Applying for a job with company and applying through agency

saramurph23

Hi All,

I have applied for a job on recruitireland.com. I applied directly to the employer. The job would really suit my experience. Unfortunately the employer has not called me for an interview yet. I applied for the job about 5 weeks ago. A recruitment agent called me yesterday and discussed this job, I never told him I already applied for the job. He told me he was talking to the hiring manager during the week and he wants to set up interviews for next week.

I do not have any telephone or email address for the employer so I cannot contact them to ask them if my application is going to be pursued any further.
Should I apply for the job through the agency also?

Is there any harm in applying for the job twice. Once directly to the company and again through an agency?
At least this way I will finally know if I am going to be called for an interview or not.

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks

Sara

Bmark

if you dont have any other way of contacting them go through the agency - but a word of warning -keep ringing the agency every day ! - i went through every agency in Dublin to get a job, i went in for their own "interviews" to see what i was like and what kind of jobs they had which were suitable - in seven months i got 1 interview for a job that wasn't there!!! the last agency i went to were the best - she arranged an interview within a week, was on the phone to me constantly and i start the new job on Monday ! most of the agencies in Dublin are only trying to get people on their books, not actually getting them jobs. I must have applied for about 50 jobs on-line, Monster etc, but i was never put forward for any of them !!

AARRRGH

You'll get more money if you're hired by the company NOT via the agency.

Basically it works like this -

Employer has salary budget of X. Agency has fee of Y.

If you apply directly to the employer, you can potentially get all of X.
If you apply for the job via an agency, you can only get X minus Y.

If I were you, I'd ring the employer and ask did they get your application.

Note you probably do have more of a chance getting an interview via an agency because:

1. Agencies are pushy.
2. HR are useless. They may not even have looked at the CV you sent, but because of 1 above they may have looked at the CV the agency sent.

saramurph23

Thanks for the replies guys. I think HR within the company are taking the handy way out and leaving it up to agencies to get them the candidates.

I know the recruitment agency will take a chunk of the salary but as I cant contact the company i feel it could be my only chance of getting an interview.

board om

there is absolutley NO difference in the salary if you applly directly to the comapny or if you apply through an agency. no difference what so ever. the agency certainly dont take any 'chunk' of your salary, and that is fact.

if anything it can be an advantage to have someone to try and get you a better salary. the recruitment agency gets paid more for a higher salary so it is in their interest to get you a higher salary.

but as another poster said, keep in contact with the agency. if they think you are suitable for the position they will be quick to get you an interview, if it is dragging on a bit and they arent contacting you then just start looking at other positions.

Dudess

board om wrote: »

there is absolutley NO difference in the salary if you applly directly to the comapny or if you apply through an agency. no difference what so ever. the agency certainly dont take any 'chunk' of your salary, and that is fact.

But I got a position through an agency last November and I'm still temping and on the agency's books, however the company have offered me permanency and told me they would be paying more once the agency are out of the picture since they are currently paying the agency a fee.

board om

Dudess wrote: »

But I got a position through an agency last November and I'm still temping and on the agency's books, however the company have offered me permanency and told me they would be paying more once the agency are out of the picture since they are currently paying the agency a fee.

thats for temping. that is completely differnt. with temping you dont offically work for the company, you work for the agency. so if you worked for the company directly they may pay for example €15 per hour for the position. if an agency provides a temp for the position the company arent going to pay more than that so they pay the agency the €15 per hour and the agency pay the temp. the agency would take about €3 from the €15 for themselves and the balance would go to the temp, which means you only get €12 per hour. if you start working direclty for the company you should get the whole €15 for yourself. by taking you on directly the company arent actually paying any extra for the position becuase they were actually paying that amount the whole time, just not directly to you.

AARRRGH

board om wrote: »

there is absolutley NO difference in the salary if you applly directly to the comapny or if you apply through an agency. no difference what so ever. the agency certainly dont take any 'chunk' of your salary, and that is fact.

Not true. As I explained earlier, the agency take a chunk of the salary budget.

