Reply to: Agency asking for proof to validate "career break"

[expat]

Apparently MI5 aren't interested in generic terrorist terms. They're more interested in specific words like detonator, RDX, peroxide, ammonium nitrate, and "praise be upon him"

oops what have I said.

That probably puts you in the top echelon of suspects......

[KentPhilip]

I bet MI5 have already read your post. I hope they think you are joking......

Apparently MI5 aren't interested in generic terrorist terms. They're more interested in specific words like detonator, RDX, peroxide, ammonium nitrate, and "praise be upon him"

oops what have I said.

[expat]

I've only been asked once and that was for an IB role. Apparently it's SOP in the banking industry.

Outside the banking industry I would tell an agent to poke it as it's none of their business, whatever they think their business is. I'm not representing the agent on site, their job is introductions and invoice factoring. Any pimp who thinks I am representing their company has their head up their arse.

Again, for me, it's a match of my skills and experience against the customer requirements. Nothing more...

Yes, that does happen (no, of course I don't mean with their heads). I had one agency that gave me an email address at their domain, and asked me to use that in all my communications with the client.

[ratewhore]

I've only been asked once and that was for an IB role. Apparently it's SOP in the banking industry.

Outside the banking industry I would tell an agent to poke it as it's none of their business, whatever they think their business is. I'm not representing the agent on site, their job is introductions and invoice factoring. Any pimp who thinks I am their representing their company has their head up their arse.

Again, for me, it's a match of my skills and experience against the customer requirements. Nothing more...

[expat]

Seriously, it's his decision whether he asks questions like that. He must be prepared to take the consequences, which might include your deciding that you don't want to work with anyone like that.

It's your decision whether you answer. You must be prepared to take the consequences, which might include not getting the contract.

Personally I would decline, and be ready, indeed eager, to face the consequence of not working with someone like that.

[BrilloPad]

Tell them you've been to an **** training camp in ****, and say you're planning to *******.

I bet MI5 have already read your post. I hope they think you are joking......

[KentPhilip]

Tell them you've been to an Al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, and say you're planning to bomb London.

[BrilloPad]

I told him to lay off the alcohol

Presumably so he could try to onboard more b**ches?

[DodgyAgent]

Went to a wedding at the weekend of one of my contractor buddies. It was a great day and everything went off perfectly.
When I say everything I mean mostly everything. My buddy let it slip to his agent that he was getting hitched and the slimey **** invited himself to the reception.
He was a total @rse, talking loudly about his car and house prices and how many contractors he has working on his 'team' and how they respect him and call him 'the daddy'. He wont be boasting when he reads this and finds out that we peed in his pimms.

I told him to lay off the alcohol

[EternalOptimist]

Went to a wedding at the weekend of one of my contractor buddies. It was a great day and everything went off perfectly.
When I say everything I mean mostly everything. My buddy let it slip to his agent that he was getting hitched and the slimey **** invited himself to the reception.
He was a total @rse, talking loudly about his car and house prices and how many contractors he has working on his 'team' and how they respect him and call him 'the daddy'. He wont be boasting when he reads this and finds out that we peed in his pimms.

[TheBigYinJames]

Yes I am one agent but I believe in best practice. I am sorry if you and others on here have bad experiences but having a go at me is pointless unless i have genuinely let you down, which I don't believe I have.

Not at all, I'm sure you're a good agent. But you did jump to the defence of the agent in this thread, which means you have to take some of his flak too.

[BrilloPad]

It's the paranoia that you might have been out of a job due to your inability to land yourself a gig. When I've spent 2 months snowboarding, even that was suspicious for the bloody scavengers. Being out of contracts for more than 6 months is a stigma you can never get rid of. It's like you had a contagious disease.

in prison

[BarbarianAtTheDoor]

This old bulltulip

It's the paranoia that you might have been out of a job due to your inability to land yourself a gig. When I've spent 2 months snowboarding, even that was suspicious for the bloody scavengers. Being out of contracts for more than 6 months is a stigma you can never get rid of. It's like you had a contagious disease.

This conversation just reinforces my fear that if I went and taught snowboarding for a year until the market picks up again, I'll have serious trouble finding a new role.

There are criminal checks and there are interviews to assess my competence, the rest should not be their business at all.

I understand that it's near impossible to prove that I'm discriminated against on these grounds, but shouldn't this be illegal anyway?

[NotAllThere]

Hi all,

I've just accepted my first contract, ... the prospective employer ...

If you've accepted the contract then the client wants you, so why are you saying "prospective". Have you got the contract or not?

I can't see any earthly reason why anyone would care if you took five months off or why you should validate it. I took on a guy once who'd had a year off, and I certainly didn't need proof that he'd used that year to explore strange and new civilizations.

[Another Dodgy Agent]

I'm not saying some don't, most of them understand their role in the proceedings and once the contract is set up, keep the tulip out of the day-to-day running of the work. The client is the agent's client only for the purposes of introduction - once I've worked there for 6 months or a year, the relationship is one of contractor-client, the agent is only there out of historical contractual arrangement. Most of them understand that, thankfully, and keep their heads down and their cheques cashed while they get on with introductions elsewhere.

Back to this thread, if the client asks an agent to verify a gap in someone's CV, it's the agent's professional duty to inform the contractor that is a requirement from the end client, and not some whim of the agency. We should all be allowed to judge agencies on the amount (or lack of) needless hoops they put in between you and the client, and trying to blur this by making the claim that if the agency asks it must always be the client who is asking is dishonest. The "I'll need 2 references before the interview" is a prime example of where agents will lie through their teeth in the name of what their client wants.

So excuse me if I fail to take what agents say without a large grain of salt. You should always make it clear and be honest which requirements are from the client and which aren't. We find out anyway, once we're more pally with the client than you'll ever be.

ADA is an agent, so has experience of the detailed working practises of exactly ONE agent. I have worked in this game for 15 years, and have known hundreds of agents and the way they work. Sorry if this fact irks ADA, but this inherently makes my observations about how agents behave more relevant than his.

Yes I am one agent but I believe in best practice. I am sorry if you and others on here have bad experiences but having a go at me is pointless unless i have genuinely let you down, which I don't believe I have.

Regarding being pally with a client, I may have just worked for one agency in the last 10 years but because of that my client relationships are very strong. A lot of my contractors and candidates have become clients and I know them fairly well, most are friends. Last weekend I attended the wedding of one of my contractors...