Recruiters - untalented, blood suckers?

Gone Drinking

I've went for two jobs in the last year through recruitment agencies because unfortunately, that's how the company decided to advertise. These were two mid to high level jobs (70k plus), which required multiple interview steps, study and travel. I fell short at the last stage of both interviews, unfortunately.

Why did I fall short? Well I don't know, because the recruiter in both instances (Different people) didn't give me any feedback.. didn't give me anything in fact. They would promise to give feedback regardless of the outcome and then nothing, no phonecall, no response to emails. I called one and caught her off guard and you could tell she was "EH OH EMMM", which was awkward and in the end she made something up on the spot.

You see these recruiter linkedin blog posts "Why a few in the recruitment industry are making us all look bad", which has hundreds of shares and likes (usually from other recruiters) but I can tell you now, statistically, its the majority for me, not the minority.

If you aren't getting the job or decide you're not taking the job offer, the niceties go out the window, because that means they aren't getting paid. They feel hard done by; but its you who's put the hours of interviewing, travelling, study in, not them.

So I'm not dealing with recruitment agencies anymore. For anyone else who wants to avoid them, here's some tips:

I've found that if they are really keen on your CV or current position and you make yourself sound really enthused about the position, you can easily get the name of the company that they're trying to hire for out of them in the first phone call; with this information in some cases you can apply directly if its listed on the companies site. The agency cannot send your CV on (if they found it on Monster or something), without your permission, so just make that clear on the call after you've gotten the name.

For jobs listed by recruiters on job sites; they're pretty lazy with their job descriptions. They tend to just copy and paste exactly what their client has give them word for word (because whilst they claim to be a recruiter, specialised in the field of X, they usually aren't and don't understand any of the jargon anyway). If you copy a line or two and google it, you can sometimes find the job listed on the companies site and apply directly.

Happy hunting

PHG

Did you get something in the end?

To be fair most are terrible but for jobs in that wage bracket and above you are better using your own contacts instead of recruiters. 90% of them tend to have done poor in college and its an industry with a high turnover. Tend to be in work and a few of us get contacted by the same one, copy and paste mail. Even had a few where they have replied and sent me someone elses name on it.

Is there really that much study though, 2 to 3 hours should be enough if you know your industry and need a brush up on other areas?

Update your CV on Monster amd watch them like vultures, you will have 4/5 contact you before COB. They must get some alert when its done.

BurnsCarpenter

My most recent experience was pretty poor anyway. Told me straight out that he would get me the best deal because it was in his own interest, cos he would get a proportion. He pushed me to accept the first offer and I found out after he was on a flat rate of 10k per hire.
Naive on my part I know. Meh.

Gone Drinking

PHG wrote: »

Did you get something in the end?

To be fair most are terrible but for jobs in that wage bracket and above you are better using your own contacts instead of recruiters. 90% of them tend to have done poor in college and its an industry with a high turnover. Tend to be in work and a few of us get contacted by the same one, copy and paste mail. Even had a few where they have replied and sent me someone elses name on it.

Is there really that much study though, 2 to 3 hours should be enough if you know your industry and need a brush up on other areas?

Update your CV on Monster amd watch them like vultures, you will have 4/5 contact you before COB. They must get some alert when its done.

I'm in a decent job but I'm looking to move. No, haven't found anything else yet.

Some companies use recruiters, there's no other way to apply. The companies in question for me were both opening shop in Ireland and thus, I could not use any local contacts to get in.

As for study, in my case it was about a technical test over the phone, a practical examination either remotely or on site and then interviews in office with the hiring manager and then company director. There's more than googling the company and checking their wiki page for these positions, the interview process happens over the space of two or three weeks.

My gripe here is that a recruiter is down your neck and in your face for weeks, asking for updates, sending you what they think are helpful emails and just being annoying in general. You put up with all of that, as well as the whole interview process (which can include travelling to another country) and as soon as they catch wind of you not being the right candidate, they switch off and ignore you.

When I see these blogs online about how recruiters feel so hard done by, because of the "few" who treat candidates badly and give them all a bad rep. The truth is, its the majority not the few and really, we shouldn't be putting up with them because we're blinded by the job we want.

beauf

Gone Drinking wrote: »

...For jobs listed by recruiters on job sites; they're pretty lazy with their job descriptions. They tend to just copy and paste exactly what their client has give them word for word (because whilst they claim to be a recruiter, specialised in the field of X, they usually aren't and don't understand any of the jargon anyway). If you copy a line or two and google it, you can sometimes find the job listed on the companies site and apply directly. ...

Real jobs generally have some detail, or oddity that makes them stand out from generic descriptions.