I'll explain again:

We have a salary budget of 50k. If the jobseeker applies directly to us, he can get all of the 50k. If the jobseeker comes via an agency, we have to give the agency 15 - 29% of that 50k, and the jobseeker gets the rest.

That is how it works in the company I work for.

It is quite simple really.

Note I have worked for an agency and in a HR capacity.

Talk about the agency being able to get your better money is nonsense as departments have salary budgets. The agency cannot override department salary budgets.

j4vier

correct me if im wrong, but since i was on the jub hunt recently i heard loads of opinions..
one of which was that if i applied for a job with a company directly, then a recruitment agency could not apply on my behalf to the same company for at least 6 months.
same works for the opposite case, once an agency puts my cv with a company,
then they would get their percentage even if i reapply for the same position or another in the same place.
is that correct does anyone know? 2 ppl already told me this

board om

j4vier wrote: »

correct me if im wrong, but since i was on the jub hunt recently i heard loads of opinions..
one of which was that if i applied for a job with a company directly, then a recruitment agency could not apply on my behalf to the same company for at least 6 months.
same works for the opposite case, once an agency puts my cv with a company,
then they would get their percentage even if i reapply for the same position or another in the same place.
is that correct does anyone know? 2 ppl already told me this

that is actually true. if you apply for a position through an agency and the company hire you within 6 months, the agency can go looking for their fee. it stops companies getting out of paying the agency a fee. otherwise the company could get the agency to send candidates in for interview and not offer them the position, and then they could call the candidate themselves 3 months later and offer the candidate the position without involving the agency. so if they do that within 6 months they would still have to pay the agency.

also if you go for a position through agency A and dont get offered the psoition, and then a few months later go to agency B and your CV gets sent to the same company and this time you get the position, agency A will get the fee even if it is through agency B that you got the job. becuase agency A would have been who originally introduced you to the comapny.

but if you apply to a company directly and then at a later stage go through an agency, the agency wont get paid because the company will already of had your CV on file.

board om

dublindude wrote: »

Not true. As I explained earlier, the agency take a chunk of the salary budget.

I'll explain again:

We have a salary budget of 50k. If the jobseeker applies directly to us, he can get all of the 50k. If the jobseeker comes via an agency, we have to give the agency 15 - 29% of that 50k, and the jobseeker gets the rest.

That is how it works in the company I work for.

It is quite simple really.

Note I have worked for an agency and in a HR capacity.

Talk about the agency being able to get your better money is nonsense as departments have salary budgets. The agency cannot override department salary budgets.

im afraid not. i have also worked on both sides, i have worked in recruitment and i also have worked in a company recruiting for positions. and there is no difference in the amount offered to the candidate.

and by what you are saying you can get someone that would normaly work in a €50k a year job to work for between €7.5k to €14k less just because they went through an agency? if my salary is €50k a year to do my job, then i am not gong accept up to €14k less just because i had the misfortune of not applying to the comapny directly. think about what you are saying please. this says more about how your comapny is run than anything. i can just picture you telling the candidate "i know this position normally pays €50k, but because you went through an agency we can only offer you €36k, but dont worry there are great benefits". in that case if a company offers say €2500 to employees if they refer a candidate to the company, does that mean they take €2500 out of the candidates starting package when they get the job? i dont think so.

when recruiting, every company i recruited offered the same package to new candidates as they did to exisiting employees, regardless of how they got the position. if anything i was able to negotiate better salaries for candidates because i was acting as a middle man and i could sell that candidates talent that bit more becuase i could have frank conversations with the company hiring that might have seemed cheeky if coming from the candidate. in other words from dealing with the hiring staff on a daily basis i would be more familiar with what they are looking for in a potential employee and therefore how to sell the candidate, than the candidate who has only met with them twice and both times in an interview capacity.

there is no difference in the salary on offer for a position if you go through and agency or if you apply directly to the comapny. it is a myth.

AARRRGH

board om wrote: »

there is no difference in the amount offered to the candidate.

Stop lying please.

