Recruitment agencies: they have gone mad

AARRRGH

Recuitment agencies used to charge around 15% per hire. Now it seems some of them want 27% per hire.

What utter greed.

I know the recruitment industry pretty well and I know what little work is required to source a candidate. It goes like this:

Agency advertises job on jobsite

Jobseeker applies for job

Agency sends Jobseeker's CV to Employer

Employer hires Jobseeker

Agency gets 27% of the Jobseeker's salary

It's not difficult.

Does anyone else (and I suspect you do!) think this is total madness?

27%? WTF...

Tom Dunne

Is it like the estate agents where business is slowing, so they increase their prices?

monkey24

As with any company/sector/business, they can charge what they like if people are willing to pay. If they can get 27% then why not charge it ? If any business can up their prices they will do so. Look at British Gas, they upped their price and still made record profits this year. I don't think its specific to recruitment.

Tabnabs

We used a big agency recently and it was 12% they were after.

27%? kiss my ......:rolleyes:

monkey24

Dyflin wrote: »

We used a big agency recently and it was 12% they were after.

27%? kiss my ......:rolleyes:

Thats a perfect example of what will happen in Ireland over the coming year. The recruitment sector is overcrowded with companies at the moment so it will becoming easier to haggle, just as you would over a house. With our growth rate slashed to 1.8%, which in my opinion is optimistic. The level of business will no doubt start to contract. Also in turbulent times people are less inclined to go looking for new jobs due to the "First in First out" mentality. The coming year or so could begin to see a number of agencies begin to struggle as is happening with estate agents i.e. once the product you are selling is not wanted by the client list anymore, you are screwed.
Many of the bigger agencies have branched out into Eastern Europe, the problem with that is, the revenue being pulled in from those types of jobs will be a lot less than what they managed to pull in from Ireland over the years.

chump

they chance their arm at a high percent, if someone swallows it fair play.
10-15 would be norm I imagine

Still big

churrusco

mmmmmm

Better rates for who send their cv straight to the companies :rolleyes:

flash harry

hey OP Im a recruiter, dont charge that much (27%)

Listen, since this is so easy, could you get me a qualified accountant with financial services experience for a southside based client - I'll give you 10% say......if you could get that over to me for Monday it would be great.......

By the by, most recruiters are crap, Ive said it many times before, but if someone thinks its easy to find skilled employees in Ireland they dont know what they're talking about......if it was that easy the companies would just advertise themselves and never use agencies etc

AARRRGH

flash harry wrote: »

Listen, since this is so easy, could you get me a qualified accountant with financial services experience for a southside based client - I'll give you 10% say......if you could get that over to me for Monday it would be great.......

I can't get you one by Monday, but if I put up a few job adverts I'll have one for you within a week.

It'll take me about 15 minutes to put up the job adverts.

Should I get 15-27% of his large salary for that? Bollox...

The reason a lot of companies use agencies is (in my experience) because the HR people are lazy/incompetent.

flash harry

dublindude wrote: »

I can't get you one by Monday, but if I put up a few job adverts I'll have one for you within a week.

It'll take me about 15 minutes to put up the job adverts.

Should I get 15-27% of his large salary for that? Bollox...

The reason a lot of companies use agencies is (in my experience) because the HR people are lazy/incompetent.

sorry OP but your talking rubbish, if only it was that easy........we're at nearly full employment, anyone who wants to work can do within reason and there are shortages of skilled labour (financial services being one area).....

anyone from a HR or recruitment background will tell you this.....

dellas1979

Recruitment agencies are crap and dont deserve to be paid at all in my opinion.

The most over rated job Ive ever come accross. Ye dont contact clients, ye put up fake jobs to get CVs, 3 years later (as in a case of mine) they actually get back to you to "update your CV".

