Recruitment Agency

elduder

Hi Guys, I was wondering whats the best recruitment agency to use? and how do they work?

youcancallmeal

That's a very broad question, different recruitment agencies specialise in different jobs. There is big thread here where people report on their experiences, I wouldn't take too much from it though as it very subjective depending on each person's experience?

The basic concept is that an employer doesn't want to expend resources advertising a job and then trawling the hundreds of CVs they would probably get so they go to a recruitment agency and say send us 5 good candidates for this role. The recruiter gets paid a percentage of the successful candidate's salary.

elduder

Hi thanks for that reply.. that thread was good.. It certainly paints recruitment agencies in a bad light. I'll keep looking.

Somlad

I recommend Morgan McKinley, Stelfox and Sigmar for IT roles. there are lots of awful agencies out there, I know, I've worked for one previously. Use anyone of the three mentioned above and you won't go wrong

Steam

Any one looking for work should really go directly to employers and do not waste your time with recruitment agencies

dees99

Nonsense :rolleyes: about 80 - 90% of recruitment is done through recruitment agencies, you would limit your chances of employment in a huge way if you were to ignore these. My advice speaking from 8 years working in IT is to focus on the job and the job spec and forget about who is advertising it!!

Steam

Well that may be so if you work IT, but I have found them to be totally useless and just lie to you and I will never pay any agency to find a suitable employee as this would be a waste of money.

dazberry

dees99 wrote: »

Nonsense :rolleyes: about 80 - 90% of recruitment is done through recruitment agencies, you would limit your chances of employment in a huge way if you were to ignore these. My advice speaking from 8 years working in IT is to focus on the job and the job spec and forget about who is advertising it!!

I've worked in IT for almost 20 years, 75% would have been directly to companies via networking, recommendations, direct applications etc., 25% via agencies, in fact I was 10 years in before taking a job via an agency. Not on purpose I've spent a lot of time talking to agencies, just always seem to do better when left to my own devices

D.

jonnny68

Personally speaking im finding it hard to even recommend even one agency, the harsh facts are most of them will all but ignore you if they send you for an interview and you are unsuccessful, almost as if they are blaming you for not getting the job, ive encountered this a couple of times.

There was one recruitment agent a few years ago though who placed me in a company and actually rang me every fortnight to see how things were going and if i needed anything, that i appreciated and she was great although people like that in recruitment in my experience are few and far between, most if they place you the only time you'll realistically hear from them is if the company you are temping for decide you are finishing up and they'll then let the agency know.

The majority of recruitment agents just want to place as many people as people so they obviously earn more commission.

They have been known to be compulsive liars too.:eek:

El Gato

Steam wrote: »

Well that may be so if you work IT, but I have found them to be totally useless and just lie to you and I will never pay any agency to find a suitable employee as this would be a waste of money.

In my experience (very recent) it's not that way in IT recruitment.

My experience of using agencies is similar.

El Gato

In relation to the OP's question.....it depends on what area you work in.

If it is temp office work agencies can be great....in other areas no so much.

Personally I would go direct to the employer.

dees99

You cant expect every recruitment agent ringing every Tom, Dick and Harry just because they didnt get the job. What are they supposed to do? Spend 10 minutes on the phone to every candidate that didnt get the job? How much time of their day would that take?

I think jonnny68 needs to toughen up a little. Remember recruitment agencies work for the company, not for you!

El Gato

dees99 wrote: »

You cant expect every recruitment agent ringing every Tom, Dick and Harry just because they didnt get the job. What are they supposed to do? Spend 10 minutes on the phone to every candidate that didnt get the job? How much time of their day would that take?

I think jonnny68 needs to toughen up a little. Remember recruitment agencies work for the company, not for you!

When a recruitment agency presents a candidate for a job, it is customary for the agency to see the process to the end. Recently I applied for a job without realising it was with an agency. Was called the following morning and got an interview 2 days later. Met with the consultant, went to the interview and nothing form the consultant. 1 week later still nothing....I had to call him - This was one of the aforementioned companies and that wasn't just one isolated incident as I was contacted subsequently by 3 different consultants from the same company for other roles.

Now, in relation to the bold, this is not true. Recruitment agencies work for themselves. A lot of the advertised jobs by recruitment agencies are not even commissioned by the company offering the job. How do I know this? I worked as an IT recruitment consultant for a number of years with one of Irelands biggest recruitment agencies.

The fees structure at that time were:

up to €25,399 - 15%
€25,400 - €44,499 - 20%
€44,500 and up - 25%

There was more to the fee structure than this but that is the basics

There are very few companies who have a recruitment agency on retainer. As a matter of fact most companies I have seen recently have a footnote on the listing explicitly stating 'no agencies'.

Steam

I find a lot of the agencies just post jobs that do not excist and some times they use jobs that companies advertise themselves and do not go near any of them and that is wrong as I know people have missed out on interviews beacuse of these people and should really get their act together or go on do some thing else more suitable because they have not got a clue what they are doing in this area and there needs to be much tougher regulations on how these people operate and much more stringent vetting on new applicants and those renewing their licences when applying to the appropiate goverenment dept, and speaking as an employer my experince is awful and would hate to have deal with these agencies if I was looking for work..

tatli_lokma

dees99 wrote: »

Nonsense :rolleyes: about 80 - 90% of recruitment is done through recruitment agencies, you would limit your chances of employment in a huge way if you were to ignore these. My advice speaking from 8 years working in IT is to focus on the job and the job spec and forget about who is advertising it!!

I agree with this, despite also agreeing with the majority of you that recruitment agents are the devils work! Yes it is true that many of them are crap, that essentially they are sales people trying to sell a product (initially selling their service to the client, then selling the job to the applicant, finally selling the applicant to the client) and many of them treat people like a commodity. When no sale is to be made, they don't even bother with common courtesy.

But having said all that, there are a large percentage of companies who will only recruit via an agency. I wouldn't say its as high as 80-90% but a reasonable proportion nonetheless. Limiting yourself by excluding recruitment agency placements is silly.

As long as you learn how to play them at their own game, and take everything they tell you with a pinch of salt, it is still worth applying to agencies.

Steam

I have never got a full time job from any recruitment agency when I was looking for. I once did get some work for a few months, they were paying more than the company was paying it's full time staff for the same job and they were getting their cut as well on top of what they were paying me from the company, in the end they even managed to mess me around. I also have seen companies advertising themselves as well as using agencies and why would you pay some one when you find the right person by word of mouth and your own ad for a vacancy. It really is not logical to pay crap agencies money, good ones I have never come across.

Steam

dees99 wrote: »

You cant expect every recruitment agent ringing every Tom, Dick and Harry just because they didnt get the job. What are they supposed to do? Spend 10 minutes on the phone to every candidate that didnt get the job? How much time of their day would that take?

I think jonnny68 needs to toughen up a little. Remember recruitment agencies work for the company, not for you!

They really do not give a **** if you are a company or some one looking for work because they do not have a clue what they are talking and do not know the business that are recruiting for and so they waste every ones time and money.

Steam

I made a big mistake by going to an agency which cost my company a lot of money and they were bloody useless and from the candidtes cv's they sent me they had not got a clue what they were doing recruiting people for this line of business and would advise that you should not go this agency for finding suitable staff for your compan