UK wide contractor and applicant DB

[albertramsbottom]

Is anyone aware whether there is UK wide or EU/Global DB on contractors and/or applicants that go through agencies?

I ask as I fell out with a company 4 years working for a large UK agency that work in the technology and educations sectors. I only had an issue with one company and shortly after left on reasonable terms. Just didnt fit. Ever since I have had much less contracts and I am now struggling to find any

Additionally, I once worked directly for SCOM, which are a large global agency and one of my tasks was to help them set up a global portal so agencies could add details of contractors. SCOM were going to charge agencies for access.

This was 20 years ago and I just cant remember what it was called

I would like to know as Data protection and retention rules and laws are much tighter now and would like to request access and deletion of records

Cheers

[northernladuk]

No there isn't. Market has changed considerably year on year. This time 5 years ago there were multiple ads a day for what I did. Recently there is one a week at best.

There is also all the crap that's going on with the April changes.

It's not you, it's the market and it's going yo get considerable worse in coming months.

[Cirrus]

Many people's experience is even the same agency will not ' blacklist' you. In fact they are highly likely to contact you again. They don't value so much the fact you left prematurely or got sacked as much as they value the fact you won the contract in the first place. Their number one aim is to get someone in. Staying is just a bonus.

[northernladuk]

Usually the problem is a lot closer to home....

[Zigenare]

Ignore them, of course there's a blacklist, send me £50 and your details and I'll remove you from the database!

[GJABS]

You like a ram's bottom? Join the club

To answer your question, no I've never heard of any such database. Given the independence of agencies from each other, and even the independence of agents within agencies, I don't believe there is any significant motivation to act in the common good, so to speak, in protecting clients from known "troublemakers".

I think it gets a little more incestuous the higher up in a company you go though.

[WTFH]

There’s really only two types that will “blacklist” you:
1. Agents you took to court. (Note, this works very well the other way, because other agents find out and may advise clients that xyz was taken to court for fraud/breach of contract/making false claims about a client)
2. Contractors who really didn’t like you. And they have very little influence outside of the clients they work for.

But the market today is not like it was 10 or 20 years ago. The only agents who are phoning round these days are offshore ones, looking for local resources to fill in while they sort out visas for their lower cost teams to come in. Contractors need to be proactive - get on the phone with agents you know, don’t just send emails. Phone up about job adverts when you see them. Contact old clients. Contact other contractors you’ve worked with in the past.

[northernladuk]

And I find the term blacklist offense. Please refer to it as 'The list of no particular colour' in future.

[SueEllen]

And I find the term blacklist offense. Please refer to it as 'The list of no particular colour' in future.

"The list of the damned" is more appropriate

[Old Greg]

It's a well known phenomenon, but more likely you're on a greylist.

Urban Dictionary: greylist