There are young ones of all ages walking around in their Penny's imitation suit trying to call themselves professionals, when all they want is a quick buck. I have said it here before, I dont know how some agencies are open cause they never seem to find anyone a job. So 27%? all the expletives in the world couldnt cover what I think of that.

dellas1979

I forgot to add. The country is NOT short of skilled labourers.

What has happened is that companies have become more selective as to who they take on. It used to be a case that you have a degree, maybe 1-2 years experience, good reliable, hard working person.

Now they want someone with a degree, with a masters, with 5 years experience, you need to know EVERYTHING on a job spec, they dont want to train you in, remember time is money, and will only look at you if you are dolled up to the 9s with what ever fake clothes jewellery you own, just to give out an "image" of success.

AARRRGH

flash harry wrote: »

sorry OP but your talking rubbish, if only it was that easy........we're at nearly full employment, anyone who wants to work can do within reason and there are shortages of skilled labour (financial services being one area).....

anyone from a HR or recruitment background will tell you this.....

I run lots of jobsites, I'm not talking rubbish. I can source staff with very specific skills*. There's no magic to it - people change jobs all the time.

I actually don't have a problem with 10-15% fee for finding the right candidate, but this 27% nonsense... come on.

*and guess what? I do it for free. It's not difficult...

monkey24

dellas1979 wrote: »

I forgot to add. The country is NOT short of skilled labourers.

What has happened is that companies have become more selective as to who they take on. It used to be a case that you have a degree, maybe 1-2 years experience, good reliable, hard working person.

Now they want someone with a degree, with a masters, with 5 years experience, you need to know EVERYTHING on a job spec, they dont want to train you in, remember time is money, and will only look at you if you are dolled up to the 9s with what ever fake clothes jewellery you own, just to give out an "image" of success.

One thing I will say on this is I WHOLE heartily agree on the point of training. For this country in particular we foster a work ethic of, once you do one thing thats what you will do for the rest of your life. Companies will not look outside the job spec in most cases and will not consider training anyone to allow them to transcend from a different role. Some of the roles,with some proper training can be given to those who have proven to be hard working, goal orientated etc all be it, maybe in a different area.
Some companies could save themselves a lot of money if they allowed a little more leeway for some roles and would put a little effort into training people up. This applies a lot in IT, once you are a techie, god forbid you want to move into Business Analyst, CRM Manager, Technical Sales, no, you like Star Trek and are not allowed to communicate with the outside world.

I am making this comparison with time spent in Sydney where it seemed companies were a lot more open to people wanting to move around different areas of their sector.

Sleepy

A question for those still using recruitment agencies: what is it you feel they offer for their fee?

Any time an agency has gotten their hands on my CV they've just shown me how incapable they are at matching my skillset to an employers job-spec e.g. I did 6 months of JAVA in college 6 years ago but would be offered the opportunity to apply for roles as a Senior Java Developer having never worked a day in development in my life.

Is it really *that* much hassle to post a job to one of the jobsites and review the candidates applying to your ad's CV's?

flash harry

dellas1979 wrote: »

I forgot to add. The country is NOT short of skilled labourers.

What has happened is that companies have become more selective as to who they take on. It used to be a case that you have a degree, maybe 1-2 years experience, good reliable, hard working person.

dellas good point BUT same bottom line - difficult to get what client deems acceptable

MIN2511

Sleepy wrote: »

A question for those still using recruitment agencies: what is it you feel they offer for their fee?

Any time an agency has gotten their hands on my CV they've just shown me how incapable they are at matching my skillset to an employers job-spec e.g. I did 6 months of JAVA in college 6 years ago but would be offered the opportunity to apply for roles as a Senior Java Developer having never worked a day in development in my life.

Is it really *that* much hassle to post a job to one of the jobsites and review the candidates applying to your ad's CV's?

I agree with that, i specifically stated that i have done java in college and would not want a job in the field yet i am still asked to look over job specs. It's also like asking me with 2years experience to do a job that requires 5 years. Total bollocks if you ask me.
I also hate it when you tell them you are not on the market but then they keep sending you job specs… like wtf

mrpink6789

dublindude wrote: »

Recuitment agencies used to charge around 15% per hire. Now it seems some of them want 27% per hire.

