Recruitment Agencies

Tar.Aldarion

So having just graduated, I would like to know the story with these. Do they take some % of your wage or something? Any info is appreciated.
I put my cv up on irish jobs and monster and cpl have emailed me asking would I be willing to work in Dublin. Would just like to know what the deal is. Easier to get a job but costs you? Worth it?

FledNanders

In the same boat myself at the mo. No the agency just gets paid by the company that hires you through them, no money is taken from you

Tar.Aldarion

Oh ok, thought you may get less if you apply through one, ie, there is a certain amount of money offered for a job, some goes to employee, some to agency.

Gone West

thats true for contract work, not full time.
Full time, they take a once off cheque from the company.

greendevil8

you will get less if you take a job through an agency but normally only for the first year. the agency gets anything between 1500euro -3500euro for each candidate they place and this is paid by the company. obviously this cost must be obsorbed from somewhere and therefore its logical that the employer will offer you a lower starting salary (than what he would offer had he recruited you directly) to compensate.
my best advice to you would be to go and talk to a few agencies and squeeze as much info out of them as you can, they will advise you on the type of companies they will target for you. with this information then take things into your own hands and target such companies yourself via telephone, e-mail etc.and answer as many job adverts from compaines recruiting themselves as possible. Many employers will not entertain agencies and you can see this in the number of job ads which specify that they do not require the asistance of recruitment agencies. Another point to note is that many agencies advertise jobs which dont exist in order to get cv,s in, so my advice in short - cut out the middleman go and be your own 'agent'.

snellers

In recent times I have found a few agencies 'pulling' directly advertised jobs from companies and advertising them in the hope you go through the agency......the legality of this I'm not so sure but it has been a real pain in the a**

1 job I applied through an agency - job description advised a certain skill as desirable but not essential - everything else I was extremely experienced in...the agency told me the company wasn't interested in me due to this.......

I saw the company advertise for the same position recently, applied (and advised them that had already done so through agency) and was told they don't even deal with the agency in question, haven't seen my C.V. and would love to see me!

the agency obviously felt they would only put a client forward if he/she fulfilled every essential and desirable part of the job spec (in the hope the company would be interested due to every criteria fulfilled)

......this used to be fairly common practice in the UK but I thought it had died out long ago......

...lesson learnerd......be very aware of this and where possible try and apply directly to the company if they are advertising directly

AARRRGH

Every department has a hiring budget. The agency fee may or may not affect the departments hiring budget. In my experience it does.

So, the department has a budget of 50k.

If you apply for a job direct with the company, you have access to the entire 50k.

If you apply for a job via an agency, the agency will have a fee between 15 - 30%, so that's about 12k gone from the 50k budget. This means you can only get a salary of 38k.

Moral of the story: apply direct to companies if you have the choice.

[Jackass]

Absolutley.

My bro a few years ago went for an interview where the employer was impressed with him, but he asked for more money than the agency said was on offer for the job at interview stage.

They said they'd take some more of his details off him and be in touch as he left the interview.

He was contacted by the employer a couple of days later to say that they were going to inform the agency that they will not be recruiting him but would he be agreeable to another meeting...He met and they then hired him for the amount he asked.

Moral of the story: Agency takes a cut of what your wage will be, there was a few thousand in the difference for my bro.

So if you start on 30k from an agency or 35k from directly applying, every year you get a % pay rise (e.g. 5% of 30k or 5% of 35k etc..)...so in the medium term it makes a big difference to your salary how you get your job imo.

In my experience, agencies can screw you, you are the comodoty, not the client (the company is) so their aim is to get the comodoty to the client above the expectations for the job and below the cost expectations.

i.e. if the agency can put someone in a junior role who is qualified for a more senior role and get them at the wage for a more junior role, then they have done a good service to their client, the employer (or even if they can get their wage expectations down so that they can get the highest quality comodoty to the client for cheaper than expected).

