Recruitment agencies for IT jobs

L5

getting fed up applying on line and hearing nothing back. i want to walk into a recruitment agency and sign up with them. anyone know any decent ones in dublin good for IT work?
thanks

RicardoSmith

If you are applying on line and hearing nothing back, consider that either (1) you're pitching at the wrong jobs, or (2) you're not selling yourself to them. While I myself will moan about the agencies and lack of replies, if you get nothing back you have to step back and change your approach. I don't see how walking into an agency changes 1 or 2 above.

dazberry

Agencies are only happy to contact you when:
a) they think they have a job for you
b) they have an interview for you
c) they have a job offer for you
d) they want you to do their job and pimp your friends for them

So ultimately the situation you are in will not improve by going to an agency. Now in fairness there are some notoriously bad HR departments - and atleast you can badger an agency to find out that nothing is still happening - but as a rule of thumb - recruitment agencies are bastid creations of satan and should be avoided.

homeOwner

L5 wrote:

getting fed up applying on line and hearing nothing back.

Usually those applications have the name of the person who is dealing with the job on them. Call them up after you have submitted your cv just to make sure they got it etc.... ask them why you are not suitable for the interview and what you can do to improve your chances of getting an interview. Chat to them and see what they say. Agencies want to get a job for you - thats how they make their money.

Dublin7

homeOwner wrote:

Agencies want to get a job for you - thats how they make their money.

No Way !

Agencies want to get the best person for a job - thats how they make their money. If you can see the difference...

They always tend to send over qualified person for interviews !

homeOwner

Dublin7 wrote:

Agencies want to get the best person for a job - thats how they make their money. If you can see the difference...

I am not suggesting that agencies would send you to an interview if you werent suitable. If you read my post you will see what I was saying was to find out why you are not getting interviews, then tailor your cv/application to sell yourself better. If an agency has a job you are suitable for, it is in their interests to help you get it. If they are ignoring the original poster maybe he isnt marketing himself correctly or maybe he just isnt suitable for the jobs he is applying for.

Dublin7 wrote:

They always tend to send over qualified person for interviews !

Well in my experience that just doesnt happen. Maybe it happened to you but it certainly doesnt ALWAYS happen. What does anyone gain from that? If the applicant cant tell he/she is overqualified for a job then I would not want that person working for me. Job specs detail what is expected of you and how many years experience an applicant is supposed to have. It serves nobody for an over qualified person to be given a job, they wont stay very long, the agency wont get paid and the company wastes time and money on the wrong person. Agencies would not get much repeat business from a company if they send over or under qualified people to an interview.

RicardoSmith

I've had the experience of being sent by agencies to completely inappropriate interviews. I wouldn't say it always happens but it happens an awful lot. But then usually the Agency person knows nothing about IT and the HR person in the company knows noththing about it either, so what do you expect.

homeOwner

RicardoSmith wrote:

I've had the experience of being sent by agencies to completely inappropriate interviews.

How come? I dont understand how come you dont know from the job spec or is it a case that you were not told job details before the interview, in which case why did you go?

Its easy to blame recruiters, as you point out they dont have the same level of technical skills as you do, they just word match on CVs mostly but there is no excuse for you as a candidate turning up to an interview you either know nothing about, or do not think you yourself are suitable for.

RicardoSmith

The Spec is usually completely inaccurate. After a while you start to read between the lines of jobs spec's. Sometimes its the agencies fault, sometimes the companies. But it happens an awful lot. My opinion of agencies is pretty poor. Thats based on a few years of dealing with them, unfortunately.

finlma

Do not use Reson - they are useless in my opinion. They ran me around about a job and I had to chase them the whole time. Very unsatisfy to work with them.

mountainyman

I am a recruitment consultant. I try to ring everyone back who contacts me. But if I know I can't find you a job it isn't a priority.

It is unfair but the better you are the harder I work for you, because if a guy is good enough a company will practically create a job for him.

As for people being sent to jobs they are overqualified for; I think that indicates that the agent is incompetent. We are reentering a candidate driven market. Salaries are rising quickly and pretty soon contracting will be back in a big way. Agents should be trying to get jobs for which you are under qualified.

As for specs in tech they are a fcuking joke half the time they are written by HR and mean nothing and half the time by line and they are unfillable.


Mountainy Man