Ask the agent. The Good, the bad and the ugly

[malvolio]

It's not abuse, it's honest opinion based on too many years fighting the system! And I did say I didn't mean it personally.

I know of agents that do the job the old-fashioned way, but as soon as you get into the realms of the big boy agencies they become ineffective for the purely commercial reasons I pointed out. Plus it's got too easy with the meta-engines like Broadbean scattering job adverts to the world in fifteen seconds; where is the incentive to apply any thought, far simpler to let the candidates come to you and pick the first three.

I agree the industry needs regulating. APSCo are a joke and REC is largely ineffective despite its best efforts. Like PCG battling the ICT war, the opposing vested interests are too strong and are dictating the market.

But the agencies can help themselves - and us - a lot more than they do. My last gig came about because the agent actually read the CV properly, having had previous candidates bounced as unsuitable, and passed it on even though it missed some of the key criteria. He had enough nous to realise that the business skills I offered were far more relevant that my sector history. And sorry, but as long as you have researchers in the loop, you are not going to be able to do that.

The agencies I get on well with are the ones where the agent making the decisions answers the phone and has the time to talk. Too many of your co-workers are simply disinterested in doing that little thing...



ps:
Attitude - I never have a problem with this and am always professional (bulletin boards and Malvolio are not my professional persona by a long way!)

Cultural match (and yes, we can tell) - Agreed, but I've worked successfully in several adifferent industries and usually fit in.

Skills - I'm more manager than technician these days, but personally I only ever apply for roles I know I have the abilities to deliver - based, of course, on whatever garbled details the job advert gives...

Experience - more than most and it's not 1 year experience 15 times either.

Previous history of delivery/completion - never yet failed to deliver the objective nor missed a deadline, not exceeded a set budget.

Cost - the real myth. Last gig I charged them around £60k and saved them around £480k. So what's the relevance of the day rate?

[Zippy]

Don't even get me started on HR and Procurement people!

Now that is something we can all agree on

Thanks for the response. We are all in this to make money and if it is a fair share all round I'm happy. My experience of contracts landed has been OK and I haven't been charged out at stupid rates (yep, I have found out every time) for a low return. I do avoid certain agencies though ...

[thunderlizard]

What do you think is a reasonable duration or breadth of a handcuff clause?

Can't work for the client for 3 months after the end of the contract?

Can't work for the client, the client's clients, the clients suppliers or anybody who's shared a bus with one of the client's employees for 3 years?

[The Agents View]

What do you think is a reasonable duration or breadth of a handcuff clause?

Can't work for the client for 3 months after the end of the contract?

Can't work for the client, the client's clients, the clients suppliers or anybody who's shared a bus with one of the client's employees for 3 years?

OK, so from my perspective, the "handcuff" clause is not there to stop you from working with the client really, it's actually there to protect me/the agency from underhand line managers and contractors, basically "sacking" the contractor, and then re-engaging them 20 seconds later, directly. I personally think that the point that this goes from being underhand, to being a new opportunity is about 3 months (although I would hope that the client would call me, negotiate a deal and still run that person through me).

My common experience is that 6 months is the term set out in the contracts - I personally think that is too long, but certainly after that point I don't think an agency can have any claim to that contractors contract.

What I would say about the "handcuff" clause though, is that it's actually nothing to do with the contractor really. The only people I have ever seen this applied to successfully is the client businesses - at which point as a business you have to take a view on whether the expenditure of both energy and cash is worth it, and also whether you are better off keeping the relationship with the client for the future. The only time I have ever seen this applied to devastating effect was with an insurance company who purposely re-engaged 16 contractors directly, on purpose, 3 weeks after they had canned them all. The bill was something like £340,000, it went to court, and was settled outside for a shade over £260,000.

[The Agents View]

Cost - the real myth. Last gig I charged them around £60k and saved them around £480k. So what's the relevance of the day rate?

Now, I (and most agents I suspect) completely agree with you on this.

Whilst this equation works extremely well in a business case scenario, you often then have the argument that the rate charged for one individual, is more than they pay for the CEO or MD. The issue you then have, is that procurement, HR, and sometimes even CEO's and MD's become involved - at that point, to be honest, it's hardly worth having the conversation.

Lets make no bones about this - contractors are usually well paid, even after the risk, holidays, sick, NI, etc etc is taken account of - but unfortunately there is a general lack of business nouse in this country.

As I see it, like for like is NEVER compared.

The CEO may be a £250,000 per year kind of guy for example. That works out at about £1000-1050 per day if you split it all down. What procurement people, HR people and others the WORLD OVER don't understand, is that you're missing KEY figures from this equation.

The approximate cost for a £250,000 employee, is actually about £500,000. Now stick that into the same calculator and you end up with about £1900 per day. Now when procurement compare rates and salaries, would anyone care to guess how many take this into account? That's right - NONE OF THEM!

I personally believe that in the right circumstances, and used in the right way (which is NOT the way the NHS use them for example), Interims are a highly cost effective way of improving businesses - unfortunately, I'm yet to find a way which masks the cost so that it is never compared!

