In truth while I sympathise with your situation the Agent is perfectly entitled to decline to deal with umbrella companies not on their preferred supplier list, there's nothing you can do about it.
The usual answers are to start up a MyCo Ltd (which may not be practical for you) or to tell the Agent to get stuffed.
-
BTW when you say suitable for I assume you mean gigs that you have demonstrable experience and have delivered before, not stuff you have an idea of and think you could give it a go?Leave a comment:
-
Leave a comment:
-
Recruiter/Umbrella war
Hi all, I'm so glad I found this forum and it's wealth of information and knowledgeable contributors.
My situation is as follows: I am a recently returned ex-pat who was an IT contractor before I left the UK but worked as a permie when I was overseas.
Since my return a few weeks ago, I have been applying for every contract role online that I felt I was suited to but alas, no bites from my applications. I followed up with calls to a couple of the agencies and was told that as I had been out of the country for several years, I was being overlooked in favour of more current contractors despite my years of experience and qualifications.
One agency did, however, suggest a very low daily rate contract which is almost like an entry position/intern for 3 months which would give me the relevant skillset and specialised experience to come out of it and seek much better contracts on a decent market rate. So, I had a face to face interview with the client and was offered the role immediately.
Now, the next step of finding an umbrella company was interesting. I had a bad experience with a UK umbrella company in 2007 who went bankrupt taking a large chunk of my money with them. The recruitment agency has a PSL with only 2 companies and is pushing me to one of them. I said I wanted to do my own research and conduct due diligence on my preferred umbrella company. That's when it started turning sour...... their PS contacted me several times (harassment) and when I told the agency who my preferred company was, they said they would not work with them for a variety of reasons. I asked one of the directors of my umbrella company to speak to the agency and answer the specific questions, which they did and it was not a pleasant conversation apparently. I don't believe the recruitment company is justified in their attitude to me or the umbrella company.
To cut a long story short, I am inclined to tell the recruiter to stuff the contract (in the hope that I can find something else and not have to associate myself with them again). Has anybody been in a similar situation where a recruiter is forcing the contractor to use their PS only?
Leave a comment: