Reply to: Reference Blagging

[Alf W]

I think it would be better all round if Agents just ask for the information openly and honestly up front. What p1sses me off about this is the whole pretence that it's about a specific role or some new regulation requiring advance screening. This gets the goat as (a) it is wasting my time and (b) the idea that some ****-knuckle little Agent thinks I can't spot it a mile off.

It's a fact that those of us too lazy (or busy) to do their own marketing are quiet happy to give Agents the information they need to do their job because ultimately we all benefit. For most places I've contracted my Reference person is not the right person to approach to get their foot in the door anyway.

Ask .. nicely! Then be prepared to give some good information in the other direction.

Wouldn't be half the fun though would it?

[Rebecca Loos]

I'd feel far worse losing one than the other

[AlfredJPruffock]

CVs are a record of a candidates job history and personal information, they are not given to an agency to use as they see fit. There is the issue of data protection here, and of trust. DA has no notion of the word integrity and as such is one of the countless scammers who pervert the recruitment industry.
If he is so confident this is in everyone's interest why the subterfuge, and why not tell us about all of his previous employers when we ring him up. DA is just another shyster on the make - think of him as a Rogue Trader - fixing things that don't need fixing, lying, cheating, scum of the earth. A parasitic leech on the face of employment, an ugly wart on the backside of recruitment.

Honour and Money do not belong in the same purse ...

Spannish Proverb

[DodgyAgent]

Not so wise

In reality most agencys don't seem to have good knowledge of market (especially the large ones) and this is the very reason they are trying to get reference leads out of us. If they did they would not need our leads as they would be out there getting the information for themselves, via marketing, networking and research and then building up good relationships with the clients.


Asking for refernces does not need to banned, what is needed for contractors to stop playing the agents game and giving them out and probably screwing themselves over doing it. Then once agents cannot get contractors to sign up they will drop the requests for refernces, hell most have already.

I could not agree more.

[Not So Wise]

Before i deal with the points you raise first lets look at the core issue, references themselves. These days these are totally worthless because due to legal issues no one in their right mind dares to give a truely honest one, aka a negative one. If the client does that they risk getting sued.

This in it's self invalidated them from the get go for using them to determine if the contractor is any good as all they are likely to get to is either "sorry we don't give references" or a good one.

Now you could say if you get the former response that you could assume that if they did could give one they would give a bad one, but fact is many companys do really actually have this as a policy as the legal advisors for the company don't trust joe blogs manager not to get the company in legal trouble.

Now sometimes the contractor manages to work around this by becoming very friendly with his/her manager who will do it even though it's against company policy, but fact is this is not longer a world where everyone stays in the same job/position/company for life, hell sometimes a contractors manager is yet another contractor.

This exact situation happened to me a few years ago, 2 years working for same company. Was against company policy to give references but my boss told me before i left would be no problem giveing her name out if i needed references.

Only problem was, 3 months after i left she left the company as well, gone who knows where (she like the entire team was also a contractor and project was over). And there is me left with 2 years work and no reference to show for it (pre typed one i had was useless, anyone could fake one of those). Only thing any agency would get from them was a confirmation that i worked for them for 2 years, and that was it.

So before we even get to the blagging for leads we have totally invalidated the official reasoning behind references.

Now to the blagging by agencts, Few years ago after leaving a contract arranged with my boss to keep track of calls he got from agencys that i had given his details to for references (he had become a good friend).

Now till this point his details were not "out there", no agency ever called him because they did not know he existed as he had only transfered from the states office about 3 months before to over a new department (gave his details to about 20 agencys)

17 of these agencys called him (even though all agreed not to unless the client at least reached the request for interview stage, which which only 4 did, and one of those 4 never did call him)

All gave him a sales pitch (two invited him out to lunch)

Rougly two thirds spent more time on the pitch than actually discussing me (hurt my feelings *crys*)

4 never actually mentioned me again after the initial "X gave us your number"

2 never mentioned me at all.

Since then i have only given reference details out once and that was only when i had the offer and contract right in front of me and even then i refused to give more than one even though they wanted two.

Rather than go to one agent you know well, who is well connected and a bit ruthless about getting you a job, just think of the number of agents there would need to be to cover every snippett, every opportunity that existed on the market.

Honestly, this is how most of the market exists already. Sure there are the CP and CF types that have a particular client here and there in the bag but majority are just latching on to everything and anything they can.

Now imagine that agents were prohibited from coercing information in this way. There would be many many more of us all armed with only tiny (relatively) bits of information, none of us would have a really good knowledge of the market.

In reality most agencys don't seem to have good knowledge of market (especially the large ones) and this is the very reason they are trying to get reference leads out of us. If they did they would not need our leads as they would be out there getting the information for themselves, via marketing, networking and research and then building up good relationships with the clients.

Asking for refernces does not need to banned, what is needed for contractors to stop playing the agents game and giving them out and probably screwing themselves over doing it. Then once agents cannot get contractors to sign up they will drop the requests for refernces, hell most have already.

