Reply to: Agency (Mal)practices

[Not So Wise]

'business model does not include treating contractors in a professional manner'

Very strange comment. I thought that contractors were clients of agents? - or is this an example of the great British Customer Service?

For agencys:

The one who hands over the money to them = Client

One who earns that money for them = Fool to take advanatage of if they can get away with it


Not how it should be, but it is the way how it is

[threaded]

Yeah, like most agents can even read that lot, never mind understand, and vanishingly unlikely to follow.

[zathras]

ICTIS Guidelines

I wonder how many agents realise that when they call you with an offer they are governed under Guidelines from ICSTIS (Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of the Telephone Information Services - see http://www.icstis.org.uk/about/default.asp ).

Which includes such gems as...

The Employment Agencies Act 1973 prevents the charging of fees to persons for finding or seeking to find them work, whether employed or self-employed, subject to certain exceptions. The service provider element of the premium rate charge amounts to a fee for this purpose, and therefore such services will usually be in breach of paragraph 4.1 of the Code of Practice.
.
.
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In order to avoid being deemed misleading by the Committee under paragraph 4.3.1 of the Code of Practice, the promotional material associated with the services in this category should:
• correspond to genuine vacancies and/or opportunities, the existence of which should be fully substantiated on request,
• not be likely to mislead a caller as to the conditions, necessary qualifications or availability or extent of any potential employment or business opportunity,
• make no claims relating to earnings unless the evidence that such earnings are currently and regularly attained by existing employees or equivalent is readily available,

Guideline effective from 1 January 2004

• clearly state any additional expenditure, including any investments, that may be required over and above the cost of the telephone call,
• state the type of work to be done and its geographical location,
• state the number of workers required,
• state the basis and level of remuneration and, where known, the level of earnings that may realistically be expected.

[DaveB]

No, No, No,

The Koreans know how to do it. Stir Fried, Sezchaun style!

[expat]

it's a Giant Alien Lizard eat Dog world.

Just ask Churchill...


Particularly tasty when boiled by the way...

That's barbaric! But typical of the British.


It should be sautéed with garlic and shallotts, and finished with a red wine sauce

J. Chirac.

[expat]

'business model does not include treating contractors in a professional manner'

Very strange comment. I thought that contractors were clients of agents?

No more than double-glazed windows are clients of double-glazing salesmen.

Contractors are just raw materials. Clients (as in "companies who pay agents") are the clients.

[Fungus]

It may be a strange comment but it is a reality. Agents understand one basic rule, which is that contractors like everyone else are driven entirely by self interest. In other words if it is the job for them then they do not really give a damn which agency they go through.

Dixons (and I have mentioned this before) used to give a very poor after sales service. Why? because they were the only store on the high street selling electrical goods. Why on earth therefore should they provide a serice that is unnecessary?

Successful businesses understand their market. If you lot want pink and fluffy attention then go and see a shrink.

Actually I don't agree with the statement that I and other contractors are driven entirely by self interest. I and most other contractors that I have worked with do a professional job, which means creating design documents, allowing others to maintain the work after we have gone, helping permies to understand our work, and doing proper coding. The unprofessional self interested approach would be to avoid documenting the work, and to create code that is opaque and unintelligible by others. And when negotating with clients I don't tulip on them. And clients in turn have been good to me.

I think the problem with many/most agents comes from the short term nature of the relationship between th candidate (job seeker) and the agent. They know that if they get a bum on a seat, they get a decent wodge, so they will do whatever it takes to get the candidate to go for interview. If the job is completely unsuitable, and the candidate wastes a day, they don't lose anything. If they piss off 9 people, but 1 person gets a job through them, that's a home run.

The only way to improve things is if companies who are recruiting impose their will on the agents, and refuse to deal with ones who are unprofessional.

IMO treating people with respect pays off in the long term.

Though I suppose our society does lure the young to think of the world as one big fluffy bunny pleasure paradise rather than the scary competitive dog eat dog place it often is.

[sonu]

Totally disagree. Agents are 'middle men' who on the whole have no knowledge of IT or the industry they recruit for.

They make money from clients and contractors and so should be provide a level of service to the contractors they make money from.

[DodgyAgent]

'business model does not include treating contractors in a professional manner'

Very strange comment. I thought that contractors were clients of agents? - or is this an example of the great British Customer Service?

It may be a strange comment but it is a reality. Agents understand one basic rule, which is that contractors like everyone else are driven entirely by self interest. In other words if it is the job for them then they do not really give a damn which agency they go through.

