Worrying trend of Indian agents

**SneakySimon** · 12 August 2011, 11:41

Offshore Recruitment

I have had several calls from offshore recruiters.

Don't generally have a problem but so far all of them have not much clue - tends to start with Simon, you have skill XXX we need someone with skill xxx. Are you interested?

I then have to drag out the role, location etc and then when we get into nitty gritty, it gets very messy as they don't have a clue about the differnt systems.

Can't see this being a long term change!!

**The Agents View** · 12 August 2011, 12:14

Originally posted by SneakySimon View Post

I have had several calls from offshore recruiters.

Don't generally have a problem but so far all of them have not much clue - tends to start with Simon, you have skill XXX we need someone with skill xxx. Are you interested?

I then have to drag out the role, location etc and then when we get into nitty gritty, it gets very messy as they don't have a clue about the differnt systems.

Can't see this being a long term change!!

I suspect, that these are not necessarily indian "branches" of UK businesses, but off shore people white labelling. We used to have an off shore "resourcing" function. Consultants give their operatives the details of what they need, and they basically hunt the job boards very early in the morning, and very late at night. The cost of this, is about £300-500 per month, for a dedicated resource - significantly cheaper than a UK permie.

With regards to aggressive pricing - you've not quite got that right - every agency wants people to be paid more (certainly for perm, and alot for contract) as they work on a percentage basis - the more you secure, the more money we get - whilst there are exceptions to this - you wouldn't expect the indian outsourced stuff to be anything other than volume accounts, communicated by portals and the like really, else the paperwork would be a nightmare.

**jmo21** · 12 August 2011, 13:05

Originally posted by The Agents View View Post

With regards to aggressive pricing - you've not quite got that right - every agency wants people to be paid more (certainly for perm, and alot for contract) as they work on a percentage basis

The book Freakanomics talks about estate agents and trying to get you the seller more money from the buyer. You'd think they would based on percentages. In reality they don't bother their arse, because every extra £1000 works out as a really low number extra in the estate agents pocket.

I wonder if it's the same for recruitment agencies? Will they really go an ask the end client for an extra £10/20/30 a day for you when they are only making 15%?

**rd409** · 12 August 2011, 13:10

Originally posted by jmo21 View Post

The book Freakanomics talks about estate agents and trying to get you the seller more money from the buyer. You'd think they would based on percentages. In reality they don't bother their arse, because every extra £1000 works out as a really low number extra in the estate agents pocket.

I wonder if it's the same for recruitment agencies? Will they really go an ask the end client for an extra £10/20/30 a day for you when they are only making 15%?

Extra £10 for a contractor, when they have say 10 contractor, earns them £15 extra everyday, which is £60 a month or roughly £720 a year. If you just start calculating the increments on each of the variables, then this might sound as a good business sense for the agencies.
Also not all the agencies are on fixed 15%, it can be anything from 10 - 25%.

**The Agents View** · 12 August 2011, 14:52

Originally posted by jmo21 View Post

The book Freakanomics talks about estate agents and trying to get you the seller more money from the buyer. You'd think they would based on percentages. In reality they don't bother their arse, because every extra £1000 works out as a really low number extra in the estate agents pocket.

I wonder if it's the same for recruitment agencies? Will they really go an ask the end client for an extra £10/20/30 a day for you when they are only making 15%?

This is a really tough one. Yes, we usually try for the extra, but we also advise when the situation is delicate (others in line etc, where being cheeky could jeopardise the contract being offered).

Whilst I will usually be cheeky and try and get the extra tenner (as you say, these things add up at the end of the year) it's also not worth risking the contract for.

You also have to remember - that of that £720, the agent usually gets about £72 of it across the year - so no, most of the time, it's not actually WORTH the effort - better to go and find another deal with the negotiating time, but I personally see it as part of the service to do the best by our contractors as well as clients.

**stek** · 12 August 2011, 15:55

Got a call from one with very poor English, for an AIX Architect, LPAR/VIO/NIM/HACMP, ie the full gamut, £180 a day! SC too! And London! More exclamation marks!!!

I pointed out the going rate is at least £500 and he reckoned he'd placed 22 already. That's 22 SC'd AIX gurus with VIO etc knowledge. willing to work for peanuts. I doubt there's half that many contractors in UK with those skills SC'd or not. Even wanted POWER7 and I've not seen one of them yet!

**eek** · 12 August 2011, 16:23

Originally posted by stek View Post

Got a call from one with very poor English, for an AIX Architect, LPAR/VIO/NIM/HACMP, ie the full gamut, £180 a day! SC too! And London! More exclamation marks!!!

I pointed out the going rate is at least £500 and he reckoned he'd placed 22 already. That's 22 SC'd AIX gurus with VIO etc knowledge. willing to work for peanuts. I doubt there's half that many contractors in UK with those skills SC'd or not. Even wanted POWER7 and I've not seen one of them yet!

But there will be in India. All of them will have memorised what LPAR/VIO/NIM/HACMP are and know where (Google) to find out more about it when they encounter a problem whilst doing the needful.

Just pity the client who doesn't know any better. On seconds thoughts don't as they are getting what they deserve.

**stek** · 12 August 2011, 16:32

Originally posted by eek View Post

But there will be in India. All of them will have memorised what LPAR/VIO/NIM/HACMP are and know where (Google) to find out more about it when they encounter a problem whilst doing the needful.

Just pity the client who doesn't know any better. On seconds thoughts don't as they are getting what they deserve.

But not SC'd tho...

Spose they're doing what we did, blagging the CV a bit, but at least we Brits can stand proud and and use a bit of nous, the Colonials can only work from rote, if it's not there in a list, cannae do it. And that applies to Indian Doctors too who I totally do not trust after let's say 'an incident'.

**Paul Kremmett** · 16 August 2011, 01:34

Have you tried them?

Has anyone tried these Indian agencies? What has been the experience? Are they worth the price, poor English and all?

Originally posted by ChimpMaster View Post

Even in my somewhat niche field, I have noticed Indian agencies getting into the game attempting to source U.K. clients with contractors and permies. They don't just focus on offshore contractors, i.e. they appear to be in the same game as our own 'beloved' U.K. agents.

Two agencies I have recently been contacted by have offices in India as well as in the U.K (staffed of course with Indians).

So it would seem that not only are technical jobs being offshored, but so are the recruitment agencies!

The problem for us, in addition to the offshoring aspect, is that these Indian agencies work on aggressive pricing for their clients. This means that they want to put rates well down, not just to maximise their own profit but also to go in at a low cost to the client.

Damn and damn again.

Worrying trend of Indian agents