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Excrement agencies and agents

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    Excrement agencies and agents

    Posting this on this forum as it's not exactly a professional rant.

    My first post here in three and a bit years. Redundant from my job after my entire service was closed due to the cuts being enforced by that nice Mr Hunt in the NHS.

    Over the last three years, I've had the same agencies pester me week after week asking if I've any roles they can help with. Always chatty, always wanting to take me for a coffee if I'm around their area and so on. I'm always polite to them and take time to reply to all of their emails, even if it's a short "no, sorry, nothing for you" type one.

    I got a call today from one agent who has been pestering me for the last three years, I said "I'm actually looking for a job now, have you anything going?" Her: "ah, well, right, sorry, I have to go to a meeting now, I'll call you sometime, bye" *click*.

    That's the third one like that this week alone.

    I'm happily noting their names down and will remember them when I get my new job. They can go sodomise themselves if they think I'll respond to them in future.

    Oh, and hi all.

    #2
    Originally posted by craig1 View Post
    Always chatty, always wanting to take me for a coffee if I'm around their area and so on.
    Get them to come to you and take you out, then ask them if they know of anything.
    Best Forum Advisor 2014
    Work in the public sector? You can read my FAQ here
    Click here to get 15% off your first year's IPSE membership

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      #3
      Thanks for that. Looking forward to your next post in three years already.
      'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by northernladuk View Post
        Thanks for that. Looking forward to your next post in three years already.
        harsh but fair, as always.
        the poor chap's adrift, and if he's posting on here, he's clutching at straws.
        agents only like you when they think there's commission in it.

        Comment


          #5
          Welcome to the party pal. Agents are only of use when you're looking for work. The rest of the time ignore them like they ignore you.

          I don't even reply to emails and change my business only mobile number every year or so to cull the build up of parasites.

          I rarely hear from the agents even when I'm in contract via them, unless I 'forget' to submit a timesheet (usually on holiday so nothing to submit), so I have no qualms about treating them as a service when it suits me and ignore at all other times.

          I'm sure they're not losing any sleep on my cold attitude towards them.
          Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down. Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on.

          Comment


            #6
            There are literally less than a handful that have looked after me properly.

            However the ones that have, have treated me to decent meals, drinks, invites to parties etc. This still occasionally happens even though I haven't used that agency for the last 3-4 years.

            These are usually account managers rather than the bottom of the food chain though.
            The Chunt of Chunts.

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              #7
              I've got a few agencies that I trust and have done plenty of good business with. They look after me in and out of contract, keeping up to date just for the sake of keeping up to date. I'd be happy to name some of them, if I could remember whether that's acceptable here.

              I have a few others who do their best but are let down by struggling admin or over-aggressive targets put on them, I won't name them as I doubt the companies would be anywhere near as good if the individual recruitment agents I know left.

              Other agencies have done the bait & switch trick "oh, that term is interpreted THIS way, not THAT way", ignored me when they didn't need me and outright lied to me. I would name & shame but then I wouldn't want to give them the publicity that even that would bring them.

              Comment


                #8
                Man up or go perm. It's nothing personal. Business is business.
                Last edited by Lockhouse; 27 November 2017, 08:46.
                ...my quagmire of greed....my cesspit of laziness and unfairness....all I am doing is sticking two fingers up at nurses, doctors and other hard working employed professionals...

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Lockhouse View Post
                  Man up or go perm. It's nothing personal. Business is business.
                  It's nothing of the kind. Contracting is an entirely personal thing, otherwise agencies and clients would take the first candidate on the list, and contractors would go to the first role they see.

                  Business is personal. To think of it otherwise is to think of contractors and clients as faceless generic widgets. I take my work intensely personally, that's what kept me in business as a contractor for a very long time and very successfully as well.

                  In the last three years, I placed over 50 contractors in total, all through three agencies I trust to treat contractors well. The agencies I know who'd tried to stiff me as a contractor got nothing but then business is business. The agencies who ignore me now will get ignored in return when I get my next role, their choice.

                  I do admit though that I hold a grudge longer than an Irishman looking at a potato.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    So the agents that you fired off a quick 'no thanks' email aren't going out of their way to help you out, that's weird...

                    Why not try the ones that you actually gave business to, rather than the ones that you rejected?

                    It sounds like you would have benefited from building a few more relationships with agents while you still had some leverage, alas something to think about for next time.

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