To wonder if there are recruitment consultants that just hire recruitment consultants

[brightlightsandpromise]

What is that all about, when i log onto job search websites - the only jobs regularly available seem to be recruitment consultants, how can you need so many consultants when there are so few jobs? eh?

It is an industry with a very high turnover of staff. There is very little loyalty to employers, and staff regularly move from one agency to another.

but there are just so many of them!!! it seems to me, and im probably wrong, that they are not actually real jobs??

at the low end it is a horrendously sharkish industry, as bad as, if not worse than, estate agents. There are specialist "rec2rec" agencies but it may also be that agencies who don't have any real jobs to advertise are just advertising for staff in order to fill slots that have already been paid for.

There are, I used to work for one when I left school! It's a horrible industry, dog eat dog and full of David Brent/Katie Hopkins types, and I think a lot of people find it's not for them. I certainly wouldn't go anywhere near it - you can make good money but I'd rather be poor and not be racially abused and sexually harrassed at work :)

I work in this industry and there are loads of rec2rec firms. Recruitment firms vary massively - some are quite felxible, some are the 'you didn't call 1000 people this week you're fired' types and the turnover in the industry is very high. It's a case of people finding the right type of firm for them, whether it's a massive firm or one with 6 staff members. Different rec 2 recs focus on different types of firms, some only work with executive search firms, others just with contingency firms etc. Usually they specialise in certain areas such as financial recruitment or legal recruitment clients.

Recruitment firms use rec 2 recs as usually getting their consultants to source new staff members is a waste of time and money as the consultant is better employed filling their live vacancies for clients.

One job may have ten different agencies advertising it, which makes it a very cut-throat business. Very few employers actually use the job centre any more, simply because the job centre staff would send practically anyone along for an interview, just to fill their own criteria and to keep the person as having "applied for a job", which just wastes everyones time.

I used to install specialised software to recruitment agencies and its not a business I would ever want to work in as a consultant.

I have never met a bright or truthful recruitment consultant and I have been a temp contractor for 6 years. I was in one temp contract for two years - in all that time they phoned me once and that was to see if I had got to work during heavy snow. Worried about me? Nope they were trying to work out how much money they were losing due to staff absences.

I have also worked as an administrator in a recruitment agency - it was the worst job I have ever had - the consultants were under so much pressure to achieve targets it was unbelieveable - when they reached their targets the goalposts were moved so they had to reach even better targets. They would lie to the temps and lie to employers.

I have been to told to change my CV to include skills I didn't have and had my CV altered without my consent and sent off to a company. At the interview they sent me to I was baffled because they kept referring to my CV and I had not a bloody clue what they were talking about.

SunCottage, you are so right in that.

I have been in exactly the same situation where I have gone to an interview and wondered if I they had sent the wrong candidate, as the client had been told an utter load of bollocks about my experience, as well as changing my CV.

While working behind the scenes doing software for them, it was eye-opening at the lying and fixing that goes on.

I think it takes a certain type of person to be a recruitment consultant, and it is certainly not for someone who likes being nice to people unless they are sucking up to them and giving them a load of bullshit.

Many of the jobs are non-existent, and just used to harvest peoples cv's.

Ultimately it is a sales job, and they really do not give a shit about the people they are using along the way.

Almost anyone can just start up a recruitment agency, and it was gobsmacking how many of them had absolutely no understanding of the law, or how to run a payroll, which was the main part of my job to train them.

Luckily employment law has leaned heavily in the favour of the employee nowadays, and agencies can no longer get away with paying shit money and no holiday pay to their temps.

Its interesting that you say that employers dont use the job centre anymore, that used to be my trusted source when searcing for a job but have definately noticed a disproportionate decrease. What ARE the good agencies? Even when you go on websites such as totaljobs, every sodding job is advertised via an agency and i feel like it is a waste of time applying as i think its a numbers exercise. DP has phoned several agencies for construction work in the past only to be told that despite the ad, there isnt a concrete position at the moment and that they will take his details bla bla bla

I was temping at one job for holiday cover and the agency phoned me to book me for another the following week and said the company needed someone with skills in a particular software.

I told them I did not know that system - I was told to turn up anyway and hope I don't need to use it!

WTF

It is actually illegal to advertise non-existant jobs. That was totally ignored in the agency I worked for.

The top agencies usually are the best as far as the employee goes for general work. Reed for example are not too bad. Employers will use them because they are a large reputable company, and they are more professional than the smaller independents who are more desperate to fill a vacancy.

