Exposing recruitment agency tactics / tricks, part 1

[Andy Hallett]

For permanent appointments an agent usually gets paid an agreed percentage of your starting salary. It is in their interests to get you as much as possible.

It sounds like they have provided you an excellent service with their only mistake being to select you as a candidate.

Really you should be posting on www.permieuk.com

[petergriffin]

Really you should be posting on www.permieuk.com

Shocking that that domain hasn't been taken yet!

[NotAllThere]

It does matter to me because I do not like to be deceived. I don't like an agent pretending to be on my side but is in fact pushing down my salary expectation for selfish reasons. Who was the agent to be pushing down what salary I'd want after telling me it was £45-50k? A casual chat with agent should not constitute accepting or rejecting a formal offer from end client.

Duh! So push it up again. If you're not happy with the salary, don't take it. Tell them what you will take. I really don't see what the problem is. So you've been deceived a bit. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. Grow up.

I was persuaded by an agent to go for a permie interview in 2000 (after the crash in contractor rates) for a role at "40K, maybe 45K". I'd already worked out I'd need 50K to be getting more than I could get, even then, as a contractor, but I went along as it would at least be a day out from the search. Shen the employer asked me how much I wanted, I said "50K". The HR lassy went a bit pale, but the manager didn't blink.

The manager resigned the following day, and recommended me as his replacement. The job I'd ostensibly been interviewed for was filled by someone else - at 40K. The final package offered to me was worth about 80K, so I accepted it.

[evilagent]

It does matter to me because I do not like to be deceived. I don't like an agent pretending to be on my side but is in fact pushing down my salary expectation for selfish reasons. Who was the agent to be pushing down what salary I'd want after telling me it was £45-50k? A casual chat with agent should not constitute accepting or rejecting a formal offer from end client.

Deception seems to be a two-way street.

You have conveniently overlooked your deception to the client, as you had to "get your story straight", and needed to be coached to say only positive things, and to have a "story" to explain why you were looking to switch from contracting to permie.

Nobody likes to be deceived.

As for the unoriginal interview and tests, companies like to present themselves as forward thinking, and having some nonsense metric for interviews allows them to tick that superficial box.

Interview responses have to be generic and non-committal, sadly.
These days, what with the potential for claims for unfairness or prejudice, companies need a vague and meaningless way to reject candidates. You've been rejected, they want nothing more to do with you. They are not going to leave themselves open to be sued by a dead horse.

As has already been said, permie roles attract a percentage of salary as commissions, so would want to get you the most.
If another candidate has accepted a lower salary, that person will always be a useful fallback candidate.
Ultimately, the clientco may prefer the lower salaried candidate.
Blaming the recruiter won't change this.

Using Occams Razor, that is, arriving at a conclusion using the least assumptions, such as deception, ulterior motives, cheating, etc;
maybe you simply were not the best candidate.