[VirtualMonkey]

Do you ever really think about enforcing the clauses preventing work directly with clientco for x months? Or are these just 'clauses that appear in a standard contract regardless' My current contract states I cannot do so for 12 months (although the contract between agent and clientco states 6 months). I have no intention of trying to go around my agent as I get paid on time, like him personally and am happy with my rate but i'd be interested to kow your side of this
Thanks for the useful thread

[Scrag Meister]

What proportion of your business is Fixed margin ala PSL and how much is ad-hoc?

Margin transparency would be a good thing.

I presume as my last and current contracts were margined at 9% and 11% that volume of business also matters.

I also avoid any agents who are not on the PSL of clientco (if client co knows what a PSL is :-) ) and not on a fixed margin, I really feel that this leads to a conflict of interest. Fixed margin, everyone wants best rate. Floating margin means the agent is interested in maxing the client fee and minimising the contractor's rate.

Thanks interesting thread.

[The Agents View]

Do you ever really think about enforcing the clauses preventing work directly with clientco for x months? Or are these just 'clauses that appear in a standard contract regardless' My current contract states I cannot do so for 12 months (although the contract between agent and clientco states 6 months). I have no intention of trying to go around my agent as I get paid on time, like him personally and am happy with my rate but i'd be interested to kow your side of this
Thanks for the useful thread

I can only really comment on my experience, and to some degree, my point of view.

So - as above really - on the contractor side, the restriction clauses are not enforceable in my opinion - so in terms of chasing the candidate/contractor - no - it's not worth the effort and outlay involved.

On the client side, it's slightly different.

This is purely my point of view, but this is a relationship business. If you sue someone, you are ultimately ending your relationship with them. You also need to take into account the age old state that someone who has had a bad experience will tell 7 people, someone who has had a good experience will tell 1 person.

If it's malicious (and I've seen a few) then yes, I have been known to chase it all the way, if I'm kept in the loop, I will always look for a way to do a deal which works for all - even if it's a fee for the company to turn a blind eye.

When it comes down to it, these are standard terms - we don't tend to have any control over them.

The other consideration is volume of business - someone who has given you one requirement over 3 years, is far more likely to be beaten with the contract terms, than someone who has, over the same period, generated £500,000 of profit.

[malvolio]

I personally believe that in the right circumstances, and used in the right way (which is NOT the way the NHS use them for example), Interims are a highly cost effective way of improving businesses - unfortunately, I'm yet to find a way which masks the cost so that it is never compared!

Simple. Stop selling senior contractors in units of three months and start selling them to deliver specific objectives at a fixed cost. Set me up with a per diem retainer for running expenses and a completion payment or penalty for overruns. Go really mad and engage me as a supplier on a B2B basis and we can both forget about the Regs and IR35.

Or use the Agency Regs Opt-out properly. If I have a saleable range of skills in a particular area, charge me for work finding services rather than the client. That would change the market paradigm quite signficantly, you go to the client with a zero margin. you cut down your overheads by not having to sift through 200 CVs for every role, it would guarantee both of us continuity of work and encourage you to find out who we actually are. And you align to your own publicicity by becoming an actual supplier of staffing solutions...

[The Agents View]

What proportion of your business is Fixed margin ala PSL and how much is ad-hoc?

Margin transparency would be a good thing.

I presume as my last and current contracts were margined at 9% and 11% that volume of business also matters.

I also avoid any agents who are not on the PSL of clientco (if client co knows what a PSL is :-) ) and not on a fixed margin, I really feel that this leads to a conflict of interest. Fixed margin, everyone wants best rate. Floating margin means the agent is interested in maxing the client fee and minimising the contractor's rate.

Thanks interesting thread.

Proportions: Looking at my jobs list in front of me, I currently have 22 jobs on, with 12 different clients. Of those, I am on 3 PSL's with fixed margins. On a further 6, I have a "ceiling margin" agreement in place (17.5%, 15% and for some reason 14.72%). The rest I can "make up" but for the odd few quid here and there (20-30 per day for example) that would make a grand total of £3 per month difference to my pay cheque. A contractor on site at a standard rate of say £400 per day, is likely to pay me about £150 per month - obviously I know which figure I want to secure first!!

I wouldn't discount agencies not on PSL's out of hand to be honest - having worked in both PSL driven, and PSL avoidance based agencies, the quality card is most definately with the non PSL agencies - it has to be.

With regards to margin, of course business volume matters - in fact, it's about the only thing that matters. If you're going to get 300 jobs off of a company, and expect 20% of those to be relatively straightforward to fill, that's 60 odd contractors as potential. In that situation, I'd probably go as low as 12, maybe even 10% margin to cut out the competition - for someone who is going to give me 2 jobs a year, with the same ratio, I would expect to place a maximum of 1 person a year - at that point, my job is to nail the contractor down, and get as much as possible for the agency (without getting to the obscene levels i've seen).

The other thing I'd point out, is that it comes down to level as well. 15% margin on £150 per day, wont cover our costs - however, 15% on £1000 per day, we make a decent level of profit. Most agencies work on margin average, not actual Profit billed though.

HTH