What utter greed.

I know the recruitment industry pretty well and I know what little work is required to source a candidate. It goes like this:

Agency advertises job on jobsite

Jobseeker applies for job

Agency sends Jobseeker's CV to Employer

Employer hires Jobseeker

Agency gets 27% of the Jobseeker's salary

It's not difficult.

Does anyone else (and I suspect you do!) think this is total madness?

27%? WTF...

dublindude, you haven't a clue what you are talking about. Do me a favour and go on to Irish Jobs, under agency search type in Java. How many adverts do you see? I counted over 1800!

Yeah its that easy to count on an advertisement!

AARRRGH

Another point on this 27% business.

It is actually damaging the career prospects of people who use those agencies.

I know an employer who wanted to hire a candidate but wouldn't because she wasn't willing to pay the agency a 27% fee for doing so. The alternative was to reduce the jobseekers wage by X% to make up for the outrageous ageny fees. So it's a lose/lose for the jobseeker whichever decision she made.

I wonder what the agency told the jobseeker - our % is too high so you didn't get the job, or "they weren't interrested" ?

A lot of recruitment agents I know have a target of 1 hire per month. If this is the reason why the agency fee is so high, surely this is a sign that the business model they're using isn't feasible?

AARRRGH

mrpink6789 wrote: »

dublindude, you haven't a clue what you are talking about. Do me a favour and go on to Irish Jobs, under agency search type in Java. How many adverts do you see? I counted over 1800!

Yeah its that easy to count on an advertisement!

Hang on, I never said I think agencies should be doing it out of the goodness of their heart; I'm saying charging 27% for putting up a job advert and then forwarding on the responses... what a rip off.

Poppers1888

who charges 27% and where did you hear that???? was it for a director or CEO or something like that maybe? for the highest paid roles where the recruitment has taken an exceedingly longtime and effort the fee may be very large but not for the regular level roles

mrpink6789

dublindude wrote: »

Hang on, I never said I think agencies should be doing it out of the goodness of their heart; I'm saying charging 27% for putting up a job advert and then forwarding on the responses... what a rip off.

Ok then I apologise. But the majority of the time a 27% fee would be for senior people looking for 100k or more for example. These people are harder to find and as a result take a lot of time to source. No way we would rely on a job posting to get these type of candidates. There's a lot more work then most people think so I think people should really look in to it before assuming its all about adverts and thats it!

I have been doing IT recruitment for quite some time now and I have not relied on getting the perfect applicant from a jobsite in about 2 years.....

AARRRGH

mrpink6789 wrote: »

Do me a favour and go on to Irish Jobs, under agency search type in Java. How many adverts do you see? I counted over 1800!

I agree Irish Jobs etc. is a bit nuts, but that's why you pay to browse their CV database.

AARRRGH

Poppers1888 wrote: »

who charges 27% and where did you hear that???? was it for a director or CEO or something like that maybe? for the highest paid roles where the recruitment has taken an exceedingly longtime and effort the fee may be very large but not for the regular level roles

Nope, for a junior QA role. It's their new rate. 27%!

They're a well known IT agency...

Honestly I am not making this up. It's nuts. The employer said 15% or nothing. The agency chose nothing. Mad.

Mr. Incognito

I'm working in a big 4 accountancy firm and I can tell you HR here are utterly useless. People leave the big 4's in droves because they refuse to give them a payrise and then HR go and waste about 20K a hire on getting someone in to do the exact same job when they could have just hiked the person with three years experience and now they have to spend 6 months training someone in. I'm here three years and I've seen it every year, soon as the training contract is up- poof! I've asked around and it seems to be the industry norm. I think if you were competent in any way at all you wouldn't be working in HR- that's my own opinion from experince with these morons year in, year out- losing application forms, forgetting subscription renewals. etc.

