardly a good sales approach to alienate both contractors and clients by giving bad service.

DublinWriter

DOLEMAN wrote:

The reason they did this is because they are sales people. Recruiters have no HR qualification, nor a HR mentality. Everything is abouit reaching targets and getting people to interviews/getting people hired. Your interests mean nothing to them. Only their targets and commissions matter.

...not only that, they're not IT people either. They could have been selling Roller-Skates last week.

Typically a client will ring them up looking for someone with experience in say, V2.2 of a product. They'll trawl their C.V. database for people with the product name, call them up and the converstation will go something like...

"Do you have experice in V2.2?"

"No, V2.1"

"Oh sorry, the client specified V2.2"

etc etc.

80% of agencies are royal muppetts. Around 2002 there were in excess of 120 agencies in Dublin, most weren't even registered as Job Agencies (a legal requirement).

Yet, companies still deal with them!

Having said that, the one advantage if you're a contractor is that you'll get paid promptly with an agency. I worked directly for one small software company in Dublin and it took three months for my invoice to get paid.

mountainyman

TempestSabre wrote:

...agreed everything except telling me where it was, ... Last week on the contract I was on I found out the new contract was 70 miles away... :mad:

haha lol pwnd
Computer Futures don't care about you there is no smiley to indicate how sad I am. Seriously you figured this out when...
see the discussion about a new kind of Agency if you want to change this.
Start the contract. get a new one asap and leave.

If you really want to **** them over
start the contract
find a new one
tell a friend who can do the job all about it
tell the company why you are leaving and CFs behaviour
arrange an interview for your friend.
.

TempestSabre wrote:

...not only that, they're not IT people either. They could have been selling Roller-Skates last week.

90% of them have never done anything else. 75% of them are under 25. Seriously it is a **** job; the owner takes all the money. But it is a decent way to earn money if you are thick.


MM

mountainyman

DublinWriter wrote:

Having said that, the one advantage if you're a contractor is that you'll get paid promptly with an agency. I worked directly for one small software company in Dublin and it took three months for my invoice to get paid.

Invoice discounters charge alot less.

MM

DOLEMAN

mountainyman wrote:

90% of them have never done anything else. 75% of them are under 25. Seriously it is a **** job; the owner takes all the money. But it is a decent way to earn money if you are thick.

I wouldn't agree with the "thick" part. Sales people are generally quite smart. They may not be academic types, but they are "street smart" and have skills which are quite hard to master (eg. thick skin).

I also don't think they are bad people. They are just doing their job. They could all do with some sensitivity lessons though.

Edit: one other thing (slightly OT.) I hate the way sales people think the customer is stupid. It's arrogant and... stupid!

DublinWriter

mountainyman wrote:

If you really want to **** them over
start the contract
find a new one
tell a friend who can do the job all about it
tell the company why you are leaving and CFs behaviour
arrange an interview for your friend.

I hear what you're saying, but

a) To start, you'd have had to sign the legal contract. You could be sued for breaking the terms of the contract.

b) Dublin is basically a villiage and in a villiage it doesn't pay too much to p*ss people off.

DublinWriter

DOLEMAN wrote:

I also don't think they are bad people.

No, they're not bad people, they are the spawn of the devil.

The best sales people to me are the ones who are still in the game after they turn 30 and have gotten enough humility and people skills not to come across like a mini-me Gordon Geckko.

DublinWriter

As a rule I also refuse to deal with agencies that don't tell me where they are sending my CV when a specific contract comes up.

I've dealt with dozens of agencies and usually the best ones are the ones who are straight up with you from the start.

Agencies who refuse to tell you usually have got that sales lead from a cold call and there's probably nothing there but a lot of smoke.