Introduction-only agency

[cloudcontractor]

don't let the door slap your arse on the way out

Hey that was almost a full sentence - quite rare from the posts of yours I've seen.

[BR14]

Hey that was almost a full sentence - quite rare from the posts of yours I've seen.

by by

[cloudcontractor]

I stopped reading here as you've obviously fail to comprehend the general feeling towards agencies on this forum (in as much as the entire community here can be grouped into a single entity).

I'll qualify so others won't feel offended - the hapless sheep who have espoused that view on this thread. Thought it was pretty clear I wasn't encompassing everyone as a hapless sheep - but yes it seems some things are just too subtle for others to catch.

[northernladuk]

Rather be a hapless sheep than a clueless one.

[cloudcontractor]

Rather be a hapless sheep than a clueless one.

Oh you mean how you didn't respond when I told you I obviously knew what factoring was? Very pathetic - you thought you had a clever little gotcha there as if I didn't know exactly how these agencies work. The fact you think they're difficult when they're not just rather speaks to your own lack of capability - proportional to your post count it seems. You should focus on your gruel trough pal.

[cloudcontractor]

This is how the esteemed 'nothernladuk' really sticks it to people when he's lost the argument. He'll give you a big old reputation downvote, which I'm sure feels very empowering to him, but is laughably pathetic to me.

[WTFH]

I do this because I'm lucky enough to be highly technically specialised and I'm never short of work. Agencies will bend to accommodate me and probably won't fill their requirement if they don't. If they're taught to get their act together for me that'll only benefit someone else next time.

If you’re as good as your publicity, why are you using agencies all the time?
The real money is made by building relationships with clients and going direct to them.

[tomtomagain]

Solution?

* An "agency" that services the contract market but focuses on introduction only. You offer the contractor a variety of domain-specific templates for IR35-compliant agreements and do effective selling to convince the client these are just as good as any contract that an intermediary would provide.
* Contractor agrees directly with client terms that would be as resilient to HMRC investigations as possible, both in working arrangements and contract.
* Contractors get to negotiate terms directly although the goal would be to default to a mutually compatible arrangement that protects and satisfies both.
* Agency takes the finders fee, but isn't an intermediary, no ongoing involvement, no liability. Agency might also upsell something like timesheeting and payment logging services, on the assumption that client/contractor won't have anything set up themselves.

So basically a dating-agency model.

I think there are a number of problems with it. Putting aside the ones that we answered when you posed a similar question back in July ( How do we break current crappy contractor system )

The main problem with this is that the dating-agency would need to charge a substantial introduction fee to cover all their costs ( CV sifting, advertising, office space, payroll etc). This fee is going to be many thousands of £. It's not going to be 50 quid. The cost of placing a person does not change for the agency.

So the client would need to be prepared to pay an upfront fee of say £10,000 and then be confident that they were going to keep the contractor for long enough for them to realise a saving.

And we alll know that in the real-world "stuff happens". The contractor turns out to be a lemon. The project get's cancelled. The budget gets pulled. Does the client get his finder's fee back?

As an example, say a contractor is engaged for 6 months on £400ppd with an agency taking 15%. Over 31 weeks the contractor bills ~ £62k, the agency adds on ~ £9k and the end client pays ~ £71k. In the traditional model the client is paying ~2.3k a week. Whereas in the dating-agency model, the client has to pay a lump sum, £10k and then £2k per week. They don't start to make a saving until month 7.

If you were buying a service from me would you like to pay £10k upfront and then £2k per week until you stopped using the service or £2.3k per week until you stopped using the service?

[Paralytic]

So basically a dating-agency model.

A large part of an agencies job today is pretty much swipe left or swipe right, based on CV keyword matching.

[tomtomagain]

A large part of an agencies job today is pretty much swipe left or swipe right, based on CV keyword matching.

Indeed CV sifting is one part of their job. That's why they like LinkedIn ... everyone's kindly laying out their skills in a consistent manner and making their data available for consumption ( for a price paid to LinkedIn ).

Trying to change the current agency recruitment model is almost impossible from the contractors' end. By and large, the clients don't mind the model. They don't suffer the pain. It's not their problem and they have no incentive to change. Come April 2020 that may change of course!

There is an alternative though for the entrepreneurial contractor. It's totally outside IR35 and you get to do what you like, when you like, how you like. But it's tough to get into and not for everyone.