Stupid recruitment agency

ando

I saw a job on irishjobs.ie that I was pretty interested in. So I sent an email the recruitment agency that is taking care of the inquires. I specificially asked them for more info as the current job description did not include where abouts in dublin the job is located. This is the mail I sent:

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Original Message

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From: *******
Sent: 01 January 2003 21:06
To: *******
Subject: *********


Hi Pauline, I'm just curious about a job being advertised on irishjobs.ie (************). Could you tell me where the job is located and at what times the 12 hour shifts are at? Also, if possable, could you tell me the name of the company.



Thanks,

*************

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This is the responce I got:

Hi

I am looking for Win2000, Compaq and Dell server support experience for this position.

Pauline

HELLO, ANYBODY HOME???

I mean, WTF kind of responce is that? I have all the qualifications that the job requires, infact its a bit behind me. All I want is a bit more info on the job involved so that I can decide to apply for it or not?


Stuipid women... either that or she's still recovering from new years eve :rolleyes:

SantaHoe

In my experience irishjobs.ie is a black-hole as far as sending CV's goes.
I've seen jobs advertised there that look suspiciously like ones I applied for 6 months earlier.
Sorry I wasted my time tbh.

BuffyBot

I avoid agencies now..I only apply for jobs advertised directly. I've just had too many bad experiences

shabbyroad

and as someone who was getting cold called by certain job agencies I can tell you that you're better off to apply directly for real jobs.

V. few companies worth their salt will go to agencies for their future employees.

Generally I've found them to be less-than-accurate with their candidate information and clueless about my requirements, absolutely clueless.

ando

Originally posted by shabbyroad
Generally I've found them to be less-than-accurate with their candidate information and clueless about my requirements, absolutely clueless.

very true. This is not my first encounter with agencies. Last time I was sent to an interview for a network admin job. Turns out the company ran ONLY UNIX servers. I'm a Mcse in windows 2000 .... I was so pi$sed with the agency. They made me look like a complete fool and I waisted a 'sick day' out of my current job

It was not such a supprise to hear that I did not get the job. Fecking agency sent me to 2 interviews altogether for jobs that were not my area at all :mad:

jscully

You also have to rememeber that quite a high proportion of the jobs advertised do not exist at all. It is the recruitment agency's way of building up a database of CVs that they in turn can use to approach companies.

Typedef

Irishjobs.ie is in my view terrible.

Most of the recruitment droids one gets to talk to, don't know the difference between a web developer and a kernel developer and not infrequently, there is ridculous conjunction of qualifications.

Like: Linux sysadmin, must have .NET experience.
*bump.

Some recruitment droids , will mail you back and engage with you on a reasonable level.

Generally recruitment agencies are a waste of time, because as an employee, you want to get a job that is a challenge for you, but for the recruitment agent, it is a question of putting you into a job you will be mostly over qualified for, which jibes significantly with me wanting to expand my 'skills base*'.

*thinking out of the box, going forward.

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by SantaHoe
In my experience irishjobs.ie is a black-hole as far as sending CV's goes.
I've seen jobs advertised there that look suspiciously like ones I applied for 6 months earlier.
Sorry I wasted my time tbh.

Drop by the Reaver board will u Santa? All the lads want to slave drive u.

The Corinthian

Agencies are under a significant amount of pressure given that companies can now recruit directly without having to pay a 15%+ of a successful candidate’s salary or contract rate in commission to the agency.

As a result many agencies have reinvented their sales spiel to prospective clients (the companies, not the candidates), offering the best at the lowest rates. In fact most of the adverts you’ll see are purely speculative, with the agency hoping to get in a qualified and under priced candidate that they can then sell on to a prospective client.

I do recommend that people avoid these agencies and contact firms directly as many are tentatively beginning to hire again.

Typedef

Here is some friendly banter I had with some random recruitment droid.

