Agents

[expat]

And how do they show their gratitude? like this

BTW I do think you're right. Take the money. Do a decent job if you can. And pull the guys' chains if we ask for it.... if I were an agent I'd be unable to resist this thread.

[BrilloPad]

If you will read itcontractor then this is what you get.

A clever newspaper will make controversial articles so the readers will post lots of replies - that fills the next edition.

I suspect this is made up by itcontractor - or Denny.

[beaker]

A clever newspaper will make controversial articles so the readers will post lots of replies - that fills the next edition.

I always wondered what they did with those comments... much of the time people just use the comments to say what a crap article it was.

Anyway, I just sorted out a direct contract today! I knew people at the company - they pay a little less than they would using an agent and I earn a little more. Everyone's happy.

IMO good agents (and they do exist) will take the time to understand a client's requirements and will sell you into the place. Agents complaining about how much contractors get paid are just biting the hand that feeds them really. If they are any good they should be making more than the contractor!

[DodgyAgent]

Well, as long as companies insist on going through agents, we need them. I often wonder why they do, and I'm finding it ever harder to find good reasons.

I have found contracts directly, but never gone direct: because the clients have always insisted on introducing an agent into the chain afterwards. In on awful case, the agent insisted on a handcuff clause, then started going bust and unable to pay, but refused to release me from it.

Why do internet-literate clients use the internet not to find contractors but to find agents? Then agents find me on the net, and rake off 15 - 20% endlessly for having done that. And don't tell me about prompt payment: you can always factor the cashflow, and if the cash stops you can bet that the invoice payments will too, if not before. In one case my agent (whom I had been forced to use after finding the client directly) actually paid me later than the client paid him. Nice work if you can get it, but why am I being taken for a mug? Not because I can't live in the cold world on my own; because agents have bypassed the people who do the work and the people who have the work needing done, and persuaded HR to abuse their power and cut the agents in on a rather large proportion of a wealth that they do nothing to create. And I do wonder why HR is so keen to do this......

If you dont understand the bare economics of why clients use agents then you have no idea of er economics and no idea of business which means that your job is soon to be outsourced to India.

You imagine a poor client posting a job on jobserve, receiving 500 CVs and phone calls (half of them from India), then having to sift through the lot. Maybe he finds 10 good ones 99% of who then let him down at the last minute with better offers elsewhere (remember HR have only relatively recently taken over the process of managing the agencies- most contrctors/agencies do not still work through HR).

Alternatively the client will simply try and contact old contractors thus leaving the rest of the contract market high and dry and kept out by an old boys network.

It is one thing to criticise some of the practices of the agents themselves but to use this as a reason to not have them shows a lack of basic common sense. And have you stopped to think that if agents are so awful and unnecessary what does that say about the concept of having to deal directly with contractors?

[BrilloPad]

If you dont understand the bare economics of why clients use agents then you have no idea of er economics and no idea of business which means that your job is soon to be outsourced to India.

You imagine a poor client posting a job on jobserve, receiving 500 CVs and phone calls (half of them from India), then having to sift through the lot. Maybe he finds 10 good ones 99% of who then let him down at the last minute with better offers elsewhere (remember HR have only relatively recently taken over the process of managing the agencies- most contrctors/agencies do not still work through HR).

Alternatively the client will simply try and contact old contractors thus leaving the rest of the contract market high and dry and kept out by an old boys network.

It is one thing to criticise some of the practices of the agents themselves but to use this as a reason to not have them shows a lack of basic common sense. And have you stopped to think that if agents are so awful and unnecessary what does that say about the concept of having to deal directly with contractors?

IMO most jobs will be outsourced to India soon.

Alot of what you say about agencies is correct - but the process **could** be done by HR/in-house

Of course the issue at the moment is that HR are totally useless - but that could change...

[expat]

If you dont understand the bare economics of why clients use agents then you have no idea of er economics and no idea of business which means that your job is soon to be outsourced to India.