Dixons (and I have mentioned this before) used to give a very poor after sales service. Why? because they were the only store on the high street selling electrical goods. Why on earth therefore should they provide a serice that is unnecessary?

Successful businesses understand their market. If you lot want pink and fluffy attention then go and see a shrink.

[mcquiggd]

I suppose the flipside of the coin is that if we've got a contract whenever an agent calls us at home or on our mobile and leaves a message with an 'urgent' request, we can't be arsed to reply. Agents don't seem to bother though, they just think it's part of the job. We should do the same.

Depends if she is cute, and you are single.

[sonu]

'business model does not include treating contractors in a professional manner'

Very strange comment. I thought that contractors were clients of agents? - or is this an example of the great British Customer Service?

[TinTin]

Not really bothered

I suppose the flipside of the coin is that if we've got a contract whenever an agent calls us at home or on our mobile and leaves a message with an 'urgent' request, we can't be arsed to reply. Agents don't seem to bother though, they just think it's part of the job. We should do the same.

[DodgyAgent]

Most agents are dishonest thieving lying tulipes.

Indeed they are. But they adopt a business model that works, and that business model does not include treating contractors in a professional manner. These agencies are run by the number of phone calls that their workers make in a day to clients and contractors. Indulging contractors in trivia such as returning calls, telling them that they have not got the job is a waste of valuable selling time.

If you find a treasure lying amongst all the tulip then maybe you could help them by putting business their way, then and only then will the spivy gypsies be removed from the industry.

[Fungus]

As for the idea that you are insulted because they do not give you a courtesy call to say you have not got the job, blimey, that's a bit trivial.

It is normal for an agent to lie about the nature of a company and the work. They sometimes send people to jobs that they don't have a hope in hell of getting because they have no idea what the terms on the CV mean. They will tell you that it is a big company if you are looking for a big company, even if it is a small company.

As a recent example, I was contacted by an agent about a company called Detica. They are respected, but they sounded a lot like Smiths Associates, who have interviewed me on 5 separate occasions. SA was not to my taste being mainly Oxbridge wunderkind. So I asked the agent if Detica used to be SA. He said he would ask them. He got back to me and said "No, they were not SA." Well I checked on Companies House, and they were once known as SA. So that was a blatant lie. He obviously had not checked with them.

Another agent asked me about a telecoms company called Symbian. I said I was not interested since I knew some of the directors from my Psion days and they were pretty unpleasant. The agent assured me that they were fantastic to work for with great career progress. I did not believe him. A few months later I met several people who had worked at Symbian. Both independently said that Symbian have a massive problem of staff turnover due to a very poor work environment, and inter-staff abuse is commonplace. They even had to put up a sign telling staff to treat others as they would want to be treated. So the agent was telling fairy tales. (Obvious really.)

And 10 years ago an agent told me about a job south of London. So I went, paid £100 for a train fare, and took a day off work, only to find that they wanted a Unix programmer, and I was Windoze. And the get was rude to me afterwards.

Most agents are dishonest thieving lying tulipes.

[Fungus]

Agents are more often than not lying thieving useless tosspots. Think sub-Dixons salesperson and you'll get the picture. All they care about is the fee they will earn from a successful sale. The idea of service is alien to the greedy grubby gets.

And to be an agent you don't need much intelligence or skill. Just the ability to bulltulip and leave your integrity on a peg by the door.

My agent have for the third time sent my renewal contract to the wrong address, and then pestered me for not returning it on time. Bunch of twats. I know that the client was pissed off last time and gave them an earfu. as I am needed on a critical project.

Like job agents, estate agents are legally obliged to advertise only houses/flats that are on the market. I spent a week walking round Luton, checking out local papers and windows discovering that none of the flats advertised were available, and had in fact gone months if not years ago. Lying feckers. And the agent I rent a flat from is completely dishonest. Late one evening in the middle of Winter soon after moving in I suffered a power cut. Fiddling around in the fuse box I found that the electricity was on a card meter and the credit was zero. And I had no card. Despite the fact that I rang the agent before moving in to check on the electricity and was told it was normal metered usage with a monthly bill. In the middle of fecking Winter in a cold flat with no light or heat. And when confronted he said they changed to a card meter just before I moved in. Lying twat.

If only the government paid as much attention to prosecuting malpractice by agents as they do to screwing ever more money out of us lot.

Mind you, there are decent agents out there.