[DodgyAgent]

CVs are a record of a candidates job history and personal information, they are not given to an agency to use as they see fit. There is the issue of data protection here, and of trust. DA has no notion of the word integrity and as such is one of the countless scammers who pervert the recruitment industry.
If he is so confident this is in everyone's interest why the subterfuge, and why not tell us about all of his previous employers when we ring him up. DA is just another shyster on the make - think of him as a Rogue Trader - fixing things that don't need fixing, lying, cheating, scum of the earth. A parasitic leech on the face of employment, an ugly wart on the backside of recruitment.

Look here sausagejockey or whatever your name is, you are one righteous *****. I never said that what I did was good bad evil legal or illegal. I am just telling it is as, in my opinion, it is. And you never know, this information may just help some of the contractors who are constantly being asked to provide such information to deal with agencies.

[Jabberwocky]

CVs are a record of a candidates job history and personal information, they are not given to an agency to use as they see fit. There is the issue of data protection here, and of trust. DA has no notion of the word integrity and as such is one of the countless scammers who pervert the recruitment industry.
If he is so confident this is in everyone's interest why the subterfuge, and why not tell us about all of his previous employers when we ring him up. DA is just another shyster on the make - think of him as a Rogue Trader - fixing things that don't need fixing, lying, cheating, scum of the earth. A parasitic leech on the face of employment, an ugly wart on the backside of recruitment.

[DodgyAgent]

quite right

If agents were less brutal about it and didn't abuse referees (spoiling the relationship with former colleagues) then contractors would be more willing to share information.

Naively, if a client has a resource need, surely they contact a couple of agencies and let them know?

You are quite right voron.

As far as getting business is concerned it is a numbers game. Often the hirer cannot find good enough people through their two chosen agencies, or they get someone they like the sound of on the phone (or who they dont like the sound off, but give him the requirement just to shut him up.. thats how I do it ).

[DodgyAgent]

Not sure I agree with you on this one DA.

Surely, if agents didn't farm contractors for contacts then it would come down to, essentially, the same sales game other markets play, i.e. relationship building with the customer. In fact, the best agents I know are those who build solid relationships with their customers so that they end up in a better position as the customer always comes to them first.

As far as market knowledge is concerned, how does this increase by getting a name off a contractor then calling him? That's not market knowledge. Market knowledge is keeping an eye on what companies win deals, working out where the resourcing requirements are likely to be. And market knowledge is also having an appreciation of what the skills the contractors have mean!!

Just my 2p's worth, IMHO, DYOR etc etc

I do agree with you, however as an agent you need to know not only what is happening but who the key people are. It is no use building relationships with people who are never going to give you business. You need to know who to engage.

This is how sales works:

To be effective you need to know who is hiring at any one time. I have blagged references in the past, not as a general trawling exercise but to pinpoint certain precise information. If I wanted to get into a client, and I could not find the decision maker through normal channels I would look up CVs of people who had already/presently/previously worked there. I would then call the manager on the reference, or I would call the contractor and use my scintillating charm to extract the information from him/them.

If I am selling an individual I would go to my database and find out which companies operated in similar technical/business arenas as the contractor. To find decision makers I would either chase the reference or call another contractor who had worked there in the past.

The point of this is that I am calling people all day, and it may be that the CV that I am as you say "farming" becomes a starting point for talking to the client. The key is to get the client to talk to you. Quite often I would pick up requirements for people with other skills.... "Yes he sounds interesting, but that is not the skill I am looking for" to which I would say "well what are you looking for?" and "If I can will you?" blah blah.

So references/CVs are full of useful information. The key is how you extract and use this information.

These things work both ways. If you are asked to fill a job, you need to know where to find the best people, yes by all means use jobserve, but you should also be talking to people where people with the best skills have worked in the past. Again you need to engage clients and contractors alike, so references can also be used for finding people with skills.. though I admit most agents are too idle to do anything other than stick the jobs on jobserve.

[Clownio]

Yes thanks - it was in my drawer all along.

How stupid did I feel ?

Thanks for your concern though.

[steve'O]

What was the question again ?

Did you find your pen?

[Clownio]

What was the question again ?

[BoredBloke]

I would say that if as a contractor I benefit from it then it is a good thing but I'm not going to know when that happens. An agent is not likely to state that the role they are submitting you for was scammed from another contractor. However what you tend to see is the opposite effect. The agent scams a lead and effectively increasees competition for a particular role. When I first started out in the game, I freely told agents who I was up with and where until I sussed out what they were doing. Now I refuse to give over this type of information. Why should I give an agent a lead for a role which I am already up for and reduce my own chances of landing it?

[voron]

If agents were less brutal about it and didn't abuse referees (spoiling the relationship with former colleagues) then contractors would be more willing to share information.

Naively, if a client has a resource need, surely they contact a couple of agencies and let them know?

[ratewhore]

Not sure I agree with you on this one DA.

Surely, if agents didn't farm contractors for contacts then it would come down to, essentially, the same sales game other markets play, i.e. relationship building with the customer. In fact, the best agents I know are those who build solid relationships with their customers so that they end up in a better position as the customer always comes to them first.

As far as market knowledge is concerned, how does this increase by getting a name off a contractor then calling him? That's not market knowledge. Market knowledge is keeping an eye on what companies win deals, working out where the resourcing requirements are likely to be. And market knowledge is also having an appreciation of what the skills the contractors have mean!!

Just my 2p's worth, IMHO, DYOR etc etc