You imagine a poor client posting a job on jobserve, receiving 500 CVs and phone calls (half of them from India), then having to sift through the lot. Maybe he finds 10 good ones 99% of who then let him down at the last minute with better offers elsewhere (remember HR have only relatively recently taken over the process of managing the agencies- most contrctors/agencies do not still work through HR).

Alternatively the client will simply try and contact old contractors thus leaving the rest of the contract market high and dry and kept out by an old boys network.

It is one thing to criticise some of the practices of the agents themselves but to use this as a reason to not have them shows a lack of basic common sense. And have you stopped to think that if agents are so awful and unnecessary what does that say about the concept of having to deal directly with contractors?

Well, toss around a few gratuitous insults, accusations of gross stupidity, and gloating threats, why don't you? It's what the board is for.

Actuall I didn't write most of what you react to (I'm getting this feeling of being confused with other people who have irritated you again). The last thing I'd suggest is that a PM puts his requirement on Jobserve with his own phone number. JS is the biggest disaster for contracting that I can remember: and I do remember contracting before the internet. It worked pretty well. And it absolutely did need agents then. What I don't see is the need for them now, at least in the current form. Though perhaps I mean, in the form that many of them take.

You are right that I shouldn't confuse agents' practices, especially those that are not universal, with the use of them at all. That merits reflection.

[DodgyAgent]

IMO most jobs will be outsourced to India soon.

Alot of what you say about agencies is correct - but the process **could** be done by HR/in-house

Of course the issue at the moment is that HR are totally useless - but that could change...

It could be BP, but to kick the process and give it pace and incision the type of people who are the driving force in recruitment are not the type that would work in HR. HR is made up of administrators, many of who are ex recruitment people who either cannot or do not want to hack it in what is a fiercely competitive dog eat dog world (you know the tricks that we agents get up to).

To employ the sharp competitive recruitment type in HR just would not work.
many companies have tried to have their own in house recruitment business and they have failed. Why? because internally PMs have had no choice about who they can use, so they then dedicate part of their lives to undermine the system in order that they can hire direct or use their own favourite agents. Secondly because an effective internal monopoly is being created, and thirdly the best recruitment consultants are frankly the ones who earn the most, and these people are just stifled in a non competitive monopoly, and therefore run or work for independent agencies. So in the end these people fail to deliver.

[DodgyAgent]

Well, toss around a few gratuitous insults, accusations of gross stupidity, and gloating threats, why don't you? It's what the board is for.

Actuall I didn't write most of what you react to (I'm getting this feeling of being confused with other people who have irritated you again). The last thing I'd suggest is that a PM puts his requirement on Jobserve with his own phone number. JS is the biggest disaster for contracting that I can remember: and I do remember contracting before the internet. It worked pretty well. And it absolutely did need agents then. What I don't see is the need for them now, at least in the current form. Though perhaps I mean, in the form that many of them take.

You are right that I shouldn't confuse agents' practices, especially those that are not universal, with the use of them at all. That merits reflection.

You havent offered a view of how the system would work without agents. It is all very well saying the internet is the way forward (overrated in my view) but you dont explain how

[BrilloPad]

It could be BP, but to kick the process and give it pace and incision the type of people who are the driving force in recruitment are not the type that would work in HR. HR is made up of administrators, many of who are ex recruitment people who either cannot or do not want to hack it in what is a fiercely competitive dog eat dog world (you know the tricks that we agents get up to).

To employ the sharp competitive recruitment type in HR just would not work.
many companies have tried to have their own in house recruitment business and they have failed. Why? because internally PMs have had no choice about who they can use, so they then dedicate part of their lives to undermine the system in order that they can hire direct or use their own favourite agents. Secondly because an effective internal monopoly is being created, and thirdly the best recruitment consultants are frankly the ones who earn the most, and these people are just stifled in a non competitive monopoly, and therefore run or work for independent agencies. So in the end these people fail to deliver.

I do agree with all that - but in many respects the same applies to IT workers (contract and permie). Especially in IB. But at ClientCo we are treated as typists and being outsourced to India accordingly. I just can't wait for onshoring to start! I do wonder when the process will be applied to agents though - maybe never? Who can tell.