Hiring manager perspective.
Cheers. I've been in the business 20 years now and have seen it from the candidate and hiring manager's perspective. From the hiring manager's perspective, you get a different view than what you do as a candidate so perhaps it's worth explaining it from that perspective.
1. You may tell an agent about a job but your HR department won't sign off for a while so it takes some time for it to appear.
2. You get bombarded with CVs, not just from those agencies that you've instructed.
3. Most of the CVs will initially be from Indian Nationals and will demonstrate exceptional experience.
4. You'll never get a CV from an Indian National whose not had team lead experience or above.
5. When you ring up candidate's you'll find that what's written on the CV and what experience they have is not well correlated.
6. It's only when you complain to the agencies about the quality of the candidates sent through that they'll start to put the effort in to find proper candidates.
7. If you give out your phone number to an agent, some will ring you constantly so that you never have any time to do any work.
8. If it's a difficult to fill role, then agencies will show a lot of initial enthusiasm but this will trail off the more candidates you reject.
9. You'll have differences of opinion about potential candidates than another manager, and you both need to be happy.
10. You'll see your job ad up from agencies that you've never instructed.
11. You'll be sent anonymous CVs through from agencies that you've not instructed.
12. The secretaries will field calls from multiple agencies who you've not instructed and who try a number of ways to get past the switchboard.
13. The role specified in the original job ad may vary as you bring on more people and find that you need a different set of skills than what you first expected to balance the team.
14. After the job's filled, you'll see the job ad advertised for some weeks afterwards.
My eventual solution to the problems above was to just set a simple quiz, this works especially well for the more technical roles. The agencies give the candidates the quiz, they respond, you check the answers and if correct arrange a phone interview. That way, you avoid days of your time talking to agents, reading CVs and phoning inappropriate candidates. If all companies followed a similar approach, I really feel that it would free up the hiring manager and the agencies time and place the best fit candidates.
Originally posted by Mustang
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Very well put. The other challange from a contracting perspective is dealing with agents who dont really have a clue about the PM role and therefore dont know what to look for in candidates!! 
1. You may tell an agent about a job but your HR department won't sign off for a while so it takes some time for it to appear.
2. You get bombarded with CVs, not just from those agencies that you've instructed.
3. Most of the CVs will initially be from Indian Nationals and will demonstrate exceptional experience.
4. You'll never get a CV from an Indian National whose not had team lead experience or above.
5. When you ring up candidate's you'll find that what's written on the CV and what experience they have is not well correlated.
6. It's only when you complain to the agencies about the quality of the candidates sent through that they'll start to put the effort in to find proper candidates.
7. If you give out your phone number to an agent, some will ring you constantly so that you never have any time to do any work.
8. If it's a difficult to fill role, then agencies will show a lot of initial enthusiasm but this will trail off the more candidates you reject.
9. You'll have differences of opinion about potential candidates than another manager, and you both need to be happy.
10. You'll see your job ad up from agencies that you've never instructed.
11. You'll be sent anonymous CVs through from agencies that you've not instructed.
12. The secretaries will field calls from multiple agencies who you've not instructed and who try a number of ways to get past the switchboard.
13. The role specified in the original job ad may vary as you bring on more people and find that you need a different set of skills than what you first expected to balance the team.
14. After the job's filled, you'll see the job ad advertised for some weeks afterwards.
My eventual solution to the problems above was to just set a simple quiz, this works especially well for the more technical roles. The agencies give the candidates the quiz, they respond, you check the answers and if correct arrange a phone interview. That way, you avoid days of your time talking to agents, reading CVs and phoning inappropriate candidates. If all companies followed a similar approach, I really feel that it would free up the hiring manager and the agencies time and place the best fit candidates.
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