Agencies to avoid....

[nomadd]

It can be only a matter of hours before Real Time get me a gig with the info. I gave them after retrieving their E-mail from the spam folder.

Can you please get back to me with the following information to enable us to go away and work with your CV and profile:

1. What would your ideal role be in terms of technical skillset?

Lego Mindstorms.

2. Current salary and package?

Infinity and beyond.

3. Availability to start work?

Yesterday.

4. Which companies has your CV been sent to so far in your job search?

All of them.

5. Which companies have you interviewed with so far in your job search?

All of them minus one.

[Dominic Connor]

Sometimes

Spoke to one pimp the other day about a gig down south, but first there was an online test to perform and the interview is with the pimp and not the client.
qh

I can see your point here, but then again it depends upon the recruiter...
It's interesting that the tone of this post, it is worth remembering that some sort of filtering in theory is what an agent is supposed to be being paid for.

As I've written on the The Register and elsewhere, many clients won't pay for the service they want, but pay too much for the service they actually get.


Some clients use stuff like BrainBench as a quick and cheap first filter, requiring that all contractors and staff get above a certain score, the agent merely connects up.

Every contractor I've placed has been interviewed by me, not all of them have enjoyed it, especially the switch from smarmy City headhunter to hardcore coder when I sniff bulltulip.

We don't do as many contractors as the carpet bombers because of this and frankly only got into contracting because a client started a conversation with "Dominic, as we're your largest client...", the MD knew one of my guilty secrets, that I know far too much about Excel and he was sick to the back teeth of interviewing what he described as "Chimps", for a set of roles that paid far more than the going rate, for competent Excel developers.

We all know that there are almost none of these, sure plenty of people know Excel, but usually not well and most serious Excel hacks actually do something else as their headline skills, but nearly all Excel specialists are little more than evangelicals.

So let us look at the world of pain I entered.
After filtering out the CVs of those who had no hope, I proceeded to interview them both orally and by handing them a laptop with Excel and asking them to make it do stuff.

Every single last one of them failed the test.

DDE was thought by several of them to be a "new feature" in Excel, when I asked them to do stuff like link two workbooks together. (for non-Excel people, it dates from 1987)

Three had to have NOT and AND explained to them, biitwise operators mostly mystified them, dependency trees ditto. Techniques for getting data from databases, Bloomberg and Reuters was at best patchy and often wholly absent.

If you've ever had to sort out a defective spreadsheet, you will share the despair I felt at the widespread ignorance about how Excel features can enforce a useful degree of data integrity.

For instance, some things can never be negative, so conditional formatting can highlight in a bright colour cells that have gone wrong. Anyone here impressed by my use of powerful black magic ?

No ?

So imagine what I thought of people with "5 years of Excel development in major banks" who saw this as a cool technique, let alone those that thought I was being anal for caring about this crap.

Precisely one had a clue why the signed 16 bitness of Integers in VBA might be an issue when dealing with sheets in classical Excel that went up to >32767

And it went on...

[Dominic Connor]

I got a call from a pimp there today. Withheld number, the usual "so we have a role for you, are you available, what were your past rates, what would you be looking for in terms of rates now?" BS.

Actually most corporate switchboards are set up to withhold numbers, it is not a sign of being dodgy, although it can be a sign that their internal IT is a bit lazy.

That's because the default config for switchboards is to give out the main number, so if you get a missed call and try to return a call you get a switchboard for a company with hundreds or thousands of staff who can't help if you say "I got a call from this number".

[quackhandle]

I can see your point here, but then again it depends upon the recruiter...
It's interesting that the tone of this post, it is worth remembering that some sort of filtering in theory is what an agent is supposed to be being paid for.

. . . .

. . . .

And it went on...

The online test I'm not bothered about it was the fact that the interview was AT the pimp location and not client site. Surprise surprise, I have not heard back from them.

qh

[NDawg]

Actually most corporate switchboards are set up to withhold numbers, it is not a sign of being dodgy, although it can be a sign that their internal IT is a bit lazy.

That's because the default config for switchboards is to give out the main number, so if you get a missed call and try to return a call you get a switchboard for a company with hundreds or thousands of staff who can't help if you say "I got a call from this number".

Doubtful in this case. I've had calls for legitimate roles from a pimp there before that's been squared away, albeit with terrible rate offers. She'd always call me from a number that showed the main switchboard callback as ID and would make a legitimate effort to present me with a spec.

This clown on the other hand...straight into prior rates, promising me a perfect job (for which I STILL haven't recieved a spec) and just generally coming across as if he's fishing for leads or killing time in the office by calling someone for the sake of it.

I don't have time for any of that. Recs that play the game right and come to me with something good, i'm willing to work with them. A case-in-point, this new contract i'm on needs additional people. I'm bringing guys I know on board. I probably may not get much or any money out of it, but that isn't important because the rec's done me right up to this point, scored me a sweet rate and I want to work with people I trust. That rec is an example of a good rec, and i'm happy with giving them a little extra business.

The guy i'm referring to above though? The only thing he'll get out of me in the future will likely be a laugh and a hangup if he tries to fish again.

[d000hg]

In general, I would really love to find a way to rid the Industry of these blood-sucking Parasites (wouldn't we all) that add Yards to the overall Cost.

Personally, I will not deal with any Pimp that speaks with an Indian accent - or, work for Companies like Wipro, Tata, InfoSys etc either i.e. The Bob COs. And, neither will I deal with the OffShore.

Racist, offensive AND a fancy font!

[quackhandle]

e synergy

Financial gig advertised at 350-400 so I send my CV over yesterday. Call from pimp this morning "sorry the client has altered the daily rate to £300".

yeah of course they have.

qh

[BolshieBastard]

Financial gig advertised at 350-400 so I send my CV over yesterday. Call from pimp this morning "sorry the client has altered the daily rate to £300".

yeah of course they have.

qh

Should have replied 'Yeah but I havent!'

[Gym beast]

I would have to say in my opinion Spring IT are by far the worst. They plonk you on client sites....

you hear nothing from them and to top it off you have to use "the portal" to register time sheets and get paid....

Its more of a black whole... they never pay you as per their T&C's and what they stipulate on their web site and it took almost a week last time to respond to a query. If you submit any expenses then you might as well just forget being paid as this just breaks the whole process.

I suspect this is an outsourced arrangement.

Had a couple of stints with them now and I will give them a wide berth in future...

Bit surprised to hear that, they were my VEWWY FWIRST Deeby-yayyy!! gig back in 2K, and apart from one dumb*ss call, which I dumb*ssedly returned during my lunch hour, only for the Springman to start asking "What the chances were of extending?", they were pretty ok. Shame they seem to have gone downhill, still have very fond memories of that short gig.

[quackhandle]

Should have replied 'Yeah but I havent!'

It was something along those lines.

Me: "it's funny that agents always say that the client has reduced the rate. Nothing to do extending your percentage is it?"
Pimp: <nervous laughter> Errr.... no."

I'm hearing that "daily rates are down, it's the shape of the current market" but it seems to be only pimps that tell me this. These f**kers are getting worse.

qh