An Open Challenge to "The Agents View"

[monobrow]

WRT this Thread: http://forums.contractoruk.com/busin...rtising-2.html

And in order to restore the confidence of human (well, contractor) kind in your business. I challenge you thus!

OPTION 1

1. Post a contact number for yourself
2. Discuss the personal requirement of each contractor that calls you
3. Review & give constructive feedback on their CV
4. Meet each candidate face to face for 30 minutes
5. Call all your existing clients and sell the conractor's skill set to them
6. Feed back to each candidate - minimum weekly with progress
7. Take them out for lunch, get to know their kids etc

OPTION 2

Or alternatively, you could just put "Project Manager" in a search engine, pick the first 3 CV's that seem "OK" and spend the rest of the day cold calling IT Directors/Managers trying to get yourself seen/past their existing PSL.

Which option will TAV go for do we think?

[Lolas Cat]

Number 4 should be:

4. Meet and entertain each candidate face to face for 30 minutes.

[filthy1980]

it's not just TAV, i think we'd all go for option 2, i think we all like to work smart rather then work hard.

ask yourself, if you were an agent would you do 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7,

and why would you want them to, agents don't work for the contractors only their clients, if the clients weren't getting the service they wanted the market conditions would soon change and agents would be changing their business practices sharpish

as contractors we're in business for ourselves, i've not got a lot of experience but i've quickly learnt that its a dog eat dog world and no-one is going to do you any favours

from reading the TAV posts i'm sure he's a decent chap, but he has a job to do and does it, part of our job is to get through him doing his

its all fun and games dude, fun and games

[malvolio]

While I'm not defending the agency model we are stuck with (gosh...) it would help to understand why we have it. Recruitment is a significant business in its own right, but one that works in an incredibly aggressive environment: for instance, there are 500 recruitment agencies working in and around Bristol, from major corporate sharks like S3 down to one man temping agencies. The conversion ratio (between sales effort and sales won) is pretty low which means they don't have much space to do things that don't directly contribute to the bottom line. Add to that the takeover of most recruitment companies by directors who are accountants rather than recruiters and who are only interested in gross profit and you can see why the pile 'em high mentality is the only one that will work, if you want to earn any money out of it.

TAV is one of the good guys and correctly fights his corner, but it's a pressure environment driven entirely by sales targets and maximising margin. We are simply the product and it is rare recruiter who thinks of us in any other way. They simply neither have the time nor, more importantly, the need. That said, I know several well practised recruiters who genuinely despair of the market they find themselves servicing.

The real trick would be to get them out of the loop entirely - and that might be tricky given the way they sell their services to naive clients, which is where I came in a few posts ago...

There are several lines we could take to shake things up: suing an agent for offering a contract they cannot possibly honour, suing for restraint of trade by refusing to put forward qualified candidates for not having "security clearance" without actually knowing what's required, reporting them to the ASA for false advertising by pitching themselves as having legions of ready-packed contractors in the office when we all know they simply advertise for people as soon as they realise they need them and have no in house stock of anything.

One day, perhaps, I'll light a few fuses...

[CheeseSlice]

Does this really need to be in "Business / Contracts" ?

[d000hg]

Does this really need to be in "Business / Contracts" ?

Well we don't have a "Troll playground" board, this stuff makes General look high-brow.

[monobrow]

Well we don't have a "Troll playground" board, this stuff makes General look high-brow.

I have no doubt that all of your 6548+ posts have been; On-Topic, Insightful & Witty - apart from this last one perhaps?

Anyway, point taken, as a new member, I will try harder in the future not to alienate forum regulars by ensuring I only start discussions that you can contribute to in your quest to the 10k club.

[d000hg]

I have no doubt that all of your 6548+ posts have been; On-Topic, Insightful & Witty - apart from this last one perhaps?

Anyway, point taken, as a new member, I will try harder in the future not to alienate forum regulars by ensuring I only start discussions that you can contribute to in your quest to the 10k club.

Grow up. You posted a thread in a serious forum deliberately to antagonise another member, one who has put considerable time and effort into explaining and defending agency behaviour to a community who don't really like agents. We might not all agree with or like what he says, but that's not the point. Not that you'd know that because you steam in here all high & mighty.