Bye the bye- I could easily get you an accountant with FS experience but screw it- do your own job. 20K a pop- it shouldn't be too hard.

mrpink6789

dublindude wrote: »

Nope, for a junior QA role. It's their new rate. 27%!

They're a well known IT agency...

Honestly I am not making this up. It's nuts. The employer said 15% or nothing. The agency chose nothing. Mad.

27% for a Junior QA role is ridiculous alright. That agency is obviously struggling to make money in the current market and as a result tried to swindle as much money out of clients as they can. It won't last.

AARRRGH

mrpink6789 wrote: »

27% for a Junior QA role is ridiculous alright. That agency is obviously struggling to make money in the current market and as a result tried to swindle as much money out of clients as they can. It won't last.

Yeah, I hope so.

For the sake of fairness I should say the company I was referring to earlier have dealt with another IT agency who have been very professional and only charge 15%.

Xcellor

The recruitment agencies that I have worked with in the past have been hopeless. You send your CV in, you get a phone call, explain your details and get "Yes your CV is just what we are wanting. I will be forwarding it on to the company right away." So you feel good. You wait... and wait .. and wait. Then decide to send a follow up, then you are told that they haven't heard anything back yet. So you wait... and wait and wait and *NOTHING*

At least a courtesy email would be nice to say, "We are still waiting for confirmation..." These guys are boiling hot when they think they will make a buck but the follow up when things don't turn out the way they expected is woeful.

This does not include ALL recruitment agencies, recently I had dealings with one who phoned me at 8:30 Monday morning after I submited my CV on Sunday evening. I now have an interview arranged and there have been constant follow up calls etc. These ones deserve the 15%, the others are just a waste of space IMO.

X

eth0_

27% hhahahhah!

I can't see many companies falling for that.
I've been involved in recruiting staff and never went with any agency candidates because they were either crap, or their skillset was totally wrong for the job. And an agency would want 27% for that? For putting an ad on monster and flicking through some CV's and sending a few emails? What a joke!

It should be a flat fee, not a %. Obviously a higher fee for the most exclusive jobs like CEO positions.

mikeruurds

I looked at the T&Cs for the agency that helped me secure a job recently.

At the highest salary band (€55k+) they charge a whopping 30%.

Ludicrous.

stepbar

dublindude wrote: »

The reason a lot of companies use agencies is (in my experience) because the HR people are lazy/incompetent.

+1 to that.

Mikel

stepbar wrote: »

+1 to that.

+2
HR are the greatest waste of space in any organisation. Are incapable of screening cvs properly. Trained monkeys would do better.

Agencies are even worse, posting non existent jobs, incapable of understanding what the employer wants or what roles you are suited to or even want. It's a numbers game to them, you should see the under qualified cvs they send in. They latch on to one or two words in the spec and send you ten unsuitable people.
They don't do anyone any favours.
Wasters!

DublinWriter

Just be aware of the following scam played by agencies.

Agency ring you up, say they have an ideal role for you, but could you give names of two references. Agency never had role in the first place and proceeds to cold-call your given references to see if they have any requirements.

Also, avoid naming your references on your CV. Just put 'References available on request'.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

inforfun

Isn't it als o the case that those recruiters already get paid when they sent someone out for an interview?
That would explain why they try to get people to apply for job that are not even remotely suitable if you look at their cv's.

In Holland they might ask 100% but as this recruitement business is not by far as big in Holland as it is here.
It almost seems to me you cant get a job here without going through an agency while in Holland you hardly ever deal with them.
Unless you are chased around by head hunters.. and that might explain the 100% fee.

