Is there such a thing as a job finding agency?

macdragon76

Everyone seems to be giving out Recruitment agencies and saying that a lot of them are a waste of time and have named and shamed them in a previous post.

I am fed up getting false positive leads and the recruiter sounding so positive, and then nothing..!

Why rely on recruitment agencies (who are employed by recruiters, not you!) to get you a job, would it not be better for you to pay someone to look out for a job for you.

This might be a business idea for someone in the recruitment agencies.

I would be prepared to pay €40 a month for someone who would look on my behalf and get me a Minimum of 3 interviews a month. I would probably want a guarantee of 3 months and if no job, next 2 months free.

It might be a bit pie in the sky! But it could be fairly lucrative if someone set it up as a business.

Any thoughts send them on a blank boards.ie reply form!

Welease

Can I ask why you wouldnt go look for a job yourself?

miec

I would be prepared to pay €40 a month for someone who would look on my behalf and get me a Minimum of 3 interviews a month. I would probably want a guarantee of 3 months and if no job, next 2 months free.

Are you mad, that is a ludicrously low amount for someone to trawl through websites, job papers, etc then match it to your experience and guarantee you three interviews a month!!!!!!!!!!! and way over the top expectations in this economic climate.

If a business operated on that level it would be financial suicide. Job seeking is time consuming and takes up hours per day.

Sleepy

Most recruitment agencies will do this for you if you've a decent earning potential.

They're not going to do it for minimum wage jobs but for a 10% cut of anything above 40k it's well worth their time.

Welease

A company like this would need to be careful on how they were marketed.
I for one, would not be impressed by a potential candidate who used a company to do the leg work in finding a job for them.. Of course there would be some legitimate cases, but my initial reaction would be they are lazy, unresourceful and take shortcuts.. Not someone who would be on the top of my list to hire.

flash harry

Hi OP

the way current legislation is this is illegal for a variety of reasons.

The horrible truth to all of this is that if you have a good enough CV and background AND can do a good interview AND the specific recruiter your dealing with has a relevant company who needs these skills, you're in good shape.

What people seem to fail to see is of all the variables, the recruiter is only in control of one (2 if you count the client bit) and you are in control of the rest, economy in toilet excepted.

What scares me is the recent job-search survey (soon to be published I promise) and peoples perception that they do not need help with their CV's. The truth is if you go for a job that you are qualified for (and not totally overqualified) and you don't get an interview - your CV is not good enough. Now your recruiter should help yo with this AND if they are good at their job, their word alone will get yo an interview. If they are not doing this then they may be crap, or maybe you do not interview well and didn't impress them...

Sorry totally off topic :rolleyes:

pollypocket10

flash harry wrote: »

What scares me is the recent job-search survey (soon to be published I promise) and peoples perception that they do not need help with their CV's. The truth is if you go for a job that you are qualified for (and not totally overqualified) and you don't get an interview - your CV is not good enough. Now your recruiter should help yo with this AND if they are good at their job, their word alone will get yo an interview. If they are not doing this then they may be crap, or maybe you do not interview well and didn't impress them...

Sorry totally off topic :rolleyes:

Thats is not true at all, there are alot of other variables that are taken into consideration.

Employers/recruiters are getting inundated with CV's for most positions they advertise in the current market. Your CV may be perfectly fine but if 5 candidates apply for the same position that are a closer match then those 5 will get the interview.

Sometimes location is an issue, sometimes employers favour people who attended certain colleges or may have worked for a certain company. There are endless reasons why a person might not be getting an interview.

A recruiters job is to find candidates that are the closest match to the profile of the person they require, and to give them all the information they need about that candidate in order to make a decision on wether to bring them through the process or not. It's not a recruiters job to make that decision for the company and frankly it's pushy sales people, who try to force the situation and convince the client that the know better than themselves what they need, who give Recruiters a bad name.

It's not a recruiters job to help you with your CV, but most reputable recruiters will offer advice if you ask them.

Eoin

€40 would get you less than 5 hours work at minimum wage.

flash harry wrote:

What scares me is the recent job-search survey (soon to be published I promise) and peoples perception that they do not need help with their CV's.

That's a valid point - do not be fooled into thinking that an agency will do much to help improve your CV. I got about 6 or 7 CVs from an agency last year. Three of them were over 6 pages long, and one of these three was 12 pages long.

KarlDrake

flash harry wrote: »

Hi OP

the way current legislation is this is illegal for a variety of reasons.

It's illegal for Recruitment Agencies to charge candidates for placing them.

Paying someone to do the leg work for you is a different kettle and not illegal.

pollypocket10

KarlDrake wrote: »

It's illegal for Recruitment Agencies to charge candidates for placing them.

Paying someone to do the leg work for you is a different kettle and not illegal.

I think you are wrong there KarlDrake, you'd be getting into technicalities to prove otherwise but basically it is illegal.

This type of company would fall under the definition of an employment agency under the ACT

ie
For the purposes of this Act, the business of an employment agency means the business of seeking, whether for reward or otherwise, on behalf of others, persons who will give or accept employment, and includes the obtaining or supplying for reward of persons who will accept employment from or render services to others.

A stipulation of the act is also:

A person carrying on the business of an employment agency shall not charge any fee solely for agreeing to seek employment for another person

KarlDrake

pollypocket10 wrote: »

I think you are wrong there KarlDrake, you'd be getting into technicalities to prove otherwise but basically it is illegal.

This type of company would fall under the definition of an employment agency under the ACT

ie
For the purposes of this Act, the business of an employment agency means the business of seeking, whether for reward or otherwise, on behalf of others, persons who will give or accept employment, and includes the obtaining or supplying for reward of persons who will accept employment from or render services to others.

A stipulation of the act is also:

A person carrying on the business of an employment agency shall not charge any fee solely for agreeing to seek employment for another person

I see what you're saying.

Is it illegal to charge a jobseeker for a service that identifies potential employers on their behalf?

pollypocket10

KarlDrake wrote: »

I see what you're saying.

Is it illegal to charge a jobseeker for a service that identifies potential employers on their behalf?

I wouldn't imagine so, afterall it could be argued that this is what most of the jobs boards do. Again you'd be getting into technicalities and I don't think my expertise on the subject would be comprehensive enought to give you a definitive answer.

KarlDrake

pollypocket10 wrote: »

I wouldn't imagine so, afterall it could be argued that this is what most of the jobs boards do. Again you'd be getting into technicalities and I don't think my expertise on the subject would be comprehensive enought to give you a definitive answer.

Thanks for that. The potential incongruity arises when a fee is contingent on the jobseeker actually getting a job.
That way madness lies.

I'll be more careful how I phrase things in future:)

Back to the point raised by Flash Harry, paying someone to find potential employers is fine, but if for instance I took a bunch of people on my books and charged them when they found employment, due to (or in spite of) my help and advice that's a serious can of worms.

Another poster reckoned that it would be a waste of time, but it's really just a matter of delegation to experts, same as any business person does.

It's an interesting concept, but the fact that there does not appear to be a hell of a lot of people doing it, suggests that it's not lucrative or at least not perfected.

flash harry

pollypocket10 wrote: »

Thats is not true at all, there are alot of other variables that are taken into consideration.

Employers/recruiters are getting inundated with CV's for most positions they advertise in the current market. Your CV may be perfectly fine but if 5 candidates apply for the same position that are a closer match then those 5 will get the interview.

Polly - you are of course correct - there are other things that come into play. My point was really that the recruiter has control over few of them.

You raise an interesting point re the legal side - how do you think a site like movieextras bypasses this as they are effectively saying they'll try to find you extras work?

Are we getting into pure how it's worded territory here??