Do you run or work for a recruitment agency? I suspect you do. A lot of your posts are angled to promote the use of recruitment agencies.

I will try to explain once more.

Salary budget: 50k

Scenario 1: Person comes for an interview. Person did not come via an agency. We can offer him 50k.
Scenario 2: Person comes for an interview. Person came via an agency. Agency wants 10k for passing on his CV. That leaves us with a salary budget of 40k. We now only have 40k left for wages. How can we pay the jobseeker 50k when we only have 40k?

It's really simple maths.

I have seen this happen in the company I work for.

nesf

dublindude wrote: »

Stop lying please.

Do you run or work for a recruitment agency? I suspect you do. A lot of your posts are angled to promote the use of recruitment agencies.

I will try to explain once more.

Salary budget: 50k

Scenario 1: Person comes for an interview. Person did not come via an agency. We can offer him 50k.
Scenario 2: Person comes for an interview. Person came via an agency. Agency wants 10k for passing on his CV. That leaves us with a salary budget of 40k. We now only have 40k left for wages. How can we pay the jobseeker 50k when we only have 40k?

It's really simple maths.

I have seen this happen in the company I work for.

The issue is when the vast majority of people in an area are hired through an agency then the standard wage essentially becomes what you are talking about because simply the market wage = the wage received by the employee + the agency fee as viewed by the employer, but for direct hires the company doesn't need to offer the agency fee to the employee simply because the market rate as viewed by the employee doesn't contain the extra money given by the agency fee. On an individual basis in a market where there's a lot of direct hiring a company might off the agency fee as a bonus to the employee as an incentive for better people to go work for them but when hiring "low level minions" there's little incentive for the company to offer direct hires extra money over what they'd have gotten through an agency simply because the worker doesn't know any different. Plus when hiring for mixed teams where some are agency and some are direct hire it is counter productive to give the direct hire guys more cash simply because there wasn't an agency involved because it'll **** with team dynamics etc.


Short Answer: Some positions will give a better salary with a direct hire but many won't. There isn't a black and white answer to the question.

board om

dublindude wrote: »

Stop lying please.

Do you run or work for a recruitment agency? I suspect you do. A lot of your posts are angled to promote the use of recruitment agencies.

I will try to explain once more.

Salary budget: 50k

Scenario 1: Person comes for an interview. Person did not come via an agency. We can offer him 50k.
Scenario 2: Person comes for an interview. Person came via an agency. Agency wants 10k for passing on his CV. That leaves us with a salary budget of 40k. We now only have 40k left for wages. How can we pay the jobseeker 50k when we only have 40k?

It's really simple maths.

I have seen this happen in the company I work for.

i have already said i have worked as a recruitment consultant and also in a company doing the hiring. just like you 'claim' to have. yet i find that hard to believe if you are making ridiculous points like this that are in no way true.

and as i said, it shows more about the company you work for than anything else, becuase i have NEVER seen this happen. maybe in small companies with very little cash flow they might have to do it. but in those cases what usually happens is the company use the agency and pay the correct salary, but then drag their heels on paying the agency. in other words they would rather get a good employee and not pay the agency than get an sub-standard employee on the cheap. and if you are suggesting that they do this, then they are not going to be getting quality employees. i know i would rather pay the going rate for an employee to do the job, than try and get an employee to do same job for €14k less. sure what professional is going to take a €14k drop in salary? if you are buying anything for €50k and you know that is what it costs, but you go out shopping with €36k, you are not going to get the same product. you may get a cheap knock off, or a damaged version of what you are looking for, but you are not going to get the same product. so what use is a faulty sub-standard product? and that is what you are implying.

bring me 1 professional person who will take up to €14k less for their job because they went through an agency. if you can bring me 1 person stupid enough to do that then i will believe you. but until then i will go with common sense.

j4vier

nesf wrote: »

The issue is when the vast majority of people in an area are hired through an agency then the standard wage essentially becomes what you are talking about because simply the market wage = the wage received by the employee + the agency fee as viewed by the employer, but for direct hires the company doesn't need to offer the agency fee to the employee simply because the market rate as viewed by the employee doesn't contain the extra money given by the agency fee. On an individual basis in a market where there's a lot of direct hiring a company might off the agency fee as a bonus to the employee as an incentive for better people to go work for them but when hiring "low level minions" there's little incentive for the company to offer direct hires extra money over what they'd have gotten through an agency simply because the worker doesn't know any different. Plus when hiring for mixed teams where some are agency and some are direct hire it is counter productive to give the direct hire guys more cash simply because there wasn't an agency involved because it'll **** with team dynamics etc.