> Hi Brian,
>
> Thank you for your CV. I'm afraid I need someone with a minimum of 3-4
> years experience of pure visual basic development experience.
>
> I will be in contact about other possible positions.
>
> Best Regards
> martina


With all due respect, the job I'm currently doing required a minimum of two
years VB development and I was fresh out of a training course.
In fact in an industry paradigm, it is more desireable for a company to have
someone with more then just one language, so 'purism' is a misnomer of logic
in that regard.

Do feel free to keep me in mind for other possible positions.

Regards
Brian O'Donoghue

Edit: Please note, recruitment droids are on the whole, clueless computer users and are therefore 'unqualified' to make a judgement as to what is an appropiate candidate to send forward.

Example, the job I started doing with zero years of VB development, stipulated it required a minimum of two years VB development.

Somehow I think my friend Martina above would have said something like "you need two years experience" before said chick would have sent off my CV to my current employers.

Shows you how useful these agencies ultimately are.
And the great wheel turns.

Anybody up for a game of spot the marketing degree?

ZeFrog

Hi all,

Those people working in recruitment agencies would make you believe you are worthless.

I wanted to start 2003 with actually going in person to agencies to register, instead of sending a cv or even giving a phone call.
How hard this is! Most of the agencies didn t give me a chance to register in person, the receptionist just take a 'sorry' look and give me a number to call.

Ex (and it s one out of many): I went to cpl on Tuesday. I can't meet anyone (why did I bother dressing neat and pay for the car park ?!) and she (the receptionist) gives me a name and phone nb.

After 2 days of answering machine I finally get the man. He says : Sorry but I am not a recruiter, I am actually working as an IT here, who gave you my nb ?

Another agency where I got a SHORT interview : 'Mmm, with a cv like that 3 years ago you d have had a chance ...'
I have over 3 years experience in Web dev, I have 2 Java Professinnal certifications, I speak english and french ..
I wasn t expecting big cheers, but I wasn t expecting that answer either !

Also I have another difficulty on top of what everybody else has : I am not Irish. They can not understand, and I insist on the words CAN NOT, that I don t want a Hot Line related job.

For those who are still reading , and this probably prove what jscully said :
On friday I see a job description that I like. I sent an email with a few key points : why I am motivated, why I suit the job AND the Reference of the job.
I receive a phone call 1h after !! wooh hooo 'It must have worked'.

=> Hi Jeff, you sent us your cv but what exactly is the job you are talking about ?
Me => Job ref xxxx, the job desc says to quote this reference and to call you.
Him => Sorry I have no clue what this job is. I ll call you back
Me => when
Him => Later today(friday)

Of course I didn t have any call back on Friday .........

For those who have seen the movie 'Falling down' with Mickael Douglas, they know how I feel now ;o)

In here I can read : I do not trust agencies I don't use 'em anymore etc.. But what do you do instead ? Where do you find a listing of companies so that you can check their web site ?

btw, fyi : The FAS Opportunities 2003 is open from Fri Jan 31st to Mon Feb 3rd

ZeFrog

Maybe there are some legal issues with what agencies do. (fake job desc to build a cv DB, refuse to give interviews, pass cv to other agencies without asking, etc..)

May be I could sue them for a living !

Anyone ?

billy the squid

last time i went to recruitment agency they put me in a job about 15 miles from where i live and i dont even have a car.

The company I'm with now have stopped hiring directly and are using an agency for new recruits. reason, to dilute the strengtrh of the trade union that is in the company

on the subject of legal issues anyone from limerick remember around 1997 when the guards raided CMS when they were charging Dell for workers they didnt send them.

Lafortezza

I've been looking for a job for the last few months, going mostly through recruitment agencys, about 8 or 9 of them in total,

had several interviews set up by the agencies, got none of them

at the start of Jan, I saw a link somewhere to the fas website, www.fas.ie
had a look, you don't have to register to look at the jobs or take the details down, or even to apply for the job,

the search function is ok, needs to be reworked

but the main point I'm making is that I found a job from the first email and follow up call I made from details on fas.ie,
money is decent, its in dunlaoire, walking distance to the house I'm about to move into,

the only thing I've found recr agencies useful for is temp jobs, a few weeks of office work to get the beer money in