...in thinking that recruitment consultants

[TheUsefulSuspect]

are all twats?

Got to be the most pathetic useless, unhelpful cretins to walk the face of the earth?

sorry, i am gradually remembering stuff now which i thought was long forgotten - there was one guy who got really flirty with me because of my email name and used to call me at odd times. then, he practically asked me out, at which stage i pointed out that i was married, to which he replied 'oh, i didn't realise'. it gave me great pleasure to say 'didn't you read my CV properly then?'. after that, he did not want to know - never even answered my calls about a position we had been discussing in detail (which i later found out from the company had never even existed)

"in it for the money more than anything else"

Do you really expect anyone to help you find a lucrative new position out of the goodness of their heart?

After being out of "officey type" work for ummm 11 years, I sent my CV off to a recruitment agency. They rang me the next day to say they had the perfect job for me.... I went to see them, went to the place of work for an interview and got the job - perfect - school receptionist, 25 hours a week, term time only... I could only give praise to them

I don't think all of them are rubbish. I have recently been dealing with some completely incompetent ones. For example, I got 1 answerphone message from them saying that had been phoning me all the time and couldn't get through. I thought it was a bit odd, as there were no problems with my phone. Tried phoning the woman back 3/4 times, but she was never in the office. I could call at 2pm and she'd be out for the rest of the day. I then kind of gave up on them, until I got a call from another person in their company. I talked about the alleged constant phone calls, and she said "oh yes, we were calling the wrong number. We have no idea where we got it from". She then asked me to send a CV, as the only one they had for me was from 2007. ? Finally, she said "I'll email you my details" so I asked 2what email address do you have?" "oh, we don't have one for you".

IDIOTS

Interesting so many people mentioned that recruitment consultancy is a dying business and employers are cutting out the middlemen.

A lot of the big companies in my area of work now have a Careers section on their website where they advertise job vacancies and candidates can sign up for email alerts for jobs when they come up. Also, various websites that spider other sites for job vacancies that you can sign up for alerts on. Social networking sites like LinkedIn and professional groups on there also have an online jobs section.

You really shaft a recruitment consultant: if you see them advertise a job, call them and ask which company it is for, then check on that company's website and apply to that company directly.

If a recruitment agent was nice to me however, I would be happy to let them earn their well-deserved commission.

I have to say I have not had bad encounters with recruitment agents in my long career. The worst they could be is indifferent.

I would think it makes sense for a recruitment agent to be nice to the candidates, even though the candidates are not paying the commission.

My area is specialised and there are a handful of recruitment agencies that ply the market. If a job comes up, it tends to go to more than one agency. The candidate would surely go to the agency whom they like the best and who that candidate feels would best support their application. And any candidate they place well is a potential employer client or supplier of candidate names for new jobs that come up in the industry.

It is not just a bums-on-seat job. Any RC and agency could surely see the middle to long-term gains of being professional in their field.

There are good and bad ones. I have heard from friends that you have to be very proactive and ring them every week if you are looking for a job.

a lot of the big clients I work with advertise their jobs on their websites and have done for years. They also have access to all the jobsites for candidates on the internet. Plus they have a number of candidates apply direct. However they still use recruitment agencies as rec cons who do a good job do provide an additional service. Most rec cons are wise to being shafted by people finding out about jobs and applying directly and will often not provide the company name until the candidate has agreed to have their CV submitted. There are a lot of cowboys out there but there are a lot of excellent consultants who provide an all round consultancy service to both clients and candidates. It's certainly not just about wacking CVs to clients if you are doing the job properly! Think is very unfair to generalise. I don't generalise when it comes to candidates and clients despite numerous examples of being shafted, lied to, spoken down to and let down with no notification. On the whole I have dealt with some lovely people and have some very long standing relationships on both sides including candidates who come back to me each time they want to move (and recommend their friends). As for being in it for the money, yes you have to be money motivated as with any sales role but I certainly wouldn't still be doing it 12 years on if that was the only reason!

"As for being in it for the money, yes you have to be money motivated as with any sales role but I certainly wouldn't still be doing it 12 years on if that was the only reason!"

well said gio; though it's the case with many non sales jobs too.

Georgimama - did your dh get fed up of it after a while?

