SThree doing well !!

[whoami]

Professional standards of conduct and profit-making don't always go hand in hand.

For example, I used to be called up by several brands in the SThree group. I'd be talking to a recruiter from Y brand and mention that I was already sourcing people through X brand, and he would never declare that we were already dealing with their organisation through X brand but would happily let us carry on believing these two brands were competitors. I don't believe that is professional good conduct as far as I am concerned. It's probably not the guys fault as such, he's probably been told by his bosses never to reveal the links.

you are assuming a lot here but are correct when you say they've been told never to reveal the links but probably not for the reasons you think. i have recently had an issue relating to this with most recent contract which involved two of the brands within SThree.

it turns out that revealing to either the customer or the contractor that any of the individual brands are part of the same group is actually a sackable offence, and the reason behind this is that they are not allowed to play each other off against each other because rather than dealing with one organisation whose brands do not compete, they are actually extremely competitive - probably more competitive with each other than they are with other organisations who are not part of the same group.

admittedly, this would never have occurred to me until my recent experience opened my eyes but i think a lot of the time we fail to look at the bigger picture and just assume they're all out to trick us when a lot of the time they're not at all.

and finally in their defense, my last three contracts have been through the same brand within SThree and i have been more happy with their service than any other agency i've ever worked with. i think its a shame that people are so quick to complain about the service they receive from someone but rarely stand up and say when they receive good service

[The Farmer]

Ii think its a shame that people are so quick to complain about the service they receive from someone but rarely stand up and say when they receive good service

If you operate as a contractor then you provide a service for the client of the agent.

HTH

Glad you are happy

[whoami]

If you operate as a contractor then you provide a service for the client of the agent.

of course, but without some kind of good service from the agent it is unlikely you would be in that position in the first place

the general consensus among us is that we hate using agencies and would much rather not bother and get our jobs a different way, but the fact is, we do need them somewhere along the line. and my point just being that when forced to use an agency i would choose one particular SThree brand over anyone else and ive been doing this for over 20 years

[cojak]

On that note may I state that I've just finished a Hays IT contract and had the please of working with Nadine who has been professional and friendly throughout.

You might find that we do in fact give credit where credit is due.

I still believe that you have to look at the agency before the agent, however as the Ts & Cs the agency pushes are often out of the agent's control. I want my contract T&Cs to treat MyCo as a business, not me as an employee.

[oraclesmith]

it turns out that revealing to either the customer or the contractor that any of the individual brands are part of the same group is actually a sackable offence, and the reason behind this is that they are not allowed to play each other off against each other because rather than dealing with one organisation whose brands do not compete, they are actually extremely competitive - probably more competitive with each other than they are with other organisations who are not part of the same group.

It doesn't matter how 'competitive' they are with each other. The way both the permie and contract recruitment system usually works is that the client puts out a role/post to a selection of agencies/EB's who are then allowed to submit only a limited number of CV's each.

If say, four of the five agencies/EB's on the clients preferred supplier list are in the same group of companies, this means that group gets roughly four-fifths of the recruitment business from that client. They get to submit several times as many CV's from the group's database than they would normally be allowed to do if they were identified as one firm. Unless the client has done some research they won't have a clue that they're actually dealing with the same group of companies. When they get into this nice cosy situation the group is virtually guaranteed profits from the arrangement, regardless of which sub-firm gets the final business... and the client's view of the availability and price of contractors/permies on the 'market' gets hopelessly skewed.

There is another 'group' in the charity market which uses similar tactics. They recommend each other to charities for different operations - BACS processing, fundraising, data entry etc but the individuals limited's all have variations on the same set of Directors and the client may not be aware of the links - unless they'have someone on board that's a bit canny and gets the list of officers from Companies House

Most businesses don't feel the need to go this way, so what is the rationale if not to deceive?

[cojak]

Most businesses don't feel the need to go this way, so what is the rationale if not to deceive?

I would posit that this is the essence of the SSS business model and the reason for their healthy profits since it is a model that very obviously works.

Because of this I would be very surprised if they didn't sack an agent who let slip their main competitive advantage. Being competitive between groups merely squeezes out non-SSS recruitment agencies.

