Reply to: Reed - opinions?

[Anonimouse]

I have worked for reed numerous times, I have never incurred any expense. Popped into a branch, who opened early, on my way to the contract.

[fidot]

They've got a legal requirement to fulfill, you can't be bothered to spend a bit of time to secure a gig worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. I wonder who will win that stand off.

At least you can be smug you didn't cave while on the bench.

I accept it may not work for some, but I have never gone out of my way or incurred any expense in providing ID to agencies. All part of the negotiation process.
Each of us can only speak of our own experiences and that is mine.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I got around the ID verification thing by using the Post Office service. You take your passport to the Post Office and the dude signs a paper to say it's you.

It is ******* farcical but it was only a few quid and got me the gig as it ticked the agent's requirements.

[northernladuk]

If an agent wants sight of my id, they are welcome to come to me for the meeting. There is no way I'd go to their office at my expense.

They've got a legal requirement to fulfill, you can't be bothered to spend a bit of time to secure a gig worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. I wonder who will win that stand off.

At least you can be smug you didn't cave while on the bench.

[fidot]

If an agent wants sight of my id, they are welcome to come to me for the meeting. There is no way I'd go to their office at my expense.

[BolshieBastard]

Phfftf. This is nothing. I was once at a client and they went to a single sole agency. Agency contacts me and says Im being 'transferred' over to them.

Agency then demands 5 years previous references. I say not getting them, Ive been on site for a couple of years. But you must, they say, it's our T&Cs!

So I had a word with the client's contract resourcer and told them the agenc was being an arse asking for references when we've been on site. He agreed, said agency was being arseholes and the process should beseemless for on site contractors. No more request for referees.

OP's problem is they assumed no agency in the loop. Hope they agreed the daily rate was that paid to him and not before the agency creamed some off the top!

[Snarf]

Having now read the contract I can see an argument brewing.

Bear in mind:

I found this role via a direct contact at the client.

I arranged interviews and negotiated terms with the client.

Reed only became involved after there was an offer on the table and (in my opinion and that of my contact at the client) by mistake as it was meant to be a direct engagement.

Bearing all of that in mind... There's a non-solicitation clause in the contract.

I think I have grounds for that to be removed as reed played no part in this... We will see what they say.

[CheeseSlice]

I've used Reed before, but then there's Reed and there's Reed.. There are so many sub-companies and divisions of Reed that Im not surprised they operate differently. In some cases they will actually compete with each other or try to poach you from a gig with another part of Reed. Anything for a slice of commission.

My last gig with Reed around 5 years back:
No face to face meeting
All documents sent via email including passport. They wanted more than just a photo page but it was easy enough.
References were just standard PDF letters from previous agents also sent via email.
Contract review was fine.
They paid on time.

[SteelyDan]

For references you just need to give details of the agencies you worked through. They can confirm the dates.

Agree with this, however, in cases where you've been direct, they'll need the name/contact details of your direct co. - I just email them to ask if they're happy to provide a ref for the period I worked with them. It's a pain in the A for them I'm sure, but most are happy to provide. If you can give them a heads up on what they might be asked to provide that always helps & speeds things up, I've found.

Re; physical ID verification at agents' offices, well there's some inconsistency on this one, in my experience. I've only ever had to do this once, & that was a few years ago through Hays. The rest were just a case of emailing copy of ID through (scanned copy of passport/utility bill/licence type stuff), or uploading the same onto agent portal.

Never worked through Reed so can't comment.

[Snarf]

Thanks for the comments everyone, looks like its at least partially down to me having little experience with agents that is driving this.

It really grates that they want so much personal info for a B2B relationship though.

As for references, Ill tell them who to contact but they might have a bit of fun with that - Previous client : Carilion, before that it was a small company based in Singapore & Australia who I know got bought out and no longer exist.

The thing that pisses me off about the references bit... Reed didn't put me forward for this role, they have no interest in verifying that my CV is accurate, if I've lied (I've not) they have no liability anyway.

Guess its like someone else said above, they will be going off a script.

Ill get the contract sent off to QDOS now and see what hilarity ensues when I start asking for the contract to be amended, I'm personally named on it as well as my company so its definitely getting at least one amendment.

[Snarf]

Are you opting in or out?

Good question - this has as yet not come up in my contracting life so I need to look into what exactly will be affected... Might as well be prepared because Im probably going to come back here with questions.

[Snarf]

For references you just need to give details of the agencies you worked through. They can confirm the dates.

Ive only had one role through an agent * in the last 5 years the rest have been direct to the client, but I get what you're saying.

My opinion is that this is a bit stupid, they are not engaging me, they are contracting my company so the responsibility to determine my eligibility to work should lie with myco.

Maybe its just because I've run all of my previous contracts as "proper" B2B arrangements and this one is getting a bit more personal that its grating on me a bit.


* and they took my details via email - Yet to meet them face to face (and Ive been with the client for 18 months)

[northernladuk]

Are you opting in or out?

[Amanensia]

1. Is it normal for an agent to require documents to be verified face to face?
Yes; this is more and more common these days due to the "right to work" compliance rules. In theory very large fines can be payable if someone ends up working illegally and they can't prove they've followed best practice procedures. It's a pain in the backside but it's common. Some places will accept something like a Skype video call.

2. Is there anything with the references that could be construed as "compliance" or is the agent trying it on to harvest more info on companies that hire contractors?
Reed are huge and many of their processes will be quite generic and geared up to permanent recruitment. Whoever you are speaking to is probably reading from a script. It's very tempting to play awkward with them but easier not to bother! My favourite one was when my passport expired midway through a job, they got in touch saying they needed to see my new one. Arrant nonsense as the right to work given by a full UK passport never expires, I told them if they wanted to see it they could make an appointment to see me. Then they asked me to post it to them and they'd return it - I replied saying no, I needed it in a couple of months and didn't trust them not to lose it. Eventually they gave in and didn't bother, after I'd sent them chapter and verse from the gov.uk website proving they didn't need it. Most amusingly, a couple of months later the same happened to a colleague - he sent them his new passport and ... yep, they lost it!

3. Just generally are reed any good - am I just having a bad start up experience with them and it will smooth out as we get going or cant I expect this nonsense for the duration?
Not really. But they're incompetent rather than evil, and better than some I've dealt with. At one client, they moved from Reed to AGS (Allegis) - AGS made Reed look like paragons of perfection...

4. Is it me? Am I being awkward? - Im happy to accept that this might be the case
A bit, perhaps! But hey...

[GhostofTarbera]

Agree with above

But this is just the beginning of what they want

A list as long as your arm will appear soon, right down to your high school exam results

God forbid you have more than one director as they don’t like that either


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