He did in all honesty (he quit 12 years ago), for plenty of the reasons that other ex RCs on this thread got fed up - long hours, very demanding clients and candidates, lots of travel, ridiculous demands of target (which he did achieve but then felt - rightly or wrongly - that he was "carrying" other people with his efforts) and basically making a good deal of money for other people, only a fraction of which he saw himself.

He's now self employed in a related field and much happier. He says it's a "young man's game" (no sexism intended, he knows plenty of very good female RCs) in that you have to be very driven, very committed and prepared to drop personal arrangments etc at short hours, dreadful culture of presenteeism, very "ballsy" and frankly you need to be a little bit of a shit.

That's not to say that good RCs aren't doing a good and useful job because they are. Just a job he didn't want to do anymore.

my cosin is one and he has just married one - i am wondering if that was a good idea?

I think the recruitment industry has a bad press. I work 9:30am - 5pm, they allow me to work a two day week (job share) and they pay for 20 sick days a year, I get 30 days holiday, 4 of which can be "duvet days".

Recruitment is very sector dependent in my experience, I did a stint in financial and IT recruitment and that was hell on earth but there are plenty of other sectors where it's a nice place to work. I probably won't be doing it for the rest of my life but I certainly don't think it deserves the bad press it has.

of course you are being u. but i guess everyone has a bad day. i work with them every day - luckily i've always managed to avoid being one - but i am married to an ex rc and am good friends with plenty of them.
it's the same as saying all credit controllers are joyless, unhelpful harridans. true in some cases, not in others. i do feel sorry for rcs on the whole, but am also frequently frustrated by them and amazed by their rhinocerous hides.

I am currently looking for temporary work as a PA. I look at employment websites most days and have applied for a lot of jobs by sending my C.V. I then follow it up with an email from my own account and then try to telephone them. After 3-4 calls I leave my number for a call back. On a rare occasion, my call is returned

However, I am becoming more and more frustrated because I now think the headline jobs that they use to draw you in don't acutally exist. Yesterday, I saw a job that on a website that was there over a month ago still on the RC website, along with another job that I was interested in. I emailed the consultant who admitted that, the job I was interested in had "just gone" and the month old job was a way of attracting other candidates.

Other agents have been very vague on how many jobs they have on their books or whether the headline job advertised is still available, but they still want you to register.

I know things are quiet out there and that there are some good agents about, but it's hard enough applying for jobs, and it's twice as frustrating applying for jobs that don't exist, never mind the ttime it takes and the transport costs etc it takes to get to their offices to register. All for no gain.

In my experience thay have the same professional standards and ethics as estate agency. Some are very very good, some are indifferent and some are useless and unprofessional.

I have been searching for an IT contract for the past couple of months and most of the agencies that I have dealt with have been very good and professional. I found the vacancies that I wanted to apply for on the job search engines then phoned the agency. All the staff I have dealt with have been have very nice and not tried to push me into going for or accepting anything inappropriate. Some have spent quite some time with me discussing my options and potential career path. I have not been working for 2 yrs due to a career break and so have really appreciated this input.

Anyway - I heard on Tuesday that I got a job on a great project (due to run for years) with a bank. Since then the agency have been really helpful at getting me through the pre-screening process and getting my billing etc set up

Nothing but praise for the people I've been dealing with. They're not all incompetent money-grabbing idiots

The sole function of RC's seems to be to send me endless amounts of spam.

They take your CV, get all enthusiastic about it, promise to get back to you....and you never hear from them again.... ever... Even if you try and ring them you get nowhere. I've recruited people myself directly, it's not that expensive or time consuming if you know what you are looking for and know your own industry. I fail to see the point in RC's, I really do.

I work for a software company and have some dealings with agencies. There are so who are simply terrific; ethical, quality driven etc. Then, there are those who call to try to get the contact details of our staff by pretending to be a delivery company with a parcel for the staff member, those who pretend to be 'old friends' of staff members etc. We get so fed up with the lies.

Some are appalling. I've had CVs sent that were utter rubbish and had no bearing on the role I was recruiting for. One sent me the same CV twice (after I'd already rejected them) with a few details changed to try to fool me into thinking they were a new candidate!

I do have one lovely agent though. She's placed me a few times and I've always put business her way when I could. She's fab.

My experience of recruitment agencies/people is that in general the generic ones aren't much good, and the industry specific ones are excellent.

My advice to anyone who knows the area they want to work in but isn't sure which the right agencies are, would be to get the industry publications, and approach the agencies in the job ads in there.