Be Excellent To Each Other

They do nothing. Years back the addeccos and Reeds were always shit but even the upmarket specialist agencies are exactly the same.

I'm signed up with all of them. They phone you and ask would you consider x, have you got experience y etc when you've already gone through all that with them, then they say the job isn't 100% certain and they'll call you back, then they don't. So you call them, and they say they're waiting for the bloke to get back to them and they'll call you. Then they don't.

They have no understanding of a very complex field, then say they're altering your CV to improve it and make me more attractive to the employer, when the best way of doing that would be me talking to the employer.

Registered with one just down the road 2 weeks ago. Told them I needed my calls to landline as I've no mobile reception at home. Went through my (very considerable) skills and experience and explained I'd be willing to do a fairly huge commute to work. Worth pointing out here that I know for a fact the ambient level of qualification and experience where I'm living is miles below what I've got. There's just not many jobs about at all presently. So today, I'm looking at a job advertised the next town over, 2 months contract, doing exactly what I'm best suited to do. Under that - please contact Governmentyard's agency person on blah blah blah. Ad posted yesterday some time after I had already looked at that site. I phone my rep, they say they don't know why they didn't consider me for it, would phone and get back to me. So I sit, and wait, and nothing. Go to play some Halo, notice a voicemail on my mobile.Takes me ten mins to get a signal, finally get back through. Apparently it's been filled already (how exactly, with a closing date of the 12th?) but the person he'd been told has got the job he then contacts, and that person knows nothing about it. So I'll get a call in the morning.

I'm going fucking spare here. Nerves can't take much more of this bollocks. When I'm prime minister, I'm making these p[aces illegal. If someone wants to employ a person they can do it their fucking selves and cut out all this needless, expensive, wasteful bullshit.

It's a council job they're already filled before they advertise it, you know that.

Sorry you're in this situation though

Ah, but it isn't, otherwise I'd be philosophical.

I had an employment agency call me the other day... the conversation went like this*

Twat - "Hi Mr TheVision, I've just been reading through your CV and I think I have the ideal job for you.. erm.. what is it you do again?"
TheVision - "I work in marketing..."
Twat - "Ah, yes.. I have the job here.. (guy fumbles around, I can hear him rustling paperwork) it's a marketing assistant job"
TheVision - "That's good, but I'm at manager level. It says so on my CV"
Twat - "Ok. But you'd still consider it?"
TheVision - "Where is it?"
Twat - "Where are you based?"
TheVision - "(Parts unknown) It says on my CV"
Twat - "Ok, the job is in (place 2 hours away)"
TheVision - "No thanks"

Clearly he lied. He hadn't read my CV at all!

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent

*re-reads*
Ah. The dicks.

TBH I blame the employers for using them in the first place. My last voluntary sector employer did away with agencies entirely and instead interviewed loads of people at once, creating a pool of relief workers they could use when needed to cover these short-term posts. It worked out fine.

Miss Malabar had her agency ring her up, telling her to stop rocking the boat, keep her head down and stop complaining when she had the audacity to ask her manager why she was paid 30p an hour less than the lads she works with, doing a job that requires more qualifications, experience, effort and skills.

The number of times she's also been told ‘We'll give you a ring’ then heard absolutely nothing correlates well with your experiences, GY

I could be wrong, but I think companies can get grants if they hire people through agencies and jobcentres.

At least, that's the excuse Miss Malabar's company are using for not hiring her properly, leaving her on a salary that seems to be massively absorbed by agency fees.

Agencies have managed to get me zero jobs in 5 or so years.

They're not very useful, aside from occasionally phoning to check I still wanted a job.

That's your problem. You want one or two really good ones that specialise in the industry you're in.

As with most any company, you also need to find the one person working there who both cares and knows what the fuck they're doing. Note that having more than one on staff at any time is illegal for companies with fewer than 30 employeers.

As someone who has needed to hire staff, I couldn't do it withou the agencies we use. I've got a job to do, so don't have the time to sort through the thousands of applications that would result from a direct widely advertised position. We have in-house HR, but they haven't got a fucking clue about the field we'd be hiring in, so their input is pretty much a waste of time.

So we use agencies. Specialist ones, who know that if I ask for an XYZ, they need to look for CVs that have A, B, and C on them. Their hit rate is generally pretty good. From an employee's side you need to find the right agency - and usually the best way to do that is to talk to other people that have the sort of jobs you want, and ask who they got the job through.

One of them just got in contact with me about a job that I could do. So I'm pretty happy atm, and waiting for my .pdf CV to arrive through the email.

Heh, same experiences here in my past. That and turning up to a job 'assignment' and being sent away immediately because the work has been sourced in-house. Or being sworn at my agency staff. Or universal illegal breaches of the DDA. Cunts, the lot of them.

It depends on the agency you've signed up with. As Craster says, choose one that specializes in what you want to do/skills you have.

Blue Arrow, for example, I found are purely for call centres and catering. Office Angels is self-explanatory.

The ones I found best:
Reed - their website, at least, had lots of really good stuff from all sorts of disciplines.
Randstad - they found me about four excellent positions the moment I went in and registered. I didn't get any but actually being interviewed was a huge step forward

However, the one that worked out best for me was a local, independent place. They got me an ongoing temp/contract job in an interesting/challenging role (a computer components company!) and then got me my job with Arriva.

Which makes me think of two things: First of all, consider looking at companies and places you wouldn't normally consider. You'd be surprised what sort of jobs there are that you'd love to do but just haven't considered doing... or even knew existed. My job, for example, I would have never thought existed, but at the same time it's something they could never really advertise genuinely externally as someone would have to be doing something within the business to a certain degree to have any hope of comprehending it. So maybe look at a company that has jobs you do want, and get something with them that you can do (and tolerate/enjoy doing) and then apply internally once you're established.