Avoid where possible.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Thumpette

"He was contacted by the employer a couple of days later to say that they were going to inform the agency that they will not be recruiting him but would he be agreeable to another meeting...He met and they then hired him for the amount he asked."

That's absolutely disgraceful! Love them or hate them the recruitment agency provided a service here so what the employer did was underhand and sneaky- not to mention downright robbery. :mad:

flash harry

Honestly, a a recruiter for many many years now I have never seen a situation where a permanenet employee has been paid a lesser amount as a result of going through an agency, I do not beleive it happens 99% of the time. You have a skillset that determins a market value of €x based on supply and demand.

Contracts, especially in IT I've no experience of BUT if you again can justify a certain wage level and can find a job yourself, you have no need for a agency. If you do use one and agree a fee - dont complain about it after the fact.

"Assistance of Agencies" type notices at end of job descriptions DOES NOT MEAN they dont use agencies, just not interested in new ones (a lot of my clients have this).

Someone contacts you on the sly to get you into job shafting the agency? Well they've already broken one agreement being greedy so if they eventually screw you over - karma. Personally this has only happened to me once and I had solicitors letter on the employers desk by close of business for fee plus my solicitors costs (which were agoing to amount to like 4 times the original fee if this ever went to court). They paid me.

growler

As someone who regularly hires, both directly and through agencies, i have never even heard of a situation where a candidate from an agency would be offered / paid any less than those sourced directly by the company. All positions have a salary range, and a suitable candidate is paid whatever the salary should be for that role, the fact that an agency may get 10-20% of the starting salary has no impact on the salary its a different cost and budget.

its always going to be cheaper to hire direct than via an agency, but few companies would skimp on recruiter fees in order to get a less suitable employee.


"He was contacted by the employer a couple of days later to say that they were going to inform the agency that they will not be recruiting him but would he be agreeable to another meeting...He met and they then hired him for the amount he asked."

not only disgraceful but likely to be a breach of contract.

I hate dealing with agencies as a candidate, as I've only ever met 2 recruiters who seemed to have the slightest clue about the roles and skills they were meant to be looking for.... but the above is just plain dodgy.

snellers

yeh I don't agree with underhand company advising 'no' then approaching client directly....Agencies can provide an excellent service....unfortunately it's the very small minority that tarnish the rest......

bottom line is deal with agencies that firstly want to deal with you, are professional in approach and deal with the industry/profession you are looking to target for a job. There are plenty out there vying for business so don't forget YOU are the commodity they are selling....YOU could potentially provide them with €10k or so of business, YOU are in control.....

faceman

Im with growler and flash harry on this. Ive been hiring people for years and whether or not an agency was used didnt affect the salary offered as its a different budget.

The case of an employer abusing the agency is probably in breach of contract.

Getting back to Tar's position. Best of luck with the job hunt. Try limit yourself to a few agencies and go by word of mouth as to which agencies are best. many of them are just eager to fill roles and dont care about the candidates. Ive seen it from both sides of the coin as both a hirer and a candidate.

Shiny

Which agencies do you think are the best faceman ?

I'm also in the exact situation as the OP. :cool:

faceman

Shiny wrote: »

Which agencies do you think are the best faceman ?

I'm also in the exact situation as the OP. :cool:

It depends on your industry and what role you are after. I could recommend someone on the finance/accounting side no problem. Im not as au fait with IT or sales but i could say in general who have a good rep.

mrpink6789

If you are appying through and agency or direct with a company your salary will not be affected either way. I don't know why people have this in their head when they havn't a clue about it.

In fact some agencies will push your salaries up because they will get more of a cut if it goes over a certain point.

For graduates go direct with employers though as the majority of the time they won't take a CV of a grad off an agency as their are plenty of graduates out there looking to get their foot in the door.

pug_lover

mrpink6789 wrote: »

If you are appying through and agency or direct with a company your salary will not be affected either way. I don't know why people have this in their head when they havn't a clue about it.

In fact some agencies will push your salaries up because they will get more of a cut if it goes over a certain point.

