Agency margin increase

[DaveB]

I’m fairly new to the contracting world so any advice would be appreciated…

I’ve been contracting at a client site for three months. The client wants to extend my contract for another three months at the same rate, however the agency has told me that they will only continue with the extension if they (the agency) increases their margin by 50%, therefore reducing my day rate.

As you can imagine, I am not a happy bunny.

Has anyone heard of this happening before?

Talk to the client and explain the situation. Tell them you would like to take the extension but unless the agency changes their mind you won't be able to afford to.

Name and shame the agency.

[P1mpAndPr0ud]

Why would anyone want to pretend to be an ethical agent?

We DO exist, you know...

Having said that, we ARE in the game to make money - that is our function, as salespeople. If I tried this, I'd expect a kick in the nuts from the contractor, the client or both. Stick it to the greedy sod, he gives people like me a bad name...

[BrowneIssue]

troll

Is that a confession?



There's a blip on my blood pressure graph from when I read that original posting.

[BrowneIssue]

We DO exist, you know...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So does Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and my Aunt Mabel's 18" knob.

You are either deluding yourself, deluding us or in the wrong game and just passing through.

Don't forget you're selling yourself to the slaves and we can tell when you're lying. Your lips move.

[BrilloPad]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So does Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and my Aunt Mabel's 18" knob.

You are either deluding yourself, deluding us or in the wrong game and just passing through.

Don't forget you're selling yourself to the slaves and we can tell when you're lying. Your lips move.

But Santa exists and posts on cuk http://forums.contractoruk.com/members/santaclaus.html .....

[The Agents View]

LOL - "The agents View" - What a fraud - The OP is probably a sockpuppet of this wierd idiot!
Why would anyone want to pretend to be an ethical agent?

It depends on the market place - I.T can be alot more cut and thrust, with lower morals, lower value candidates, and hence higher margins. My market place is small, incestuous, and niche - if I screw someone over like the above, then very quickly my market place shrinks, my candidate pool shrinks, I lose credibility and end up twiddling my thumbs. I work on the basis of treating others as I would wish to be treated - it might sound slushy and wierd, but the reality is, that my Interims recommend the good people that they come across on a daily basis, and let me know when there are opportunities within their clientco's - That only comes from working in partnership with both the client and the interim - it doesn't come from stiffing people at every opportunity.

I'd love this approach to spread to the IT contracting sector, but I'm afraid we are a long way from that given that some of the worst offenders are some of the most heavily backed financially.

Also, the sooner the UK wakes up to the fact that you don't get a quality approach, which represents your business effectively by having a "managed service" in place, the better.

For those who don't know, the MSP offering is a single agency approach, which manages all the lower tier providers, taking a cut of every single placement - This breeds the approach of putting senior staff in place to front things, and little more than college grads in place to talk to candidates. It also breeds the CV bunfight culture, which is what I have to fight against every day.

However, for your peace of mind, I will pretend that I use references for lead gathering, and not for the purposes of backing up my business case to the client - I hope that this makes you feel better

TAV

[NotAllThere]

It depends on the market place - I.T can be alot more cut and thrust, with lower morals, lower value candidates, and hence higher margins.

You're putting worse candidates forward, so you need to charge the client more?

[The Agents View]

You're putting worse candidates forward, so you need to charge the client more?

I don't know - I've never worked the IT market. But as an example - someone placing office temps at £20 an hour, will generally charge about 33% - maybe a little more. By comparison, placing senior directors on £800 - £1500 per day, we'll charge around 20% - dependant on the relationship with the client. It's not about the margin at the end of the day, it's about the amount of money that is made - clearly placing someone on £1500 per day at 15% isn't bad business if you can get it!!

Hope that clarifies the situation!

TAV

[NotAllThere]

That explains why when I first went contracting at £25/hour, the agency markup was 15%, and when I'd gained a new lucrative skill, the markup was 25%...