And if you value quality rather than quantity of posts, what's your excuse?

[The Agents View]

WRT this Thread: http://forums.contractoruk.com/busin...rtising-2.html

And in order to restore the confidence of human (well, contractor) kind in your business. I challenge you thus!

OPTION 1

1. Post a contact number for yourself
2. Discuss the personal requirement of each contractor that calls you
3. Review & give constructive feedback on their CV
4. Meet each candidate face to face for 30 minutes
5. Call all your existing clients and sell the conractor's skill set to them
6. Feed back to each candidate - minimum weekly with progress
7. Take them out for lunch, get to know their kids etc

OPTION 2

Or alternatively, you could just put "Project Manager" in a search engine, pick the first 3 CV's that seem "OK" and spend the rest of the day cold calling IT Directors/Managers trying to get yourself seen/past their existing PSL.

Which option will TAV go for do we think?

Intruiging.

Firstly, allow me to thank you for being so direct and in your face about your issues with agents, and for making me a little bit famous.

I'll try to answer your points one by one.

1) Contact details are available to those who ask for them through the forum - I try to limit those whom I reveal my identity to, as I joined this forum to provide an impartial, informative view, which I hope is of use to the interim world.

2) Doing the above, opening myself up to a barrage of calls, is not the way to make the service I offer more efficient - it would make it worse - there's only so much I can do in a day!

3) I do this anyway.

4) I try to do this for everyone who I put forward to be interviewed, but it's not always practical. This is especially true for roles a very long way from my geographical location (glasgow etc!).

5) I have approximately 18 current clients, and a number of pipeline clients, who I speak with regularly. So you are suggesting that I should make a minimum of 18 calls for every candidate who ever calls me up, market their skill set, meet them for 30 minutes plus travel (say an hour) and juggle that with incoming requirements, strategic positioning, marketing my services, contributing to industry discussions in order to keep my knowledge up, network through some of the most rugged economic terrain this country has ever known? Is there anything else? Perhaps I could make a cup of tea in the nanosecond left over of the 24hr day? Do you live in a world where time has no relevance or something??

6) For those who I hand pick to market (on the basis of having a saleable, relevant skill set, I do this, but for me to justify it, I have to be able to see the end sale - what is going to drive the client to take notice of what I have to say.

7) I hand pick my relationships in order to build mutual business benefit - I have a number of examples of people whom I have met at their houses, I don't just know about their kids, I KNOW their kids and they know me.

Option 2

Some points to consider:

Using a search engine, filters out the people who are totally irrelevant.

It is not intelligent, so if I search for "project manager" I get anyone who has mentioned a project manager in their CV. When it comes to mailshots etc, we'd love to take the time to read every CV and make sure the content is relevant to the recipient, but it's not practical.

As for finding the CV's which look "OK" - since when did "OK" sell?? You find the people who I can envisage delivering what I need. This takes the form of speaking to them and understanding their background and experience. Now I've been around a long time, and I accept that certain people who operate in this industry don't operate like that (i.e. have any understanding). What I personally then do, is formulate a delivery story to present to the client, backed up by a reference or a quotation. When that is presented to the client, there's little in the way of reason for them not to interview that person.

The thing you have to understand about PSL's are that they are PREFERRED suppliers - not EXCLUSIVE suppliers. There's a difference - there's ALWAYS a way past a PSL because they're fundamentally flawed. People will buy what they need - if I have it they'll buy it from me - if I don't and a member of the PSL does, they'll buy it from them. If we both have it, then I've not done my job properly.


So, in response - I would be stupid, and unemployed if I took option 1, so Option 2 is closest, however still completely wrong.

And if you want my telephone number, you don't have to flirt around it - just ask. Oh....and don't tell my wife.....

[MaryPoppins]

Grow up. You posted a thread in a serious forum deliberately to antagonise another member, one who has put considerable time and effort into explaining and defending agency behaviour to a community who don't really like agents. We might not all agree with or like what he says, but that's not the point. Not that you'd know that because you steam in here all high & mighty.

And if you value quality rather than quantity of posts, what's your excuse?

WDS.

Well done TAV for bothering to answer such bilge.