For graduates go direct with employers though as the majority of the time they won't take a CV of a grad off an agency as their are plenty of graduates out there looking to get their foot in the door.

Totally agree, I've worked in recruitment for 6 years and am now a HR Specialist(basically second in command).

While I agree that some agencies/consultants tactics are questionable, going through an agency will have no affect on your salary what so ever.

However, Companies prefer to hire direct as it saves them the agency fees so where possible always apply direct.

Eoin

faceman wrote: »

Try limit yourself to a few agencies and go by word of mouth as to which agencies are best. many of them are just eager to fill roles and dont care about the candidates. Ive seen it from both sides of the coin as both a hirer and a candidate.

I don't know about that, the obvious benefit of this is that you know who you are dealing with, and who has your CV but it can limit the amount of roles hugely.

I was looking around before Christmas, and if I hadn't have just scoured IrishJobs.ie and made a lot of enquiries, I wouldn't have ended up in my new company as I'd never heard of the agency.

Of course it meant a lot more people had a copy of my CV than I would have liked, but it worked out in the end. I'm still getting calls, but all I do is just say that my email address is still the same and they can feel free to forward any roles on.

faceman

eoin_s wrote: »

I don't know about that, the obvious benefit of this is that you know who you are dealing with, and who has your CV but it can limit the amount of roles hugely.

The reason i say it is because even though they arent supposed to, some agencies can forward your CV on to companies without your consent.

I once had a CV come from 3 agencies. I dont know if the candidate consented or not but it gave me a skewed first impression.

Tar.Aldarion

The Scientist wrote: »

Cant stress this point more!!!


Also, i'd take my CV off Monster if i was you.

I might, just because agencies always call you up? I was not expecting to be getting an email and called within 24 hours about a job when I put it up. Will people keep doing this and forward my CV and so on?
What reasons would you give.

Thanks a lot for replies about it! cheers. Keep em coming. ;-)

vorbis

Just an added thing.

I got a new job there last month.
It came down to two different job offers, one through an ageency and one directly with a different company. When I told the agent that I was more likely to go with the other job, he started offering me part of his fee if I'd take the job! He eventually came up to 6 thousand dollars but I'd already decided to take the other job.

AARRRGH

mrpink6789 wrote: »

If you are appying through and agency or direct with a company your salary will not be affected either way. I don't know why people have this in their head when they havn't a clue about it.

I'm sorry, but all the companies I've worked for have offered lower salaries when someone applies via an agency.

Note I used to run HR for a large famous Irish company.

Let's agree the following: it'll affect your salary in some companies, and it won't affect it in others. Personally I wouldn't be willing to take the chance.

mrpink6789 wrote: »

In fact some agencies will push your salaries up because they will get more of a cut if it goes over a certain point.

Bull****. Employers have little respect for recruiters and won't let them bully up the salary.

Not only am I ex-HR, but I'm also ex-recruitment. I know what I'm talking about.

snellers

NO agency has the ability to push up salary.....that is a laughable comment...who are you kidding????

the only situation I could see it happening would be a company offering an overqualified candidate more to join them (which has nothing to do with the agency at all)

it's crap comments like that which make people wary of agencies!

pug_lover

snellers wrote: »

NO agency has the ability to push up salary.....that is a laughable comment...who are you kidding????

the only situation I could see it happening would be a company offering an overqualified candidate more to join them (which has nothing to do with the agency at all)

it's crap comments like that which make people wary of agencies!

I disagree snellers, as a recruiter I succesfully negotiating higher salaries for candidates on more than one occassion.

flash harry

surely the recruiter (if being used) is the only one who can truly get to a magic figure in the salary negotiation (I'm presuming a senior'ish role) as he has to get the employer to offer and the potential employee to accept or he makes NO money???

MIN2511

The Scientist wrote: »

Also, i'd take my CV off Monster if i was you.

Why?

With the whole recession and companies not keen on employing atm, it doesn't hurt...

