Reply to: The most respected recruiter in London

[cykophysh39]

Rubbish, if you're good at what you do, your clients can find you. Through recommendations of other technical people, though LinkedIn or googling, or whatever.

Maybe clients don't do enough of that right now, but if there were no agents, they would be forced to. And they would get better results.

No place for agents at all.

This may be true! but it takes time to clock up enough contacts for this to happen. Eventually this does happen though. Sites like LinkedIn have become nothing more than the new "jobserve" I get more hits to my page from Agents than I do any other. The reality of the situation is that most potential hiring managers don't bother looking for potential candidates by themselves, due to time restraints. They usually farm this task out to HR, who in turn farm it out to Agents. I must admit it that I have done this in the past, when I've need people, I usually make the calls to my contact book, and once I've confirmed everyone thats worth taking on, are in contract due to the fact that they are good at what they do, I end up bringing in an agent. This is pure and simply because I don't want to spending time to trawl linkedin for potential's. I'd happily leave that to an agent.

The fact is that most people have a "vanilla" linked in profiles, all claiming to be "highly motivated", "hard working" , "highly experienced" blah blah blah, in order to sort any wheat from the chaff, would take me an inordinate amount of time, phoning, emailing yada yada. I'd just as well farm this out to recruiters, To get me the "top 10 available" on the market I do an internal sift to 3/5 that I would like to interview, and pick 1 from that.

That my friend is the reality of it. Most hiring managers don't know that you're the potential "expert" in your niche, they won't know you as the go to go, majority of the time they are blissfully unaware of your existence.

I view agents, as one of the tools in my marketing department. They are just one of the resources I use to get work. I don't spend too much time worrying about if they are evil or not, frankly I've got other things to worry about.

[darrenb]

A neccessary evil in the Contractor,
...
Spread the love people we need agents! maybe not as many as are actually out there, but we do need them. Unless you want to spend hours of your day calling every company in the phone book, asking them if they need some sort of IT job doing. An agent is nothing more than your company's Business Development Manager, it would cost you money to hire one!

Rubbish, if you're good at what you do, your clients can find you. Through recommendations of other technical people, though LinkedIn or googling, or whatever.

Maybe clients don't do enough of that right now, but if there were no agents, they would be forced to. And they would get better results.

No place for agents at all.

[cykophysh39]

A neccessary evil in the Contractor, at the end of the day I stopped worrying about agents years ago. I really don't care, I see them as nothing more than an avenue to get a gig. Think of them as your own persoanl telemarketing service. You haggle rates, as you will with any other business venture. So they get a little money!

Spread the love people we need agents! maybe not as many as are actually out there, but we do need them. Unless you want to spend hours of your day calling every company in the phone book, asking them if they need some sort of IT job doing. An agent is nothing more than your company's Business Development Manager, it would cost you money to hire one!

[d000hg]

That would go under the title 'Why contractors are twats' wouldn't it?

I think contractors complaining about agents is a bit of a glass houses situation... if you take CUK as a cross section then contractors are money-grubbing swine who don't give two hoots about their clients as long as they can squeeze cash out of them. Which is exactly how we describe agents.

[Lewis]

Well, I guess you've learned that lesson now. You should never be afraid of cancelling interviews if it becomes apparent for any reason that it would only be wasting your and their time for you to attend. This is particularly so if you didn't ask for the interview in the first place.

It never pays to play along with a recruiter that has failed to listen when you have clearly said "no thankyou". Chances are everything else they had to say about the job came through that same "say anything to get them into the interview room" filter that some agents unfortunately seem to have hard-wired into their brain.

Yep, all true, I should add that this was not recently by the way. I've been contracting for over 15 years and this happened in the early days. I was just sharing an example of agent dodgyness.

[Gentile]

The point was that you can't trust agents an inch. They can submit your CV even when you say no.

In retrospect I shouldn't have bothered to attend. It was a bad call. But to be fair the interviewer also shouldn't have called me to have a go when I declined. I am clearly under no obligation to accept the role.

I *suspect* the agent made out I was really, really keen which is why the client was so shocked I said no. Either way they should have just left it in my opinion.

Anyway that won't happen again.

Well, I guess you've learned that lesson now. You should never be afraid of cancelling interviews if it becomes apparent for any reason that it would only be wasting your and their time for you to attend. This is particularly so if you didn't ask for the interview in the first place.

It never pays to play along with a recruiter that has failed to listen when you have clearly said "no thankyou". Chances are everything else they had to say about the job came through that same "say anything to get them into the interview room" filter that some agents unfortunately seem to have hard-wired into their brain.

[Lewis]

That would go under the title 'Why contractors are twats' wouldn't it?

Actually, I think the majority of your posts would fall far more neatly into that category.

[Lewis]

You lost me here. You can't blame the client really, can you?

The point was that you can't trust agents an inch. They can submit your CV even when you say no.

In retrospect I shouldn't have bothered to attend. It was a bad call. But to be fair the interviewer also shouldn't have called me to have a go when I declined. I am clearly under no obligation to accept the role.

I *suspect* the agent made out I was really, really keen which is why the client was so shocked I said no. Either way they should have just left it in my opinion.

Anyway that won't happen again.

[d000hg]

Pleas explain the phrase "respected recruiter", I can't seem to find it in my memory banks.

People are people in every industry.

[MrMark]

Pleas explain the phrase "respected recruiter", I can't seem to find it in my memory banks.

[Ignis Fatuus]

The most respected recruiter in London

Pleas explain the phrase "respected recruiter", I can't seem to find it in my memory banks.

[TestMangler]

"I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar"

Normally, you don't need an agent for those types of gigs.....

[northernladuk]

Here's mine ...

Agent describes role over phone, I say "not intersted, sounds boring". Agent calls next day saying I have an interview, "oh sorry, I thought you said submit it, you might as well go along now, treat it as interview practice etc.." blahh blahh. I was out of contract at the time and the client was good so I went along. Interview went well but I could tell it was as boring project. Agent calls and I have an offer. I politely decline. Interviewer then phones me on mobile, really annoyed "Why did you come for interview if you're not intersted?". Politely got out of it all without too much damage but I'll never attend an interview "for practice" again plus never deal with the agent again - who still calls me! She knew full well I said no and submitted anyway.

That would go under the title 'Why contractors are twats' wouldn't it?

[MaryPoppins]

Here's mine ...

Agent describes role over phone, I say "not intersted, sounds boring". Agent calls next day saying I have an interview, "oh sorry, I thought you said submit it, you might as well go along now, treat it as interview practice etc.." blahh blahh. I was out of contract at the time and the client was good so I went along. Interview went well but I could tell it was as boring project. Agent calls and I have an offer. I politely decline. Interviewer then phones me on mobile, really annoyed "Why did you come for interview if you're not intersted?". Politely got out of it all without too much damage but I'll never attend an interview "for practice" again plus never deal with the agent again - who still calls me! She knew full well I said no and submitted anyway.

You lost me here. You can't blame the client really, can you?

[Lewis]

Here's mine ...

Agent describes role over phone, I say "not intersted, sounds boring". Agent calls next day saying I have an interview, "oh sorry, I thought you said submit it, you might as well go along now, treat it as interview practice etc.." blahh blahh. I was out of contract at the time and the client was good so I went along. Interview went well but I could tell it was as boring project. Agent calls and I have an offer. I politely decline. Interviewer then phones me on mobile, really annoyed "Why did you come for interview if you're not intersted?". Politely got out of it all without too much damage but I'll never attend an interview "for practice" again plus never deal with the agent again - who still calls me! She knew full well I said no and submitted anyway.