Beware - large Irish IT agency currently on 'fishing' exercise

DublinWriter

This is probably one for the Working forum, but seeing as how this forum has more traffic from those working in IT, I thought I'd post it here.

Last week I got a call from one of the bigger Irish IT agencies. The person sounded fairly junior and asked me all the generic questions about salary expectations, preferred locations, etc.

She then proceeded to ask me for the names of contacts with my current clients that the agency could contact for a reference should a suitable position arise. I asked was this call in relation to a specific role that they had and she said no.

I told her unconditionally that there's no way I'd give any contact details of my current clients.

I've experienced agencies do this in the UK when I was working there.

It's basically a very shady 'fishing' practise used by recruitment agencies to get the contact details of who the 'cheque-signers' in companies are, so that they can cold call them at a later stage.

I was very shocked that this particular Irish agency was doing it.

moycullen14

Clients and candidates have really created a monster with recruitment agencies. If developers were better at marketing themselves and client gatekeepers (usually HR) weren't so bloody useless, there would be very little need for recruitment agencies.

I worked 'closely' with a largeish UK agencies a few years ago, staffing up a C++ project. It was interesting to see what made an effective recruiter. The ones who really worked well - got results - were the aggressive, unscrupulous ones. The nice guys really did come last and didn't survive.

If fishing for details is your worst experience with recruiters, you won't be doing too badly :rolleyes:

Graham

DublinWriter wrote: »

I was very shocked that this particular Irish agency was doing it.

Don't be shocked, it's fairly standard practice in my experience.

Tell the agency you'll provide your previous customer list just after they send over a copy of their previous customer list.

L.Jenkins

Any chance you could spill the beans on who they are, so I can avoid them?

DublinWriter

Pm sent Itzy

Graham

Itzy wrote: »

Any chance you could spill the beans on who they are, so I can avoid them?

In the big bad bold list of agency sins, this one ranks fairly low.

L.Jenkins

I know what they're like. There is a couple who won't even return emails or phone calls.

Berserker

Had a very similar call last week from an agency. They were naming dropping like crazy when discussing my current role. The names did relate to people in the company but the positions and locations of the people were wrong. I have experienced people 'fishing' for contacts before but they were very pushy last week.