Getting recruitment agencies to work for you

digiology

Hi all,

I'm looking for a particular kind of position but would prefer to pay someone to do my job search than spend hours and hours applying for jobs and search on google.
Often I get the sense that recruitment agecies are employer-driven, so it looks as though you're turning up for an interview because theres a job going, not because this specific job is one you're particularly interested in.

I will contact more recruitment agencies to tell them what I'm looking for but so far it seems like a slow process.


In case anyone's interested, I'm looking for C++ development experience, perhaps in Dublin or experience in the music technology sector anywhere worldwide.

MagicMarker

If you're too lazy to then I'll search for you for a nominal fee.

Mrs OBumble

I believe it is illegal for agencies to charge candidates a fee.

emul

You won't get the agencies to be proactive for you as there customer (revenue) is gained from an employer. I been looking for the last 8 months and registered with countless agencies, none have proactively taken my CV and profiled me.As this stage I apply for everything and then phone the recruiter to ensure they have my CV and try to get a 5 minute conversation about the position etc and sell myself during that.

Good luck.

Lollipops23

digiology wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm looking for a particular kind of position but would prefer to pay someone to do my job search than spend hours and hours applying for jobs and search on google.

You don't pay the agency, the client (company) does- a percentage of your agreed salary once you get the job. (ie, if you get a job with €50k salary, the recruiter can expect to get anywhere from 10-17% of that value for their efforts).

Incidentally, there's not a whole lot of C++ out there from my experience. The only roles I've seen in the last while are for very senior/experienced developers.

digiology

emul wrote: »

You won't get the agencies to be proactive for you as there customer (revenue) is gained from an employer.

Oh I know, I just see that an unecessary convention though. The economics need not be this way in theory.

digiology

If I'm not mistaken, a recruiter only gets commision if you stay in the job for a few months. So there is some insentive for them to find people who want the jobs and not simply fling as many candidates as possible at them!

I think I'll try to meet recruiters in person in the hope that they'll remember me when a position crops up.

In addition to this, I'll use email alerts.

vangough

by using recruitment agencies are you perhaps hindering your chances of getting the job as opposed to someone who applied directly with the company advertising the job?

RATM

Depends on how strapped for cash the company is. Given two candidates equal on all criteria (rare this happens) the employer can save the placement fee by going with the one who applied directly.

With bigger companies, multinationals, very specialised jobs, etc it won't matter as much as getting the right person is more of a concern, regardless of cost.

Although as a recruiter I am biased I can see the clear advantages of going with an agency. A good agency will be able to brief you on exactly what to expect from the interview, pet hates of the interviewer, etc. When it comes to salary negotiations at the offer stage a recruiter is a good buffer to have in order to thrash out an agreement- doing it directly in the current climate will often see you end up worse off financially. Just this week I secured one of my candidates a free week's paid leave for his wedding. This was as a sweetner to get him to hop ship but at the same time it is something he almost certainly would not have been able to secure on his own. I've a relationship with my clients so I know what is possible far better than unrepresented candidates. I did it to speed up the process and all parties were happy.

Finally if a situation arises where there are two candidates in the final round and a decision is hard to come to then the recruiter has the ear of the decision maker to push the positives and virtues of their candidate getting the job. The other candidate who isn't represented cannot ring up to make their case and just has to hope for the best. In that situation then having a recruiter on your side is invaluable and one worth his salt will persuade the employer into hiring their candidate.

vangough

Cheers RATM, great getting an insight from the other side of the field. Recruitment agencies seem to get a lot of slack but from my experience with them it is a little uncalled for. Yes they do send on specs that are not suited to you but still it is better than nothing! Who know one of them might suit!