Short Answer: Some positions will give a better salary with a direct hire but many won't. There isn't a black and white answer to the question.

I agree , many graduate start off positions for example are around 25k wether
you apply with an agency first or directly with the company

nesf

board om wrote: »

and as i said, it shows more about the company you work for than anything else, becuase i have NEVER seen this happen.

I have heard about it happening, but it was always with senior people where the extra money was a "sweetner" to entice them away from where they were working. There is a rational reason sometimes for a company to "pay above the odds" of the market rate for a position but it's (generally) an exception and not the rule.

AARRRGH

board om wrote: »

i have already said i have worked as a recruitment consultant

Do you work as one now? Considering you previously stated you pay Monster.ie a fee to browse their CV database, I'm guessing the answer is a yes.

board om wrote:

what usually happens is the company use the agency and pay the correct salary, but then drag their heels on paying the agency. in other words they would rather get a good employee and not pay the agency than get an sub-standard employee on the cheap.

You're making absolutely no sense now.

The way it works is companies take on the employee and then try to shaft the agency? That's nonsense.

And the staff who apply direct to the employer are sub standard? More nonsense.

board om wrote:

bring me 1 professional person who will take up to €14k less for their job because they went through an agency. if you can bring me 1 person stupid enough to do that then i will believe you. but until then i will go with common sense.

Nesf's answer made sense. People are so used to getting a smaller wage due to the agency fee.

This is the last time I try to explain this.

At the start of the year each department is given funds. There is a training budget, a hiring budget, and maybe an outsourcing budget. The head of the department has to work within her budget. If she has 50k for hiring, THAT IS ALL SHE CAN SPEND. She cannot hire someone for 50k and then magically make the 10k agency fee appear from thin air. The agency fee comes out of the hiring budget. That means there is only 40k left for salaries.

Please, just think about the above paragraph. Its logic overrides any gut feeling you have.

If my words are coming across as harsh, I apologise, but I really dislike people who lie to protect their interests.

Red Hand

Yes, Dublindude and nesf make sense. I mean agencies have to find their fees somehow.

nesf

dublindude wrote: »

At the start of the year each department is given funds. There is a training budget, a hiring budget, and maybe an outsourcing budget. The head of the department has to work within her budget. If she has 50k for hiring, THAT IS ALL SHE CAN SPEND. She cannot hire someone for 50k and then magically make the 10k agency fee appear from thin air. The agency fee comes out of the hiring budget. That means there is only 40k left for salaries.

Yes, but if I'm given a 50K hiring budget where there was a 10K agent fee, I'd offer 40K to a new hire since the standard is that unless I wanted someone "better" than average. No half decent manager is going to waste the extra 10K on a person who'd work for 40K unless they had a damn good reason like someone being the "perfect fit" or similar. Just because a manger gets a 50K hiring budget it doesn't mean they should spend 50K. Private companies are the public service etc.

Maglight

dublindude wrote: »

Do you work as one now? Considering you previously stated you pay Monster.ie a fee to browse their CV database, I'm guessing the answer is a yes.



At the start of the year each department is given funds. There is a training budget, a hiring budget, and maybe an outsourcing budget. The head of the department has to work within her budget. If she has 50k for hiring, THAT IS ALL SHE CAN SPEND. She cannot hire someone for 50k and then magically make the 10k agency fee appear from thin air. The agency fee comes out of the hiring budget. That means there is only 40k left for salaries.

Companies buy CV databases too.

