Dealing with Day Rate disclosure requests.

[norrahe]

Sorry norrahe - I read your response as being from nomadd, who had previously spouted about working for banks.....

Just to correct you - there's not an agency in the country who works on a mark up - we all work in margins. It's a subtle difference, but an absolute PITA when it gets mixed up!

Margins/Markup - whatever!

As long as it doesn't impact my day rate and I get paid on time I don't care.

[SueEllen]

I think youl find they are agents and will do their thing, ring your last company that they have on your cv and offer to supply contractors at a lower rate! and lowering future rates for all of us in the process.

don't do it the only rates you should be discussing is what you want and the commission they want

Do you think it's easy just to ring a company up and get details out of them? If it was agents wouldn't be needed.

Apart from small companies, were it tends to be one person who approves everything, medium size and larger organisations tend to have a more convoluted hiring process.

So while someone may want a resource getting authorisation from budget approvers that they can have that resource is a different matter.

And who a budget approver in a company is, isn't always transparent.

In one medium sized organisation I contracted at it was various senior people who had the right to approve staff being taken on. These senior people didn't have the titles you would expect as they were senior due to be in the company from it's conception.

[darrenb]

As for "surviving" on 17.5% margin. I'm not here to survive. I'm here to make as much money as I can - that's how business works. I daresay you could 'survive' on £200 per day - but you don't take it, because you believe you are worth more than that. That's why I would tell you where to stick your 8%.

I just had a LinkedIn contact request from a "boutique" agent living in France, saying I must be scared off by the outrageous 20-30% margins that are common in the Anglo-Saxon world, and assuring me that if he represented me he would never dream of trying to pull the same trick.

I turned down the request because I don't accept agents in my Contacts list.

[The Agents View]

Utter nonsense.

Lets be honest, as a general rule, the bigger agencies are "in" with the bigger clients so have a far better chance of getting you a gig

There are currently 3 people in my business. Between the three of us, we have 22 active customers. All of those customers sit within the FTSE 250. Yeah - you know EXACTLY what you're talking about.

and charging a lower commission. And if you are good, they will find you future roles: that's business.

Using SThree as an example. Average margin, 22% - again - you know exactly what you're talking about.

Also, the larger agencies tend to have better payment terms and are far less likely to go bust - just have a read of some of the threads on here from contractors who lost a fortune to small-fry agencies when they crashed without a trace.

As detailed elsewhere on this site, larger agencies are these days looking to save costs, by moving contractors from weekly timesheets, and 30 day terms.

Again, utter nonsense.

All your posts seem to be your personal interpretation of what you think everyone else wants.

And as you've shown above, you've intricately researched the incorrect "factual input" you've spouted above.

It's an arrogance that pervades all your posts. And addressing all Contractors as "you lot" or "jumped-up coders" (and the multitude of other personal slurs in your posts) doesn't exactly leave you looking professional, does it.

On this site, I have no desire to be professional - I don't want business from any of you - indeed, I'm not in the (frankly dull) IT game - I use this site to give you "The Agents View" - warts and all - whether it's what you want to hear or not. You're an interesting one, because you seem to want to have some kind of understanding of the way the agency world works. Sadly, you're wholly misled and warped by your own arrogance.

As I say, I'll continue to stick with well regarded agencies who use professional staff. And I'll leave the small-fry like yourself well alone. That way everyone's happy.

Small fry? You're a disguised permanent staff member, who uses a limited company to avoid paying tax, with no ability to expand, and a limited understanding of the industry you're trying to use to provide services - and you're calling ME small fry?? You might wish to look in the mirror. As for well regarded....well I continue to make a very successful living, with happy clients, and contractors paid on time - so your amazing powers of assumption are again, completely worthless.

[oscarose]

Small fry? You're a disguised permanent staff member, who uses a limited company to avoid paying tax, with no ability to expand, and a limited understanding of the industry you're trying to use to provide services - and you're calling ME small fry?? You might wish to look in the mirror. As for well regarded....well I continue to make a very successful living, with happy clients, and contractors paid on time - so your amazing powers of assumption are again, completely worthless.

WHS+1

[The Agents View]

I think youl find they are agents and will do their thing, ring your last company that they have on your cv and offer to supply contractors at a lower rate! and lowering future rates for all of us in the process.

don't do it the only rates you should be discussing is what you want and the commission they want

Yes - what we do, is ring up a company and magically get put through to the people who bring in those expensive contractors - because there's only ever one person who does this in any company....I suppose the work in HR....

And of course from your CV, we can tell exactly what margin your previous agency was charging - so it's easy to ring up and offer to supply contractors at a massively reduced margin.

And of course, margin is the only thing that clients care about when they're looking for contractors. In fact, all of them ask me what my margin is - none of them care about whether or not the contractors I propose fit into their budgets

As for rate discussions. The only rate you should be discussing is the rate you want. Nothing else is relevant to you, or any of your business.

[jmo21]

As for rate discussions. The only rate you should be discussing is the rate you want. Nothing else is relevant to you, or any of your business.

I'm not going to agent bash here, but you are wrong about whether it is relevant to me.

It is very relevant.

For example:
Contractor A, being paid £400/day, through Agency A, charging £1000/day
Contractor B, receiving £300/day, through Agency B, charging £1200/day

So Contractor B is costing the client more, but receiving less.

So, yes, we want to know what your margins are, and yes, I understand contractually, I have no legal reason to be told, but it IS relevant.

Is it your right to get as much money as you can? Yep, absolutely.

But we still hate the fact that you are there as the middleman, with the ability to extract more money than necessary out of both us contractors and the end client.

You are in a strong position, there is no doubt about that.

[NotAllThere]

One of the reasons why some clients insist on a fixed disclosed margin, is so that they know what to expect from what they are paying.

btw - it's easy to remember that agents work to margins. Just remember they're on the margins of society.

[nomadd]

On this site, I have no desire to be professional...

I don't want business from any of you...

indeed, I'm not in the (frankly dull) IT game...

You're a disguised permanent staff member, who uses a limited company to avoid paying tax, with no ability to expand, and a limited understanding of the industry you're trying to use to provide services...

And there was me wondering why I had you on my ignore list for all these years.

So, back on it you go, Mr Troll.

Bye.

[The Agents View]

And there was me wondering why I had you on my ignore list for all these years.

So, back on it you go, Mr Troll.

Bye.

Well that saves me or anyone else having to listen to your warped views of how you think agents aren't entitled to a living, despite doing one of the most important parts of running your pseudo "business".