Ajilon

[Clippy]

I am dealing with an agency which I think is an Ajilon company?

Should I be worried?

So far, everything seems OK - the person I am dealing with seems switched on.

[malvolio]

I am dealing with an agency which I think is an Ajilon company?

Should I be worried?

So far, everything seems OK - the person I am dealing with seems switched on.

But to what. They have sold you to the client as one of their own resources, not as a separate freelance. Ask them the direct question "Do the upper and lower contracts align and contain the same key provisions wrt RoS, D&C and MOO?" They will answer yes, so ask for a clause to be put into yours to that effect. They will answer no. Nuff said...

[TheFaQQer]

They don't understand the concept of when you can opt in or opt out.

If you opt in, they will only offer an IR35 unfriendly contract.

They sometimes have a habit of not receiving your timesheets, even if you have received a confirmation.

They sometimes forget to send the invoice to you if you are self-billing.

They like to send the contracts through at the last minute, or after you have started, which if they are IR35 unfriendly is not a good position to be in.

They are pretty hopeless regarding contract renewals - mate of mine was told by the client that they wanted him until end of March, and that they had a PO in place with Ajilon until end of March. Ajilon offered a contract through to mid-February...

Given the choice, I wouldn't work through them again, but they are preferred supplier to a lot of big organizations.

[KathyWoolfe]

They like to send the contracts through at the last minute, or after you have started, which if they are IR35 unfriendly is not a good position to be in.

They are pretty hopeless regarding contract renewals - mate of mine was told by the client that they wanted him until end of March, and that they had a PO in place with Ajilon until end of March. Ajilon offered a contract through to mid-February...

Given the choice, I wouldn't work through them again, but they are preferred supplier to a lot of big organizations.

They are the preferred supplier for the organisation in which I am contracting at present.
I agree that they are bad at sending you contracts to sign. I ended up having to travel across Scotland to Edinburgh to their offices to sign a conttract on the Friday for starting work on the following Monday. They had said that they had sent a contract through the post for me to sign but these didn't appear until a couple of weeks later (though that might have been the fault of the post).

I disagree about the renewals though. My original contract was for 5 months and it was about a month to go wwhen I got a phone call saying that the client wanted to extend for 3 months and asking me if I wanted to stay. The paperwork was easy as they have representatives on-site (just a few desks away in fact). Then, just 1 month into this extension they phoned me again saying that the cleint wanted to extend me for another 6 months after the end of my first extension and agtain asking if I wanted to stay. Admittedly it took them 2 weeks to get the paperwork to me after I agreed but that is the only hiccup I had from them.

One caveat though. There were payment problems in the first month and they go through what is called a "contractor helpdesk" which apparently is a separate organisation. So what happened is that I spent a small fortune phoning 3 organisations (Aijilon, "contravtor helpdesk" and my accountants) trying to find the glitch in the system. So it's not the easiest thing to do to sort out payments if they go wrong. (In fairness to the other two organisations, it was my accountants who had messed things up).

[TheFaQQer]

I disagree about the renewals though. My original contract was for 5 months and it was about a month to go wwhen I got a phone call saying that the client wanted to extend for 3 months and asking me if I wanted to stay. The paperwork was easy as they have representatives on-site (just a few desks away in fact). Then, just 1 month into this extension they phoned me again saying that the cleint wanted to extend me for another 6 months after the end of my first extension and agtain asking if I wanted to stay. Admittedly it took them 2 weeks to get the paperwork to me after I agreed but that is the only hiccup I had from them.

Sun shines on a dogs @rse some days.

Last year, the client where I was working gave everyone four weeks notice as there wasn't enough work coming through from the end client. Two weeks into the notice period, Ajilon rang me to see whether there was any sign of an extension as they hadn't heard anything from the client. Despite Ajilon writing to me to confirm thenew end date of the contract.

When I started, they dropped an IR35 unfriendly contract on me at 3pm on the Friday, due to start Monday, and changed the location of the project, which they just mentioned in passing....

Given the choice, I'd never go near them again.