This is true, but any HR who knows their stuff will factor agency fees into the budget if they use them. The reality is that you have to pay the market rate for staff, whether they come through agencies or not. If the salary scale is 50k then you have to budget for that plus the agency fee. Either that or budget for a more junior person plus the agency fee. Very often, companies only use an agency when they have had no success in filling a vacancy. Therefore the saving they have made on the budgeted salary while they were waiting to fill the role is sufficient to cover the agency fee. Board OM is correct. You will never get a good person to accept a job for less than their market value, the agency fee is the recruiters problem, not the jobseeker's. Although why anyone would use an agency defeats me. A waste of time.

nesf

Maglight wrote: »

Although why anyone would use an agency defeats me. A waste of time.

For SME companies hiring for an area they know little about it can make some sense though then they've the problem of finding a decent agency (some aren't worth a damn). Also for a larger company who do a lot of hiring they can negotiate for lower fees on the basis of guaranteeing only using a particular agency to hire for them (it also means they've got to hire fewer permanent HR staff which is handy in a country with strong labour laws, i.e. in Europe).

Dudess

Where I work is the Irish branch of a large US financial services company and between its Dublin and Cork offices there are approximately 80 staff members. Yet it has one HR officer who is also office manager. For her, an agency makes a lot of sense.

Pythia

Where I work, they took on a lot of people at the one level over a period of a few months. Some of us came in directly and later people came in through an agency.
Everyone has exactly the same pay.

AARRRGH

OK, so it seems to vary from place to place. Fair enough.

board om

dublindude wrote: »

Do you work as one now? Considering you previously stated you pay Monster.ie a fee to browse their CV database, I'm guessing the answer is a yes.



You're making absolutely no sense now.

The way it works is companies take on the employee and then try to shaft the agency? That's nonsense.

And the staff who apply direct to the employer are sub standard? More nonsense.



Nesf's answer made sense. People are so used to getting a smaller wage due to the agency fee.

This is the last time I try to explain this.

At the start of the year each department is given funds. There is a training budget, a hiring budget, and maybe an outsourcing budget. The head of the department has to work within her budget. If she has 50k for hiring, THAT IS ALL SHE CAN SPEND. She cannot hire someone for 50k and then magically make the 10k agency fee appear from thin air. The agency fee comes out of the hiring budget. That means there is only 40k left for salaries.

Please, just think about the above paragraph. Its logic overrides any gut feeling you have.

If my words are coming across as harsh, I apologise, but I really dislike people who lie to protect their interests.

Nesf's answer is spot on. in quite senior positions the extra money could be a sweetner, and in some case a deal closer. but in general the company pays the market value whether they use an agency or not. and i dont belive he said "People are so used to getting a smaller wage due to the agency fee", i think you have simplified what he said to suit your argument.

and plenty of companies use monster and irish jobs, etc. its not only recruitment consultants who use these sites to source candidates. for someone like yourslef who claims to recruit staff should know this.

i never said the candidates that apply though an agency are sub-standard. that is a ridiculous thing to say. what i said was if the company are taking the cost of the agency out of the potential employees overall salary, then they are going to get sub-standard employees as they will be paying under the market value for the position.

this isnt a gut feeling i am working on, it is fact from years of experience. you can explain your theory over and over agian, as slowly and simply as you like, but it doesnt work like that. as another post said, the companies only use agencies when they have exhausted every other route and then they factor in the cost of the agency. or as another post said, when a large company is recuiting mass amounts of general roles they will get a preferred rate from a recruitment agency and use them to hire.

you cant penalise the candidate becuase they used and agency or nobody would ever use them. i suggest you read back through this thread as there are quite a few posts that explain it very well. i am still waiting on someone to post and tell us how they took a lower salary becuase they went through an agency.

Gran Hermano

Having worked both sides of the fence, albeit it some years back at this
stage, board om and nesf are correct. Most companies will have an individual
budgets for recruitment costs and a separate budget for salaries.

The only time I have encountered agency fees included as salary costs is
for temporary or contract staff - in which case most staff at this level
in a company would fall into the same wage category.

