Recruitment agencies & fake vacancies

[Tanfastic]

I recently applied for a job through an advert on a fairly new recruitment agency's website. It's a recruitment agency for a niche field of work. I've never come across them before and googling tells me they've only recently started up.

Now, I applied knowing I could do the job standing on my head and overqualified if anything. Recruiter emailed me recently and arranged a phone call at a time to suit myself out of hours as I work full time.

Phone call was basically asking me loads of questions about myself and what I was looking for. Gave sketchy details about said job as they didn't want me applying direct . I asked a couple of times whether she thought I was a suitable candidate which she dusted over as she wasn't in the office.

Now am I being naive or is this just a fake advert to get my CV on her books? I've noticed lots of similar sounding adverts on Indeed posted by them covering lots of different areas in the locality.

I've never used an agency before so is this the deal?

I've emailed her since but no reply.

Yes, I had the same experience too as they wanted people on their books.

Almost definitely a fake advert. She probably wanted info on the company you work for now and will try to sell her services to them based on any info gained from you.

Fake advert or a job they don’t actually have on their books.

So job might be real but company work with another agent or don’t use agents. They will get good candidate cv to send over to try and entice company to use them.

I had a recruitment agency try to recruit me to a job that existed but wasn’t theirs to recruit for. The agency was one to f the biggest nationally and should have behaved better. Waste of my time.

Thought so, what a waste of time. Thanks all.

Generally they have just found a job advertised on the website of the company and pretended they have the right to recruit for it.

If I go through a recruitment agency I always contact the company (once they tell me the name) and check that they have the right to recruit. Or apply direct if allowed.

It is such as waste of your time to fill in applications that are never going to be sent to the company - ever.

A little detective work can often result in the name of the company. Sometimes the job description is lifted directly from the company website.

Or refuse to apply or give your details unless they tell you the name of the company.

I was recently contacted by an agency about a role they were recruiting for as they had seen my LinkedIn profile.

The agency named the company. I said that I was surprised that I would be considered for this role, as I don't have experience in that industry. The recruitment consultant told me this wasn't a problem. I told the consultant that I was tentatively interested in the role, but didn't want to waste my time applying for a role I was unlikely to be considered for.

I was surprised that a well known company would want/need to use an agency to fill this particular role. I went online and saw the role being advertised on the company website. Needless to say, I didn't bother applying either directly or via the agency.

Agencies work for clients, not job hunters, so you are only of use if you are of use, if you see what I mean. The agency staff will have targets on how many job hunters they sign up.

I once temped for a dodgy outfit like this. It was run by a weird couple out of a tiny office. They'd post fake ads to obtain CVs and then go to big companies with their "great candidates". The companies were seldom interested. They'd also pretend to have tested/checked candidates" claims re IT skills, market knowledge and foreign languages. But they did no due diligence at all.

The agencies who were on the Preferred Supplier List for major companies didn't seem to need to do this! My mate worked for a big agency that recruited (amongst other things) admins/assistants/back office staff for Merrills, Goldman, ABN Amro, Credit Suisse, BONY, Deutsche - she always had plenty of legitimate roles and decent candidates to match them.

I'd go via a reputable agency. You could even tell the agency which companies you'd be keen to work for - if they like you, they might pitch you speculatively to their contacts in the recruitment departments.