MIN2511

Wow.... that's a lot, they must be headhunters not recruitment agencies

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Kiya

my oh's firm has been charged 35% by a well known agency!

all they have to do for this % is forward cv's to his firms useless HR section. they supposedly forward cvs from "experienced" fund accountants.. eh but looking at the cvs its obvious that theyve just graduated, so wheres the experience?

basically greedy agencys are filling the gap in the market.
oh cant hire enough qualified staff & so HR are willing to pay extortionate fees instead of advertising direct.

Its really down to a companies HR dept being rubbish, theyre the ones losing staff, paying extortionate agency finders fees, costing a company time & money interviewing useless candidates.

told him to get his fellow managers to complain & just hire in some decent HR staff, who know how to do the job.

i'll tell you about one useless agency im with,
after trekking all the way into town to meet with them so they could assess my needs (!!!) they sent my cv to a client.
i had 2 interviews with the company who ultimately said they would have loved to hire me only the agency was looking for too high a percentage when they moved to offer me the position!!!!
now that means im not being given my ideal job, the agency isnt getting their money & my referrees are going to be hounded again.
whos winning in this situation? not me anyway.:mad:

asked the company why they just dont hire direct themselves..
response: our HR are too busy to screen candidates..

im really peeved.

run_Forrest_run

If HR are seen to be too busy then they must be busy massaging the ego of upper management and giving them some eye candy...simple as that.

99% or HR staff are useless, they are primarily there to look good and cater for the managers needs (:rolleyes:) and then if they have time left their secondary role is to tend to the poor plebs, AKA the employees.

People in HR are just failed rejects of some other industry/life.

oops, sorry I ranted on so much I forgot the main theme here, sorry, recruitment agencies are...actually just apply the comments above to recruitment agencies also.

homeOwner

I dont think you can tar all HR personel with the same brush. Not all HR people do recruiting. It is a specialised area and there is a serious lack of experienced people in Ireland in this field from what I have seen.

The fees paid to recruiting agencies is outrageous. Recruiters/HR staff in companies are lazy to trawl through CVs on websites like Irish Jobs (or even too unorganised to keep a current list of vacancies on their own website) so they basically delegate this work to an outside agency who will pick a handful of candidates by word matching the CVs they are in charge of (which will be different from the list of CVs the guy at the next desk will have). You are not seeing a full set of available candidates signed up to that agency (unless it is one of the very small ones).

There is also a serious lack of recruiters fact checking CVs and many candidates I have interviewed are outright lying on their CVs in terms of basic stuff like degrees, years experience etc....which can all be verified by a few phone calls or some determined questioning of the candidates.

Raekwon

run_Forrest_run wrote: »

99% or HR staff are useless

+1

By and large HR & recruitment 'consultants' are both utterly useless. They are both suppose to be good with people but the ones that I have dealt with have been the most socially inept mouth breathers that I have ever had the misfortune to meet. How they get hired in the first place is beyond me and these muppets have other peoples futures in their hands :eek: God help us!

flash harry

Kiya wrote: »

my oh's firm has been charged 35% by a well known agency!

all they have to do for this % is forward cv's to his firms useless HR section. they supposedly forward cvs from "experienced" fund accountants.. eh but looking at the cvs its obvious that theyve just graduated, so wheres the experience?

basically greedy agencys are filling the gap in the market.
oh cant hire enough qualified staff & so HR are willing to pay extortionate fees instead of advertising direct.

Its really down to a companies HR dept being rubbish, theyre the ones losing staff, paying extortionate agency finders fees, costing a company time & money interviewing useless candidates.

told him to get his fellow managers to complain & just hire in some decent HR staff, who know how to do the job..

surely its the managers who are dealing with the staff on a daily basis that are losing the staff??? maybe your oh??? just a thought........

and if you were interviewed by a company who had failed to agree a % in advance - they're as much to blame re th fee as anyone....plus if they really wanted you....no offence....

halkar

Does the jobseeker pay the agency or the employer? Or both? 27% is a lot of money :eek:

watna

halkar wrote: »

Does the jobseeker pay the agency or the employer? Or both? 27% is a lot of money :eek:

No, just the employer. If candidates had to pay for recruitment agencies to find them jobs they'd all close down!