Unless you're looking for temporary/entry level work you have nothing
to loose from using a recruiter. Seems most people here are confusing
recruitment agencies and recruitment consultancies.

AARRRGH

OK, well I can tell you it doesn't work that way where I work. I am sure other companies are like this too.

End result: you might get less money if you apply via an agency.

board om

dublindude wrote: »

OK, well I can tell you it doesn't work that way where I work. I am sure other companies are like this too.

End result: you might get less money if you apply via an agency.

and again i say we have not seen anyone other than yourself that says that. we have yet to see a single perosn who took a lower salary by going through an agency. if you are confused by this try reading the replies in the thread, but i havent seen even one reply backing up your 'theory'. and several replies came from people who have worked on both sides of the industry, recruitment agency and HR, and they all say the same.

you will NOT get less money by going through an agency. it is a myth. if you are told the cost of the agency is coming out your salary you are being ripped off and you should not work for a company that does that.

AARRRGH

board om wrote: »

you will NOT get less money by going through an agency. it is a myth.

How is it a myth if it happens where I work?

board om wrote:

if you are told the cost of the agency is coming out your salary you are being ripped off

No... as stated earlier, if they only have a budget of 50k, the agency fee has to come out of that 50k. This has nothing to do with being ripped off. It's just basic subtraction.

Not all companies have a seperate budget for recruitment agencies.

For example, I used to be the financial controller at a very large company and we did not have a seperate budget for recruitment companies.

Board om: Do you run or work for a recruitment agency?

board om

dublindude wrote: »

How is it a myth if it happens where I work?

Do you run or work for a recruitment agency?

i do neither.

you have already been told by quite a few people with industry experience that it doesnt happen. yours seems to be the only compaany that has this 'problem', and i say 'problem' becuase thats what it is if they are taking the cost of the agency from employees just becuase they have the misfortune of not applying directly. does nobody ever question why there is such a big differnce in salaries in your office? and does nobody ever refuse the position because they are being offered up to 29% under the market value? i know i wouldnt take a 29% cut in my salary because i went through an agency and i dont know many people that would.

you cant read a load of posts where not one of them actually agrees with you, and then at the end say "well it still happens". that is just ignoring the facts.

so tell me how much did your current employer take out of your salary then? and did you really not question them when they said it was normal do to do this?

AARRRGH

I don't think two or three people giving an alternative opinion counts as conclusive evidence... so you cannot say it doesn't happen. The company I work for shows it DOES happen.

I have already said I accept that it is "you might get a lower salary" rather than "you will get a lower salary".

Saying all that... It makes sense to apply directly to the company (without an agency) as some companies may not be willing to pay 10 - 20k for your CV. Some companies also refuse CVs from certain agencies. The company I work for does.

The reason people don't complain about this is because people generally don't know what their colleagues earn. I have no idea what my colleagues earn. I did not come through an agency. One of my colleagues did. Am I on more money? Probably.

So, in summary: it makes sense to not use agencies.

1. You might get a lower salary.
2. The agency you're using might be unfavored by the company you want to work for.
3. The agency might want a 29% fee so the company (quite rightly) won't accept your CV.
4. The company may not want to use agencies.

PS I don't believe you don't work for an agency. You opinions are too strong to be unbiased.

flash harry

hey dublindude

in this thread here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055241705

you told me how easy it is to get people so why does your company use agencies at all with your expertise etc????

nesf

Would you two stop acting like children and just accept that you were both half right here and that there isn't a simple "one size fits all" answer to the question?

AARRRGH

flash harry wrote: »

hey dublindude

in this thread here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055241705

you told me how easy it is to get people so why does your company use agencies at all with your expertise etc????

Yeah, we're trying to hire a few developers with very specific skills. The problem is no one has these skills, so we're using agencies, jobsites, message forums, etc., to try to find them.

nesf wrote: »

Would you two stop acting like children and just accept that you were both half right here and that there isn't a simple "one size fits all" answer to the question?

OK