What not to do

[thunderlizard]

25 year old piles consultant

I wouldn't mind. That's a potential 4 years of clinical piles experience. Surely that's enough for anybody. It's more than I'd want.

[oraclesmith]

The whole article is clearly intended to make contractors play nicely with agents, which is fair enough because it's written by agents. It contains some sage advice and some obvious stuff, but I run my own company thankyou and it's my responsibility to conduct business as I see fit. So there !

What do people think about the bit that says don't...'Speak to end clients about rates!" ? Are they just encouraging professional discretion or trying to hide their cut ?

[wendigo100]

But also what gets my goat, is the way these jumped up salesmen call themselves 'consultants''. They are generally in their 20s - would you trust a consultant to look at your piles say ;-) at the hospital if he was 25?

No, but if she was 25...

[AttitudeAdjuster]

'Consultants'

Expat,

A well done response - it would be nice to see a critique of the whole article in a similar vein.

But also what gets my goat, is the way these jumped up salesmen call themselves 'consultants''. They are generally in their 20s - would you trust a consultant to look at your piles say ;-) at the hospital if he was 25?

[expat]

Well yes, actually. I persuaded someone I know to put his CV up for a job on my team, since he was perfectly qualified to do the work in question at the rate I was offering. His CV never reached my desk

And the agent want us to look "professional"?

[malvolio]

Well yes, actually. I persuaded someone I know to put his CV up for a job on my team, since he was perfectly qualified to do the work in question at the rate I was offering. His CV never reached my desk, and I couldn't chase it from my end: the agent never answered the question either. I wound up with a fairly good alternative but you have to wonder just how much thought goes into the process at both the agency and the HR teams.

[xoggoth]

Utter crap. If you only go with one agency you will obviously only be put forward to clients that that agency provides services to. With regardsto specific advertised positions, even if you know an agency is a preferred supplier for a specific client, how can you be sure that the guy who actually has the main say does not have a very low opinion of them? Are most recruiters really so stupid as not to make the suitability of the candidate the main criterion?

[TheMonkey]

I get that occasionally. Never caused me a problem.

[thunderlizard]

That is true. Any client with half a brain who engages multiple agencies will have a policy for resolving that kind of dispute. If 5 agencies each put forward a CV and it's yours in every case, that must make you look at the top of your game. The only losers are the agencies.

[ratewhore]

Toss - it's the clients fault for placing the role with multiple agents in the first place. **** em!!!

[Andyw]

sounds about right !

[expat]

If your CV arrives into a client from more than one source, it suggests that ... you have been unprofessional ... it has been known that a contractor is completely disregarded if they have engaged a number of consultants to represent them.

Jason D’Silva-Williams, managing consultant at Hudson.

"engaged a number of consultants to represent them"? I like that. Sounds like a good business model.

Doesn´t sound quite the same as "a number of salesmen may or may not be able to put you into a contract, so several of them want your CV in case they manage to be the ones to do it. Each one will tell you that they will put you forward and it would be a disaster for you if anyone else put you forward too. But in fact they may not have put you forward at all, because:
- they don´t have access to the client but they´re hoping to grab you before the preferred supplier does, so they can lever themselves into the chain, or
- they have someone else cheaper for the position, so they don´t want you availabe for it, whether through them or anyone else, or
- they have a completely different role for you that wouldn´t be your first choice, but if you can be kept out of your first choice, you might take that, when nobody else on their books will.".

Tell me I´m an old cynic.