Or does it? I have my CV on monster and Jobs.ie at the moment

AARRRGH

flash harry wrote: »

surely the recruiter (if being used) is the only one who can truly get to a magic figure in the salary negotiation (I'm presuming a senior'ish role) as he has to get the employer to offer and the potential employee to accept or he makes NO money???

The company already know how much they are going to offer the employee. If the employee says they will only work for y, they may offer y.

The agency doesn't come into it...

[rant]If it wasn't for HR being so lazy and incompetent, most recruitment agency wouldn't exist.[/rant]

mrpink6789

pug_lover wrote: »

I disagree snellers, as a recruiter I succesfully negotiating higher salaries for candidates on more than one occassion.

I agree with the above. I have got people higher salaries also when it comes to offer stage. I wish people on boards would not generalise agencies. We are not all bad. It's a shame really people think that.

alottodo

mrpink6789 wrote: »

I agree with the above. I have got people higher salaries also when it comes to offer stage. I wish people on boards would not generalise agencies. We are not all bad. It's a shame really people think that.

Completely agree, I've been working as a consultant for the last three years now and have on numerous occasions (including this morning) negotiated a higher salary for a candidate

AARRRGH

pug_lover wrote: »

I disagree snellers, as a recruiter I succesfully negotiating higher salaries for candidates on more than one occassion.

mrpink6789 wrote: »

I agree with the above. I have got people higher salaries also when it comes to offer stage. I wish people on boards would not generalise agencies. We are not all bad. It's a shame really people think that.

alottodo wrote: »

Completely agree, I've been working as a consultant for the last three years now and have on numerous occasions (including this morning) negotiated a higher salary for a candidate

The three of you are recruitment agents. You're hardly going to admit all you do is pass on CVs to companies and hope for the best.

I think you're seriously deluding yourself if you think your sales skills are going to trick a manager into paying higher wages.

alottodo

dublindude wrote: »

The three of you are recruitment agents. You're hardly going to admit all you do is pass on CVs to companies and hope for the best.

I think you're seriously deluding yourself if you think your sales skills are going to trick a manager into paying higher wages.

I don't go in for so called "CV chucking" and If I did I wouldn't hold onto half my clients. Granted their are some agencies out there that are in it to make a quick buck but you can't tar everyone with the same brush.

A lot of consultants out there (including me) are ex industry professionals and know the industry that we work in which is a huge help.

faceman

dublindude wrote: »

The three of you are recruitment agents. You're hardly going to admit all you do is pass on CVs to companies and hope for the best.

As a hiring manager, any agencies who do that without screening the candidates or ensuring their CV's have the relevent experience are dropped like a hot snot! I wouldnt agree that all agencies are like that. And certainly not for all roles

flash harry

DublinDude

are you suggesting there is a set figure e.g €50100 that does not move, there is no negotiation? no salary ranges? that these ranges are never gone outside????

Does your company not use agencies - pretty sure you said they did in a previous thread?? Does that not make them lazy????

Eoin

flash harry wrote: »

are you suggesting there is a set figure e.g €50100 that does not move, there is no negotiation? no salary ranges? that these ranges are never gone outside????

I think the point is that if there is a salary range of say 50-60K, the company is probably likely to factor in the agency's commission, and therefore offer the lower end of of the scale.

flash harry wrote: »

Does your company not use agencies - pretty sure you said they did in a previous thread?? Does that not make them lazy????

They use agencies and also have vacancies listed on their own site.

alottodo

eoin_s wrote: »

I think the point is that if there is a salary range of say 50-60K, the company is probably likely to factor in the agency's commission, and therefore offer the lower end of of the scale.

I'm sorry but thats utter rubbish!! Companies generally go to agencies when they are struggling to find a suitable candidate so they are not going to cut back the salary for fear of losing the right person

AARRRGH

faceman wrote: »

As a hiring manager, any agencies who do that without screening the candidates or ensuring their CV's have the relevent experience are dropped like a hot snot! I wouldnt agree that all agencies are like that. And certainly not for all roles

Unfortunately, in my experience, a lot of agencies do no CV checking. I've lost count of the amount of people I've been in touch with who are using fake references or have loads of fake experience on their CV.

