Agency games increasing after covid?

[m0n1k3r]

I've had 2 emails over the last few weeks from agents with a job spec, the jobs sounded somewhat plausible where it could be real rather than a generic general sounding advert which normal indicates to me its possible just CV harvesting but no rate was mentioned and at the end it said if you are interested send your CV and desired rate.

Could we now see more of this as they know a lot of people are out of work needing jobs and they as agents have taken a huge hit no doubt so are making people more pitch for jobs and then just forward the ones who state the lowest.

Possibly.But it's common for clients to not state a rate at all. They want their suppliers (e.g. agencies) to tell them what the asking rate is for a specific CV, and they then make a cost-value judgement and make a decision based on that in the end.

Knowing that most contractors will ask the agency "what's the rate on offer?", agencies typically just put something in there anyway that they believe the client will accept (with their usual markup, which is clearly disclosed to the client).

Asking for your rate instead of stating a bogus "rate on offer" is more honest and transparent and could even possibly operate towards IR35 defence.

[LondonManc]

Client will want cheapest until they find out cheapest cannot do the job.

I got a gig in Canary Wharf on that basis; I was in at £50/day more than anyone else and the technical interviewer told the hiring manager that I was the only one that they'd interviewed that would be capable of doing the job.