What's everyone's views around work/recruitment consultants at the moment?

[GonnaGetGoingReturns]

I'm a PA/EA currently working in a contract. I could be taken on permanently which may/may not suit me but which would be better than what I have done which is temporary contracts for the past 3 or so years.

Are people finding that lots of recruitment consultants/feelings around jobs are very meh or desperate?

A few of my friends in various careers don't like their jobs (we're also 50) but are waiting to either retire (will be way past my 60s, probably 70ish in my case!) but also can't afford/can't be bothered to retrain etc.

Recruitment consultants on the whole are totally useless to me, they ignore what I want (a permanent job) and a lot seem braindead.

In my company people with equivalent permanent jobs to mine seem to be clinging onto these for dear life and what with recession looming wouldn't leave.

Yes we are all useless and braindead. Every single one of us ! Do you now see how daft this sounds ? We are not one homogenous bunch and its like saying all vicars are braindead or all surgeons. I will be the first to admit that my industry doesn't always have a great reputation but for every bad recruiter there will be very many good ones.

Recruiters make much more money from placing you on a temporary, daily paid contract, then they would by placing you permanently. I don’t know how it works in your field, but where I bring in finance contractors the recruiter applies a 20% margin. Which, for someone getting £400 per day, say, is £100 to the recruiter. Every day.

If they place you permanently they would be charging in the region of 20% of your first year’s salary, as a one off.

Recruters are not there to consider your feelings, although some are better than others. They are salespeople. I’ve had words with some finance recruiters in the past for being rude to candidates they put forward for roles in my team: where I decide not to interview someone, and provide feedback to the recruiter, often the recruiter doesn’t even bother telling the candidate, which is unforgivably rude in my view. I find out when the poor candidates contact me through LinkedIn for an update!

You could try a new recruiter that you haven’t used before and make it clear that you only want to consider permanent roles?

I know I'm being blase but honestly, recently, that is exactly what I've experienced!

I tell them what I want, then one of them last week arranged a chat with a potential employer (I'd already said I wanted a permanent role, not temp to perm) and I had to spell out to the employer what I actually wanted!

Spoke to someone from a well known London recruitment agency yesterday. Hummed and made sympathetic noises, yes, we review permanent roles on Tuesdays. I just know I am not going to hear from her!

I do realise recruiters aren't there to consider my feelings and I do know exactly how much commission they make from placing people in both permanent and temporary roles. I also know they're sales people.

My grandmother actually started one of the first recruitment agencies after WW2, she'd have been up there with the likes of Reed and Brook Street had her DH wanted to invest to make the company bigger which he didn't want to do. You should, really, consider placing people who will stay and enjoy their roles.

However, it really irritates me with recruitment agencies. I now know of quite a few who I'd never use nor recommend if I were asked to use/recommend recruitment agencies.

You should, really, consider placing people who will stay and enjoy their roles

Well yes, you should, but when recruiters receive the final instalment of their commission, one year after placing a candidate, what do you think that they do?

Most recruitment consultants I know after they've placed you in a role and get their final commission payment, some stay in touch with the employer/employee they've placed, and some don't.

And it's not down to me to make the rules about when a final commission payment is made.

I was thinking more along the lines of attempting to get you to move jobs. More money for them, see? Whenever one of them places me, I wait until the first anniversary of my start date. They always ring me the next day to ask whether I’m happy. Always.

You don’t have to ‘make any rules’ about commission, nor could you, but you’d be better off knowing about the commission structures that apply to recruitment transactions. Then you’ll know whether placing you somewhere you’ll be happy is of secondary importance to a recruiter, compared to using you as a cash cow.

You don't think much of recruitment consultants so don't use them to find you jobs.

I'm an EA and avoid recruitment agencies like the plague, have had far too many bad experiences over the years.

I got my last two jobs from LinkedIn where companies were directly advertising, or by filtering secsinthecity and similar sites for directly advertised jobs rather than via agencies. No need to go through agencies these days, with their fictional, time wasting ads and steering you to temp work when you want perm.

I have only had bad experiences with recruitment consultant who specialise in the charity sector.

Things like:

• trying to push me to consider a role I had clearly stated was not for me


• one randomly rang my number last week and just barked ''it's at 4pm'' when I answered the phone. Turned out he thought he was calling someone else. One agency, Morgan Hunt, recently allowed candidates personal data to be accessed by a third party due to poor IT security/procedures. So to me it seems they can be rather careless about the information they store on their database which has really put me off.

in general I have just found them really unprofessional. I always found permanent or tempo roles through applying directly to employers rather than through agencies.

My current experience of them is that they're managing to successfully fill more of our job roles than independent candidates.

They seem to be matching people to our vacancies really well.

I am yet to meet one with integrity.

Keep looking, I know some great ones

Yes, I'm with a teaching agency and I don't drive and they offer me things that are quite far away and full-time, when I don't want to work full-time. They are trying to meet targets but they are friendly and it's good to stay on side with them in case you ever need them in the future.

You do realise that recruitment consultants dont work for you. Their aim is not to emable your career

They take a brief from a client and then go out and find somebody to fill the brief

If they sound desperate then they probably are

If they're offering temp jobs; it's because that's what they have.

If they're not offering perm jobs it's (probably because your cv is too tempy and their clients wont like it) or maybe they don't have permanent jobs that you're considered a match to

If you don't like agencies, get a job by yourself

Also; recruiting agencies dont get to decide how long somebody works as a temp before they convert to a permanent contract

Or if they temp rather than go permanent. That's up to their client

Temping is more expensive than hiring straight perm people. But recruiters are there to fill a brief

Companies hire temps as they dont have the headcount usually. They're well aware its more costly

I'm in an entry level job, cleaning, but I have recruiters trying to push me into care assistant and kitchen assistant jobs I don't want and haven't listed on my profile I do want, and too far away when I stated I'm reliant on buses and very new to Wales where I now live
Last week I had an a recruiter being very pushy trying to get me into a kitchen assistant role. Yesterday same guy contacted me and said I'd be great for administration assistant or project manager,. I replied get a grip

I had another recruiter this week , I’d never even ASKED their agency to get involved, push yet MORE catering and care jobs at me. I replied telling him to remove my details from the system and that I had no interest in being a kitchen assistant. His reply was well it’s another no skills job like cleaning and they’ll train you. ?! (I wouldn’t call cleaning no skills, but still.. and he was RUDE?! I said I’m not interested and the reply was ok dear thanks for letting me know
that was the final straw. I whacked an official complaint in. A professional agency calling someone they didn’t even know “dear?!” Rude unprofessional and patronising