On the other side of the coin, some of the smaller more specialised agencies can be better if you have a specific skill, ie Payroll, or Brain Surgery.

It really does depend on what sort of work you are looking for, whether it is temp or perm, or contract.

Suncottage, it is ignored by every agency that I worked with. The job may have existed on their books at one time, but they will say "oooh its filled, forgot to take that one down"..

There is an independant agency on my local high street that is a joke. They keep afloat because they have ONE regular contract.

They are in a prime location, near a train station, which has commuters to London going past all day long, yet their windows have faded pink and yellow fluorescent adverts, that have been in the window unchanged for the last five years! and their doorbell has had a broken sign on it for longer than that!

I walk past most days and there is one consultant in there staring into space.. lol!...

I temped for 2 months at a recruitment consultants a couple of years ago when I was between jobs.

It was incredibly cut throat and i couldn't believe how pressured it was. And the agency I worked at was full of complete idiots who treated the workers like shit.

That said, nmy SIL is a branch manager for an agency and even though she is hard nosed, her company has a really strict ethics code. She has made an absolute fortune from it as well.

Also, the recruiter I use is an absolute star. If you are very good you build up and amazing loyalty - I would never use anyone else other than my recruiter and she has found my last 4 jobs (and if I get this next job I have applied for I will have tripled my salary in less than 4 years). So they are invaluable I think.

It really does depend on the company, there are some lovely people who work in Recruitment, honest :) I find the bigger firms are best as there's less pressure on each individual. Some seriously good money can be made - I know someone who earned 24k commission in a quarter!

It's due to high staff turnover. I was a Recruitment Consultant for 10 years hiring management level staff until I quit.

Best thing I ever did. Bloody awful it was.

Sorry a bit off topic but Brightlights, from your thread the other day I remember you were looking for a research/ academic/ science job?

Have you seen www.jobs.ac.uk, you can sign up to have weekly emails.

Any other local agencies near you that specialise in academic/ science jobs?...there used to be one connected to my uni. That one sent me quite useful job adverts relating to my CV/ experience(and they sounded like real jobs).

Any publications relating to your industry, like a quarterly magazine? I knew mine had a related website with jobs on there.

Good luck, and yes I agree there must be loads of 'non jobs' advertised out there.

Ah thanks redholly, i have seen that but have forgotten about it. I will check it out :-)

Oh buggery, I managed to delete my rather long response. Stupidities.

In summary: I am a recruitment consultant (on mat leave) and I am NICE, and don't lie, cheat, manipulate or do anything remotely illegal.

It is very annoying that there are cowboys in the industry who make people suspicious of the rest of us - it makes work more difficult than it needs to be. It also undermines the efforts that the GOOD recruitment consultancies make to help, advise and nurture their candidates.

I work for a lovely consultancy. They don't pay as much as most others, because they aren't cut-throat or focussed on KPI's, which is telling. We are in the minority.

If you meet a person who has worked with a great recruitment consultancy, you do see the difference. I have spent hours on candidates: CV advice, practice interviews, going through practice case studies with them, working through their worries, etc. It takes a long time, and that's why many recruiters don't do it. But it is worth it.

It's horrid hearing that if I'm a recruitment consultant I can't be a nice person and must be a bumlicker. But to be quite frank, recruitment consultancies wouldn't exist if we weren't needed. Our clients come to us (and at my company, they really do just come to us, exclusively) because we do a better job than they could, finding them the right candidates for the job. It's our speciality, we're good at it, it works for the clients and the candidates. That's how it SHOULD be and it's a shame some consultancies ruin it.

I have used the same recruitment consultant for my business for 5 years. It's a small agency and it's great. They do exist!

Mahraih, thank the lord for those like you x

Its all bollocks and i talk from experiance. there are loads of jobs about but they tend to be more specialised.

companies rely on recruitment agencies to find the right candidate with the right skills. If the post is left open too long it starts to cost the company money ie a Manufacturing Director - if this is not filled with someone who has first hand experiance it could be disasterious for the company.

And there are specialist recruitment companies who do recruit for recruitment consultants - same idea i.e experiance of recruiting for a certain discipline.

there is not really a high turnover of consultants as the money is very good but unless you are rubbish you tend to job hop in the hope no one realises how rubbish you were.

I loved my recruitment consultant. She was great: super-bright, very clued up about the industry and good at sussing out people. She was also fairly specialised. I would have hired her to do my job (which was not related to recruitment) in a shot.