New Contractor Portal - Sourcing new contracts - What do you want?

[malvolio]

Not as big a problem as some bore, who understands every technical facet of a product, doing the selling. Do you really think decision makers give a flying f*** about how something is put together?

Oi! You can't have it both ways. Are you marketing skills or selling work? Oh, of course, you're making a living. Well so are we - except our ability to do so is limited by two things: we can't employ professionals to do our selling (and I agree we're crap at that, usually), and the people we do have to work wth generally know f*** all about the product they are selling.

I can make a Helpdesk work for a central government department or three, but I can't do the same job for a bank. Why not? Becuase I haven't worked in a bank before. Well oddly enough, that does not matter in the slightest, it's still a helpdesk. But if my CV turns up on your desk for a bank job, it goes straight in the bin because you can't be arsed to tell your client the truth - that 90% of IT skills are not industry specific.

Then you wonder why we get sniffy about agents....

[chicane]

Heh ... I see your point - however at times it's important that the salesman knows that their product is suitable for integration into the client environment - which more than often they don't.

[DodgyAgent]

Oi! You can't have it both ways. Are you marketing skills or selling work? Oh, of course, you're making a living. Well so are we - except our ability to do so is limited by two things: we can't employ professionals to do our selling (and I agree we're crap at that, usually), and the people we do have to work wth generally know f*** all about the product they are selling.

I can make a Helpdesk work for a central government department or three, but I can't do the same job for a bank. Why not? Becuase I haven't worked in a bank before. Well oddly enough, that does not matter in the slightest, it's still a helpdesk. But if my CV turns up on your desk for a bank job, it goes straight in the bin because you can't be arsed to tell your client the truth - that 90% of IT skills are not industry specific.

Then you wonder why we get sniffy about agents....

Selling is neither sales nor marketing it is solving problems. And the "truth as you call it is your truth, not necessarily the clients "truth" (whatever that has to do with it). As an agent my job is to fill the role, I am not in the business of delivering "truths".

[DodgyAgent]

Heh ... I see your point - however at times it's important that the salesman knows that their product is suitable for integration into the client environment - which more than often they don't.

I take your point. It certainly helps if the salesman understands the product. Few technicians make good sales people (or are interested in sales), just as few sales people make good technicians. In a world of limited resources the luxury of getting "perfect fits" (assuming one can even determine what a "perfect fit" is is just not going to happen.

[ratewhore]

Professional bodies exist in professions because those professions work in markets that involve considerable risk if things go wrong, Dentists, Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers etc. Professions need to establish recognised standards of health & Safety, training and day to day practices as such that cannot be policed through criminal law until it is too late. If you guys write some dodgy code it doesnt really matter.

Not everyone here is a codemonkey DA. I am an InfoSec professional and I deal with risk every day. My clients may take exception to your attitude when they are losing millions of pounds revenue because of a breach or disaster. And as for the code monkeys - what about those who write code which runs critical systems? I would argue that there is a higher risk involved in making sure they do their job right than there is for a lawyer raking in their legal aid cash or a teacher not being able to give an ASBO youth a slap...

[chicane]

Selling is neither sales nor marketing it is solving problems. And the "truth as you call it is your truth, not necessarily the clients "truth" (whatever that has to do with it). As an agent my job is to fill the role, I am not in the business of delivering "truths".

But in order to "sell", and indeed gain repeat sales (ie place a sustained flow of candidates into any given client), would you not need to keep the client happy by placing appropriate candidates into the role? And doesn't this entail understanding how the needs of the client match the skills conveyed by each CV on your desk?

Much like how the hypothetical sales person needs to know if their product will fit well into the client environment before forcing the product down the client's throat...

[malvolio]

There you go again - the whole fallacy exposed.

You are not selling people, you are selling suppliers of skills and/or expertise. If you want to sell people, join Office Angels (or the slave trade). All the bollocks about potential risk of employment rights claims and tax investigations is because the IT industry is brainwashed into buying temporary employees, when we are nothing of the sort.

99% of contractors will fit in to a new team, because it's what we do every six months or so and are quite good at it. The pillocks that don't (and I've met quite a few) soon get weeded out, if only becuase nobody on-site will let them do their job.

You get me the interview, I'll sell myself to the client. Sadly, a lot of the time I can't do that because the agent doesn't think I'll fit for any one of a dozen spurious reasons from what's in the CV and I don't even get to the interview stage - which is ultimately what you are there to do, remember?

[DodgyAgent]

There you go again - the whole fallacy exposed.

You are not selling people, you are selling suppliers of skills and/or expertise. If you want to sell people, join Office Angels (or the slave trade). All the bollocks about potential risk of employment rights claims and tax investigations is because the IT industry is brainwashed into buying temporary employees, when we are nothing of the sort.

99% of contractors will fit in to a new team, because it's what we do every six months or so and are quite good at it. The pillocks that don't (and I've met quite a few) soon get weeded out, if only becuase nobody on-site will let them do their job.

You get me the interview, I'll sell myself to the client. Sadly, a lot of the time I can't do that because the agent doesn't think I'll fit for any one of a dozen spurious reasons from what's in the CV and I don't even get to the interview stage - which is ultimately what you are there to do, remember?

If the agent/client is losing out by not picking you ahead of others then something is wrong with the relationship between you and the client.

[ratewhore]

If the agent/client is losing out by not picking you ahead of others then something is wrong with the relationship between you and the client.

You are saying two things here, firstly:

If the agent is losing out by not picking you ahead of others then something is wrong with the relationship between you and the client

This, obviously makes no sense. Secondly:

If the client is losing out by not picking you ahead of others then something is wrong with the relationship between you and the client

Difficult if a pimp cannot sort the wheat from the chaff in the first place.

[malvolio]

If the agent/client is losing out by not picking you ahead of others then something is wrong with the relationship between you and the client.

Not what I said. You do not sell my skills, you sell "people" who will "fit in" and (hopefully) do the job.

Lots of work around here I can do with several local finance houses. Can't get to the interview because the client only wants people with finance house experience - no matter that the work involved has nothing to do with the business line. Similarly, I can't get interviews with MOD, who I know well and have worked with several times, becuase the agencies will only take cleared personnel, something I can acheive in around a week since my SC is still alive.

If I'm not being put in front of the client, there is no relationship - and none of the agents I've spoken to in either scenario has been willing to push me or anyone else forward, they'd much rather send over three CVs that match the client's list of unrealistic requirements as closely as possible and see what happens.