Reply to: John McCoy of Pathway

[Hogan]

I like the bit about information sharing ... how come it's usually always in one direction ???

After you tell the agent who you're currently working for, name of your boss, current rate, names (and email addresses if poss) of all other contractors in the building ... then you ask who the gig is with ... you meet with a sudden case of 'agent shyness'.

Funny that.

If I feel the agent is enroaching too much on what I feel is reasonable to ask out of the blue, I start to ask them what their commission is etc. Seems fair :-)

[expat]

its quite simple really, i know my market, i know my technologies, i understand my clients needs and my candidates motivations.

i do my best to match these things up.

with regards to rejecting 97% of suitable applicants of course i do. if i've got 140 responses and around 40 of them are good enough I'm not going to send 40 CVs to my client. that would be pointless.

i pick the best and they go across.

Well, if the first sentence is really true, then the last sentence is plausible.

If.

[DodgyAgent]

its quite simple really, i know my market, i know my technologies, i understand my clients needs and my candidates motivations.

i do my best to match these things up.

with regards to rejecting 97% of suitable applicants of course i do. if i've got 140 responses and around 40 of them are good enough I'm not going to send 40 CVs to my client. that would be pointless.

i pick the best and they go across.

Cant you just smell the bullsh*t?

quick question monkey brain, does your boss know that you are spending your time boasting on this site?

[boredsenseless]

by all means call if you want to, but remember - don't be surprised if they can't take the call, we spend all day on the phone to other people, and if you call and leave message leave it at that. don't call 3/4 times a day. just call once - leave a message - if he's worth dealing with he will call you back.

can't really comment on the pushing down rates issue. personally i agree a rate before putting anyone forward for interview, i would honour this and would expect the contractor to honour it as well.

It's easy to get value out of an agent - just treat the calls proffessionally. Appreciate that I have to ask you questions about your skills, the companies you've worked at, and the people you've worked with - that is how it works and it will not change. Treat it as a business to business trade of information. It is not sinister, not cowboyish to look to network around a market - who you know is much more valuable than what you know. I'm not saying tell everyone everything, but invest time in one or two agents and you will always be top of their lists. You will of course get contracts if you are rude and aggro to agents but it will be harder and you will not get offered as many.

Obvioulsy you would say this wouldn't you it's your job!

[phonemonkey]

by all means call if you want to, but remember - don't be surprised if they can't take the call, we spend all day on the phone to other people, and if you call and leave message leave it at that. don't call 3/4 times a day. just call once - leave a message - if he's worth dealing with he will call you back.

can't really comment on the pushing down rates issue. personally i agree a rate before putting anyone forward for interview, i would honour this and would expect the contractor to honour it as well.

It's easy to get value out of an agent - just treat the calls proffessionally. Appreciate that I have to ask you questions about your skills, the companies you've worked at, and the people you've worked with - that is how it works and it will not change. Treat it as a business to business trade of information. It is not sinister, not cowboyish to look to network around a market - who you know is much more valuable than what you know. I'm not saying tell everyone everything, but invest time in one or two agents and you will always be top of their lists. You will of course get contracts if you are rude and aggro to agents but it will be harder and you will not get offered as many.

[lukemg]

Phonemonkey - thanks for taking the time to reply. I can see both sides of the fence from here, you are told to send only a small number of cv's through and so you choose accordingly. Obviously, rate (including on PSL's but not to the same degree) and availability/likelihood they will take the job if offered (location plays a part in this) will play a part in who gets put forward.
One question - I never phone up an agent after sending my CV in, should I always do this to get me on the 'look at, he is keen' list ? Considering the number of CV's getting sent in for each role, would this help.
I tend to apply for roles which are a good match for my skills and have quite a good ratio of CV's sent to calls back from the agent.
I agree it is very frustrating to fail at the agent stage and this has happened to me in the past.
Personally, I need the agencies to get work so I try to develop a good working relationship while being wary about some of the shady stuff that can happen. e.g. Got current job, last minute - agency bounces the rate downwards saying client concerned not a precise match for their systems.
Turns out this was b*ll*cks as client told me I should have asked for more on the way in because it's dificult to get the budget increased for renewals. I said I did but you knocked it down - no we didn't said the client. That stung a bit and I can think of no good reason for the agent to do it - he is on PSL fixed % so it wasn't going to him.