Surely the recruiter should check these things if he expects us to give him 20k.

flash harry wrote: »

are you suggesting there is a set figure e.g €50100 that does not move, there is no negotiation? no salary ranges? that these ranges are never gone outside????

In exceptional circumstances extra money can be gotten from somewhere, but it certainly won't be the agency who talks us into doing this.

flash harry wrote: »

Does your company not use agencies - pretty sure you said they did in a previous thread?? Does that not make them lazy????

Let's just say I haven't met many HR people who aren't absolutely lazy.

I understand it though: they have little to do each day, so it makes sense they would become used to doing nothing.

alottodo wrote: »

I'm sorry but thats utter rubbish!! Companies generally go to agencies when they are struggling to find a suitable candidate...

I agree.

alottodo wrote: »

...so they are not going to cut back the salary for fear of losing the right person

My example was extreme - there is only 50k left in the budget, so they can't offer more than 50k.

My point still stands though: the commission has to come from somewhere. Not every company has a seperate fund for agencies.

Eoin

dublindude wrote: »

I'm sorry but thats utter rubbish!! Companies generally go to agencies when they are struggling to find a suitable candidate so they are not going to cut back the salary for fear of losing the right person

I agree.

My example was extreme - there is only 50k left in the budget, so they can't offer more than 50k.

My point still stands though: the commission has to come from somewhere. Not every company has a seperate fund for agencies.

So how does that contradict what I said?

And I don't believe for a second that agencies are used as a last resort because they are "struggling" to find a candidate. I reckon a lot of it's because HR aren't bothered and/or qualified to weed through the CV's.

alottodo

eoin_s wrote: »

So how does that contradict what I said?

And I don't believe for a second that agencies are used as a last resort because they are "struggling" to find a candidate. I reckon a lot of it's because HR aren't bothered and/or qualified to weed through the CV's.

Well your saying if a role is advertised for between 50 - 60k that if a candidate goes through an agency they will get the bottom end of that and if they went direct they will get the top!! (correct me if I'm wrong)

When a recruitment consultant meet's with a candidate they always (or should) find out their salary expectations, so If I submit a CV saying that a candidate is looking for 60k, the company know where they stand and won't offer 50k

AARRRGH

eoin_s wrote: »

I don't believe for a second that agencies are used as a last resort because they are "struggling" to find a candidate. I reckon a lot of it's because HR aren't bothered and/or qualified to weed through the CV's.

True. In my experience, HR people simply forward on CVs to the relevant managers because they don't understand what the role requires. This is true at least for tech companies.

If the HR person was doing her job, she would use job websites to source applicants herself. Surely that would make more sense than paying an agency 20k for every hire.

alottodo wrote: »

When a recruitment consultant meet's with a candidate they always (or should) find out their salary expectations, so If I submit a CV saying that a candidate is looking for 60k, the company know where they stand and won't offer 50k

In my experience if the jobseeker has unrealistic salary expectations, the jobseeker either won't get the job or will be told to lower her expectations.

alottodo

dublindude wrote: »

In my experience if the jobseeker has unrealistic salary expectations, the jobseeker either won't get the job or will be told to lower her expectations.

Again that's part of a consultants job to know the market and advise the candidate realistically what their market value is, if I had someone who was looking for a salary of 70k when they where only worth 50k they would be told that they are being unrealistic. Obviously I will always try to get the best package for a candidate without taking the p***

flash harry

dublindude wrote: »

If the HR person was doing her job, she would use job websites to source applicants herself. Surely that would make more sense than paying an agency 20k for every hire.

maybe its because jobboards dont consistently work that the recruitment industry has survived???

I wonder what percentage of a given talent pool are ACTIVELY looking for a new role and therefore searching jobboards???? anyone got any stats??