Recruitment Agencies

No1

Recruitment Agencies........anyone know what's the deal with em?

How do they work? Send them a CV and hope for the best?

How (and how much) do they charge?

Are they generally good or bad at finding jobs?

woolymammoth

methinks a search of this board will tell you all you need to know :ninja:

tomED

Some are excellent some are really bad....

I found the best thing to do was contact them by phone or by visiting their office with CV in hand.

it's reckoned that there is only a 10% repsonse rate from email applications to them.

Try and find someone you can trust that will look after you and tell you exactly what you need to do.

Most don't charge unless you are looking for consultancy - usually used by executive job seekers. But generally they dont charge you - they charge the future employer.

When I last went looking for a job - i ended up finding a job through my own search and not through an agency at all... but friends of mine have had great results with agencies.

Lafortezza

Don't put any hope/trust into recruitment agencies at all, unless you know the consultant personally and know they will look after you.

I've found Firstaff on Grafton St to be very good for temp/contract type officey jobs.

Best bet is to check www.fas.ie, www.irishjobs.ie, www.recruitireland.ie
Do searchs for Companys advertising, not recruitment agencies, you'll get less jobs returned but you'll be contacting the hiring company directly.

If you do send off a CV to a recruitment agency about a job, be careful that you haven't sent it to a different recruitment agency for the same job. if you do both recruitment agencies will come back to you bitching and moaning and saying that they are the ones that'll ensure you get the job, etc etc more hassle than its worth.

If a recruitment agency comes back and says that you have got the job (after an interview etc), make sure you ring the actual hiring company to confirm with whoever sat your interview. I got screwed over by this before when recr agency told me I had it, I turned down a different job, then the hiring company came back and said they had chosen someone else

hth

boo-boo

As far as I know its illegal for an agency to charge the job-seeker for placing them in a company, (tho' they can charge for other services, CV writing etc). For perm. work they charge the employer a % of the annual salary, at one stage it was about 30-35% for IT people, but I'm sure its dropped sharply since. For temp / contract work typically you are employed by the agency & they charge the employer a rate. Although this can vary, sometimes they can cut a flat fee with the employer & you'll be contracted by the employer directly.

I'd be interested to hear the story from people who work in agencies, from my dealings I find they vary wildly, some are fair
& some would cut your throat (their work is commission based)
but they must be under serious stress in this IT market & I'd imagine a lot of employers jerk them around & they jerk us around. As the proberb goes, piss always flows downhill.

Anyone hear work / worked in agencies ?