[senditback]

We have many ISEB in Winrunner ready standing to do your work.

Us Software Engineers have many years doing ISEB on Winrunner.

Lo Lo money.

CLASSIC!

[foritisme]

[BobShawadiwadi]

We have many ISEB in Winrunner ready standing to do your work.

Us Software Engineers have many years doing ISEB on Winrunner.

Lo Lo money.

[foritisme]

Seem strange that people like PhoneMonkey who get so many responses to adverts on Jobserve that they keep having to advertise every new "job" that comes in. A lot of the roles are very similar so you would think they only had to keep a top 10 candidate list and offer them the roles

Plus I have been on the other side of the fence many times and the number of very poor CVs coming in from agencies for testing roles never ceases to amaze. Especially like the ones who make up qualifications that don't exist i.e an ISEB in Winrunner

[Buffoon]

so every CV that comes applies should go across?

How about this.

Dear Client,

Please find attached the top three CV we received for your role.

The campaign resulted in 100 applicants. In our opinion 62 of them were numpties and were not worthy of consideration. One was from someone called Chico, who is on our blacklist. That leaves 37 possible candidates.

Our proprietary filtration techniques reduced that 37 to 10. (Sally phoned ‘em up and if she thought that they sounded creepy then they were rejected).
We selected the final 3 though our normal lucky dip methodology.

If you do not like the three candidates we offer you can find the top ten list here http:// …. , the 37 list here http://...., and the full 99 (less Chico) here http://.....

Yours,
DumArseAgent.

[BoredBloke]

"you should have used a better agency"

That wouldn't work as they wouldn't have the role. The client chooses the agency, not the contractor. The contractor chooses a role from an advert and then picks one of the agencies working for the end client.

I've worked for loads of agencies and can't think of much value they add to the whole process. Place the advert and wait. I tend to call the agent as the CV is making its way to get my name kin his head. I also only go for jobs where I'm a close match - should really start looking into blagging a career change though as I want more cash.

[malvolio]

As a project manager in one sector, keen to move into other sectors I find it very frustrating to come across an agent that wont put my CV forward in a sector despite my years of experience as a PM and a proven track record. I would rather the end client decide if I could run one of their projects NOT the agent.....!!

Which goes back to my original point here, and one of my long standing assertions - good IT people in non-niche areas can do any bloody job they put their mind to. I've built three complex Service Desks for three clients, but can I get a job doing one for a bank? Nope, no banking experience (despite the CV having Flemings, UBS and Barclays on it, incidentally) in my last three jobs and despite what I do being largely industry insensitive.

That's not the client speaking, that's the agent trimming his over-large list of applicants to manageable proportions. If, however, you properly represented us to your clients, you wouldn't have to; you would know who does what and who can do what. But that takes you out of the comfortt zone and there's no money in it, so why bother. Until, of course, average margins are driven below 9% by the big boys and the PSLs...

The reality is you act as an exchange, not a filter. We can do the work, the clients want work doing, the agent is merely the conduit. If you want to add value, give us clear B2B contracts, we'll opt out of the regs, you can ignore S134C and we'll pay you the commision rather than the client. Feeling brave?

[phonemonkey]

so every CV that comes applies should go across?

[Mustang]

As a project manager in one sector, keen to move into other sectors I find it very frustrating to come across an agent that wont put my CV forward in a sector despite my years of experience as a PM and a proven track record. I would rather the end client decide if I could run one of their projects NOT the agent.....!!