Reply to: Inspired Recruitment - experiences

[Spacecadet]

Why are newbies resurrecting old posts?

Most forums berate newbies for creating new threads and not using the search facility!

[Jeebo72]

Total take home is about £53k minus Tax, NI, Student Loans etc etc.
TAV

Man I wouldn't get out of bed for that ... you now have my sympathy...

[NotAllThere]

Why are newbies resurrecting old posts?

[Fat Dave]

In my experience 22% is high but nowhere near the max. I've contracted through more than 1 agency who mark up 50% and more. As long as I'm getting a decent rate I try to be brave and live with it.

Doesn't stop me trying to get a bit more at renewal time though.

An auctioneer will charge you 25% to flog your old sideboard.

[Joner39]

"you guys really should stop thinking that agencies are taking your money - they're actually being paid by the client"

NOt entirely accurate.......

Scenario:
Client has budget of £50 an hour for an IT Contractor. Agency X has contractor available at £45 - 10% for the Agent - Perfectly fine as far as I am concerned. Agency Y find out about this role and "steal" the role from Agency X for £45 an hour, forcing same claibre of contractors to do the same work for £5 an hour less. Client saves £5 per hour. Contractor loses £5 per hour - Agent?? No different, they still get a fiver!! Most of these agents have done nothing but make one or two phone cals and they'll get £5 an hour for the next 3 months. Most of my contracts have been 12months +.

At the end of the day, its a dog eat dog world but the market becam flooded with agents back in the Y2K days offering clients a cheaper service but they were getting the money from the final cut offered to the contractor, NOT the client. If a client has £50 an hour budget, then they have £50 an hour - End of story. Agents would tout for business by claiming to get same calibre for less money.... not always true.

I've been contracting for some 11 years now and, like the rest of you, I could tell some horror stories. There are some dam good recruitment consultants/agecies out there but they make up less than 10%. They are now pimps, nothing but pimps..........

I dont care what markup they make but remember, that mark up leaves them with what they offer you.

[sparkymark]

I fail to see why so many contractors are complaining. I've contracted for a long time & really couldn't care less what the agency bill & what their staff earn.

I apply for a post with an idea on the rate I require, after factoring in travel, accomodation, etc. If I beat that rate then great, if I match it that's fine & if the offer falls below my target then I reject it & take an alternate contract. If an agency offers to low a rate because their skim off is to great then they lose the deal & therefore the income. Regardless, I ultimately enter a contract that pays me what I expect to earn.

When you go shopping, you don't ask the shop what their mark up is. You buy it if the price suits you & look elsewhere if it doesn't. Why is this different?

[skwdenyer]

That just freaks me out. A company that has to borrow so much to manage payroll - yes I'm sure it happens at lot - but then they just need to loose one invoice from client and they are under and I don't get paid. Too risky for me - how do you value a company that can be here today gone tomorrow?

I'll be glad when this recession takes out a number of dodgy companies - it's not the way to operate IMO.

My company does not borrow never has done never will yet I manage to pay my employees every month and could do for a god quarter before trouble came calling.

Well, first and foremost, you should take out credit insurance to protect yourself against creditors going under. An agent is just another creditor. If you don't protect yourself then there we are.

Furthermore, how can agencies expand without credit? Many use factoring (and insure their invoices) but you're quite right, a few bad clients on their side and everything goes pear shaped. But then, you don't have to use an agent - it is your choice.

But I absolutely refute the suggestion that an agent who borrows for payroll is by definition "dodgy". That is, I'm afraid, total nonsense.

[scooterscot]

11% margin is very good, and what your agent told you about "borrowing" the money for payrolling the contractors is correct. A good percentage of that 11% will be going straight to the bank as interest on overdraft.
!

That just freaks me out. A company that has to borrow so much to manage payroll - yes I'm sure it happens at lot - but then they just need to loose one invoice from client and they are under and I don't get paid. Too risky for me - how do you value a company that can be here today gone tomorrow?

I'll be glad when this recession takes out a number of dodgy companies - it's not the way to operate IMO.

My company does not borrow never has done never will yet I manage to pay my employees every month and could do for a god quarter before trouble came calling.

[scooterscot]

Vaseline on standby...

[Crusoe101]

im currently working on/pimped out at a 21% agency fee

[skwdenyer]

11% margin is very good, and what your agent told you about "borrowing" the money for payrolling the contractors is correct. A good percentage of that 11% will be going straight to the bank as interest on overdraft.

My only criticism would be that they don't take the subbies out for beer often enough!

For those who don't get the joke, the clue to the second might be in the first Back "in the day", some of the contractors' parties were legendary, for people like Best People and so on. But then again, at 20-25%, they could afford to be. It is surprising, but often those charging the smaller margins make the most profit, simply because they don't spend so much on beer

[BlightyBoy]

I've worked with Inspired, and have to say that I have had a good experience with them in the past.

11% margin is very good, and what your agent told you about "borrowing" the money for payrolling the contractors is correct. A good percentage of that 11% will be going straight to the bank as interest on overdraft.

I once had a role with Inspired where they were able to acheive below 11% margin by getting the client to agree to a higher rate on a second contractor, and reclaim the difference on that, so very accomodating (if you know who to talk to).

My only criticism would be that they don't take the subbies out for beer often enough!

[skwdenyer]

I was a permanent consultant a lot of years ago. I'm not currently in that market. Since then I've run several "real" businesses.

To those contractors who begrudge agents' fees, instead try to work out how much it would cost to have an in-house sales capability for your skills. Or, indeed, how much it would cost to outsource your sales capability to a third-party sales operation.

Or, perhaps put another way, if you'd like to do it yourself, how many non-productive days would you have to spend each year to line up contracts and keep in touch with enough contacts to allow that to happen?

The key thing, I believe, is transparency. You should have a relationship with your agent whereby you both agree what the total selling price to the client should be. I believe agents should charge contractors, not clients, but the law does not allow this - which is partly why the industry is so poor. If TAV can secure better, and better-paying, contracts at 22% mark-up, then that is fine. But you, the contractor, ought to be able to say "I think the total sale price is too high, I may lose this contract, let's reduce the fee".

I don't believe that agents are, per se, a sign of an inefficient marketplace, any more than it is a sign of weakness for Red Bull to be sold through retailers rather than online. There are a great many inefficiencies in the system - not least contractors hawking their CVs to any agent with a pulse, causing agents to waste time (which must be paid-for out of margin) talking about roles which the contractor is already talking to somebody else about.

Overall, I much prefer TAV's approach; so long as he/she can deliver the goods, then this approach is much closer to the "normal" business model of "here's the product [me]: sell it".

What does surprise me, however, is that, with so much competition in the agent market, and so few contractors finding or establishing "new ways" to find work, that there is so much bad feeling around.

So, rather than sniping at TAV, how about something constructive? Without vitriol or spite, can you (dear reader) list those things they dislike about agents? And also those things you do like? Let's see if we can find some common ground and maybe, just maybe, the current economic climate might provide an opportunity for something to be done about it.

[The Agents View]

You are full of shi**, any agent worth his salt would not be spending hours on this board trying to convince everyone how good he is.

Posts: 4,940

[DodgyAgent]

Do you mean Hans Christian Anderson?

If so - no - I just want to oust the dodgy agents of this world from the recruitment industry - If every contractor then expects this level of service from their agency, then ultimately you'll go bust, and I'll still be here

Not that I hate dodgy agents or anything - just the ones who take the business that I want, and then don't deliver on it properly.

You are full of shi**, any agent worth his salt would not be spending hours on this board trying to convince everyone how good he is.