Agency reccomendations

**scriptfromscratch** · 16 November 2006, 09:15

friend of mine uses a guy called James Griffiths, i forget which agency he is with tho. apparently he's knows his embedded from his . . . . well non embedded

**XLMonkey** · 16 November 2006, 09:25

There are no such things as good agencies, only good agents.

Try jobstats - that collates tons of information about skills, agents, locations, rates etc. Should help you to identify some people you need to contact...

http://www.jobstats.com/jobstats.d/SKILL.html

**Lucifer Box** · 16 November 2006, 09:34

And always, ilgitano, the "good" agency is the one with the contract you want.

**lukemg** · 16 November 2006, 09:42

Common beginners mistake, you have been watching Jerry Maguire and think you are 'the talent'.
The agency works for the client who has requested they find a body fitting a certain description. Your job is to try and be that body.
Contacting agents who haven't advertised for someone you resemble is a waste of your time and theirs. Follow the money - whoever has a job advertised that matches your skills is the right agent - end of.

HTH

**boredsenseless** · 16 November 2006, 10:32

Originally posted by ilgitano

Still fighting through the contractor learning curve, and I'm having trouble with agents. Most seem to be just CV libraries.

Found one excellent agent so far - at Optimus Search

Can anybody recommend other good agents to use for Embedded Systems. I have a lot of crap to filter through.

So far the only agent worth dealing with is at Optimus ...

Surely I can't be the only thinking

**tim123** · 16 November 2006, 10:42

ilgitano,

what product areas do you specalise in?

I can give you the name of 2 or 3 good agents (that's people, not companies), but they have a very narrow client base, and if you don't fit into that they will never place you.

tim

**tim123** · 16 November 2006, 10:58

Originally posted by lukemg

The agency works for the client who has requested they find a body fitting a certain description. Your job is to try and be that body.
Contacting agents who haven't advertised for someone you resemble is a waste of your time and theirs.

Unfortunately, the latter is not the case.

A CV in an area that the agent doesn't specialise is a list of new contacts that he doesn't know about. If he's lucky, he might even get a manager's name.

Some clients are discerning and will only deal with individual agents who know
that VAX on a CV is not house cleaning experience.

Many are not, contract recruitment is driven by HR and their tick list for preferred suppliers starts will "how long credit terms will you give us".

So, if you are a largish company, it is very useful for you to hassle for info, any poor individual who sends you a CV outside your specialisation even you you haven't a hope in hell of placing him.

tim

**ilgitano** · 16 November 2006, 11:15

Originally posted by tim123

ilgitano,

what product areas do you specalise in?

I can give you the name of 2 or 3 good agents (that's people, not companies), but they have a very narrow client base, and if you don't fit into that they will never place you.

tim

Just arrived from overseas, and my experience comes from NZ. NZ is a smaller market, so the kind of specialistion I'm seeing here doesn't exist. Developers have a mixed bag of experience.

That said, special areas of experience for me are embedded development for large systems - ie military training. This is development to SIL2 (safety-integrity-level) and MISRA guidelines. Hazardous equipment (ie eye-dangerous lasers and explosive/pyrotechnic equipment.

Processors - 8051/HC16 processor cores, ST62, 4 bit processor, IR/laser communications (proprietary) FLASH memory drivers, device drivers of all kinds, serious assembly experience, embedded C and RTOS. I work from a cct diagram most of the time, spending as much time with a soldering iron and scope as I do coding and debugging. I have a degree in computer science, and have taken papers in electronic engineering. Also a lot of PC platform coding for support tools for embedded devices, some applications level coding.

Will that set of skills fit in here? So far automotive seems to be a fit.

I would love to get into mobile platforms, but there seems to be a lot of talent specialised into that niche already. How would I do that?

**ilgitano** · 16 November 2006, 11:22

Originally posted by boredsenseless

Surely I can't be the only thinking

Actually - I was thinking that when I wrote it. But I figured what the hell ...

Agency reccomendations