AARRRGH

halkar wrote: »

Does the jobseeker pay the agency or the employer? Or both? 27% is a lot of money :eek:

The jobseeker does.

Departments have a particular budget for salaries. Let's imagine I am hiring a QA person and my budget is 50k.

If I have to give 27% of that to the agency, the most I can offer potential employees is 35k. Without the agency, I could offer up to 50k.

flash harry

dublindude wrote: »

The jobseeker does.

Departments have a particular budget for salaries. Let's imagine I am hiring a QA person and my budget is 50k.

If I have to give 27% of that to the agency, the most I can offer potential employees is 35k. Without the agency, I could offer up to 50k.

surely you're not suggesting that if I hire 2 QA's and one is got through an agency as described, they get €35K BUT if say someone else is referred say by a current employee, that one will get €50K????

Bit simplistic and not reflecting the real world in any shape!!!!

halkar

dublindude wrote: »

The jobseeker does.

Departments have a particular budget for salaries. Let's imagine I am hiring a QA person and my budget is 50k.

If I have to give 27% of that to the agency, the most I can offer potential employees is 35k. Without the agency, I could offer up to 50k.

Thanks Dublindude. Never done anything through an agency to know this but above example does not favour neither the jobseeker nor the employer. Damn scam that is. So does this paid every year or the first year? For example jobseeker A got a job from Employer B. Does A stuck with the 35k? It's a mistery for me how these things work 15k for an ad on the web and few phone calls sounds crazy. IMAO agency should pay the jobseeker too

watna

halkar wrote: »

Thanks Dublindude. Never done anything through an agency to know this but above example does not favour neither the jobseeker nor the employer. Damn scam that is. So does this paid every year or the first year? For example jobseeker A got a job from Employer B. Does A stuck with the 35k? It's a mistery for me how these things work 15k for an ad on the web and few phone calls sounds crazy. IMAO agency should pay the jobseeker too

I think DublinDude was being a bit too simplistic. It;s not that you get a job worth 50k and the agency dock you 15k for getting the job. He's saying that if a company has to pay an agency fee they are likely to pay you a lower salary. in some cases this is true, in some, it is not. You will not get docked any money or hand and money over. You get offered a salary and you ahve to decided if it is high enough or not. That's all. You will never be asked for money. The employer pays a fee to the recruitment agency. That's how they make their money.

AARRRGH

flash harry wrote: »

surely you're not suggesting that if I hire 2 QA's and one is got through an agency as described, they get €35K BUT if say someone else is referred say by a current employee, that one will get €50K????

Bit simplistic and not reflecting the real world in any shape!!!!

No, I am saying departments have budgets for wages, so if the agency is demanding 27%, that will affect the salary on offer.

I know this is true because it is how the department I work for operates, and how the previous company I worked for operated.

NewBalance

dublindude wrote: »

The jobseeker does.

Departments have a particular budget for salaries. Let's imagine I am hiring a QA person and my budget is 50k.

If I have to give 27% of that to the agency, the most I can offer potential employees is 35k. Without the agency, I could offer up to 50k.

27% is alomost twice the norm for non-specialised staff.

Specialised staff would be Legal, Compliance and FS Exec positions - and Snr Funds based candidates who would have to head hunted.

For Admin staff the norm for a fee should be between 15% to 18% with a moneyback period of 3-6 months.

Also, if you meet a bad consultant - let the Recruitment Co. know about it, they'll soon boot out someone who's useless and giving the Co a bad name.

AARRRGH

NewBalance wrote: »

27% is alomost twice the norm for non-specialised staff.

Yeah, the positions we were hiring for were not particularly specialised (i.e. salary less than 40k or thereabouts.)

The recruiter in question have lost a potential customer (they weren't willing to drop their rates) so it's their loss.