SSS would probably like to view this as an industrial secret and are miffed that they have to declare it at Companies House. In the meantime they rely on the fact that most hiring managers are as savvy* as they are...

[cojak]

*devious

[abc]

Ii think its a shame that people are so quick to complain about the service they receive from someone but rarely stand up and say when they receive good service

If you operate as a contractor then you provide a service for the client of the agent.

HTH

Glad you are happy

So should we just shut up and not complain then?

[whoami]

It doesn't matter how 'competitive' they are with each other. The way both the permie and contract recruitment system usually works is that the client puts out a role/post to a selection of agencies/EB's who are then allowed to submit only a limited number of CV's each.

If say, four of the five agencies/EB's on the clients preferred supplier list are in the same group of companies, this means that group gets roughly four-fifths of the recruitment business from that client. They get to submit several times as many CV's from the group's database than they would normally be allowed to do if they were identified as one firm. Unless the client has done some research they won't have a clue that they're actually dealing with the same group of companies. When they get into this nice cosy situation the group is virtually guaranteed profits from the arrangement, regardless of which sub-firm gets the final business... and the client's view of the availability and price of contractors/permies on the 'market' gets hopelessly skewed.

1) when your company recruits they may only allow a limited selection of CVs from each company, but that is not how every company works. i know that from being involved in the recruitment process myself for a number of different companies i have worked for. most of the time it has been the recruitment agency themself who has set themself a maximum number of CVs to send over

2) from my own experience with a variety of different brands within SThree i know for a fact that the individual brands have their own CV databases and they are not shared between the other brands in the group.

all the brands within SThree operate as their own indivual companies, just at the end of the day they are all making money for the same person. but a lot of successful businesses do that. if you went into a supermarket and looked at all the brands of washing up liquid or washing powder or whatever, including the supermarket's "own brand" names, you would find that there's only actually 2 or 3 actual companies that dominate the market but they just have different varieties operating under different brand names. its a good business model. none of the brands within SThree know anything about the others' clients or the candidates they work with unless they do their research/we tell them - Pathway Resourcing (SThree) would know as little about Computer Futures' (SThree) business as Badenoch & Clark (non SThree) would. it is literally just a case of at the end of the day the guys on the board of directors are getting a bit of money out of each of them. but so what? if they're finding the right candidates for the right clients, the clients are happy with their staff and the service they have received, and we are happy with our jobs, then what does it matter who is making profit from it at the end of the day? does it really make a difference whether or not it's SThree making the profit or Reed or anyone else? if all the different brands were operating in and run the same way, they wouldn't be operating as separate brands. they are 12 different companies being run as 12 separate companies with a few people sitting at the top getting money from each of them

and if you are worrying about clients' knowledge of rates being "hopelessly skewed", 1) u cant know for certain that all the SThree brands work at the same rates (and from different rates I have been quoted myself I don't actually think they do) and 2) all the client has to do is do a tiny bit of research. there are plenty of websites floating around that give details of the average rates of IT contractors working in different areas with different technologies, it only takes 2 seconds to look if it bothers them that much

[whoami]

i think its absolutely absurd that this whole discussion seems to revolve around the fact that a company has a successful competitive business model that you dont like. it's almost as though you're just jealous that you didnt come up with the idea yourself! at the end of the day, every business is there to make money, and good for them if they can come up with a good strategy to do so. its just like saying mars and cadbury should only make one kind of chocolate bar each to give the other one a fairer chance in the market. if your favourite chocolates are maltesers doesnt mean that you automatically have to say mars as a whole are your favourite. you could like maltesers the most and dairy milk second best but have no preference either way when it comes to mars as a whole or cadbury as a whole, you might even like a bit of nestle too!

if other recruitment agencies wanted to split off into a few different brands nobody is stopping them, sthree should get credit for having that initiative and being successful enough to be able to make the most out of it.

at the end of the day its like i said before - if clients are happy with the staff they have working for them and we are happy in our jobs then what does it matter? clients wouldnt pay what they do if they didnt agree to the rates - nobody forces them into it. and we wouldnt accept a job if we werent happy with the rates we were being paid, or anything else about the job. agencies dont force one contractor to work at one company and vice versa, we all still have a choice in the matter