Apologies if any of that sounded obvious or patronizing, but I've found that unless you have incredibly specialist skills AND the incredible good luck to be looking for a job when an agency advertises for it, you're better off getting something more general from them and then looking to move further into that company into something better.

No such thing, hence I'm with all of them. All being about 5.

That's pretty much our experience too. Although when you've contacted an agency once, that's it, from then on they'll phone you every few weeks to see if your require more staff, despite you telling them last time not to bother asking for at least six months. If we did require staff, we'd get in touch, not sit around waiting for the phone to ring.

Nothing beats my experience.... We are expanding my team, and asked agencies for CVs.... The fuckers sent mine in

Luckily my boss saw the funny side..

All the jobs round here used to be in the local paper, everyone knew what was going and there was no confusion, now it is across a number of different sites and agencies, but everyone I know in the sector get their job before the agencies were used.

There's no 'finding the right person' inside the agency, as I have to go with whomever is the 'expert' in my field in my region. Usually they have no idea what I do.

I've looked at all the general work agencies like reed etc, it's all contact centre, purchase ledger, sales or accounting. None of which I can do, I've half a decade's experience across a number of jobs in banking, up to management level, but oddly enough this last couple of years there's been no jobs whatsoever in this field.

There's always jobs going at Westcott credit services but you have to draw the line somewhere.

There was a genius moment where my wife, also with the 'industry leading experts' put in for a senior management post, waited and heard nothing. Phoning back to get some feedback on why she'd not been shortlisted for interview, the response was "oh, you have - didn't anyone call you?". Then she got sent a list of all her fellow interviewees names and addresses. Then on the day of the interview she was phoned and asked mum-style "have you remembered to take such-and-such". At the level she works, if a client needed reminding of that shit they shouldn't be on the bloody books.

I'm sure in some sectors, such as IT, there are good specialist agencies, but for the voluntary sector, in substance misuse and mental health and homelessness, there aren't. But that doesn't stop organisations using them to try and save money. This would be fine, but it's MY money and YOUR money being paid in commission to these middle-men who don't really do anything other than give a less detailed account of me to employers than I could give myself if I had the chance.

That's a splendid story, KovacsC - I may be forced to steal that and pass it off as my own in future conversation.

Brilliantly, I am now employed - excellent temp post through an agency. But not the job they sent me for, nor am I the client the organisation thought they were interviewing, nor is it the hours or salary I agreed to initially. Also brilliantly the employer and I all use the same three or four agencies and had similar experience with the lot - and offered to get me the other job I thought I was going for if I preferred that one. Were it not in Scarborough I'd have accepted.

Then I get home and find I'm invited to an interview for a much posher job paying twice as much, halfway through my second week. Rude not to, I think.

And it turns out the employers know a load of people I know and could have found me that way, without an agency. Still don't know what the fuck they're for.

Two hours ago I phoned the agency and asked where I should send my p45 to ensure I don't get emergency taxed on th salary they are now offering. (If it was the original quoted salary it might not have been such a problem). Seeing as I was charging my car battery on the Beverly trunk road I asked for this to be emailed to me. An hour later I return home. Half an hour later, still no email. I call up - "sorry, my gmail is being quite slow this week and I've not received your email yet, could you give me the address over the phone, as I need to make the last post".

"Oh I'm glad you called about that as I'd completely forgotten abut it".

"Never mind, it's only my fucking wages".

Christ.

Still, well done on the new job!

I'm no Marxist, but I can see the appeal of expropriating the expropriators when it comes to employment agencies. Has there every been anyone with a good agency story? (Somebody who isn't an agency owner rolling in cash, obv.)

When I was a student every summer I would get some generic office temp-work through an agency for a month or so to raise some holiday cash - simple, straightforward and remarkably hassle free. No complaints here!

I used to be funnelled students onto a project I was managing years back by the agencies, working across a number of sites I'd get a call from other staff there saying they'd sacked them for me, go in to find no work done and a big bag of shrooms from where they'd been called up to the office for the boot and not allowed back downstairs.

I'm not sure whether that's a positive or a negative. Nice shrooms though.

an agency got me my job.
Then took me out for beer to celebrate.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grim/54537182/in/photostream/
See?

As an employer, yes. And I'd like to think the people I've hired would have positive things to say.

Also, it's worth remembering that the employers are the customers, not the jobhunters. It's the employers that give you repeat business, the people coming off the street don't (unless it's a temping agency).

This. Also the recruiting people work dog hard for their money.

Hmmmm. Not sure that's true. I've had so many bad legal rec con stories from other lawyers, it's almost but not quite, unbelievable.

Still, my bro is shacked up with one who specialises in marketing/PR positions, so I can't be too rude.

I base this upon the job I was offered and chatting with the director. Seemed like too much work for the money offered.

Ah, to be fair, I'm more talking about temp-style agencies than professional jobhunting agencies.

Have to ask Daddy X tomorrow what his experiences of agencies are from a company director's viewpoint. I'm sure he might have some amusing tales (or not! He's my dad, after all).

An agency got me, my job at EDS 10 years ago...

EDS Credit Services?

*shudders with awful memories*

Today's fun and games:

1: Phone call I was promised this morning came at 4pm.

2: Was asked for my NI Number. Replied that when I visited their offices a month ago I was given a form to complete with ALL my personal information on it, suggested they look at that. Didn't feel calm enough at this point to ask them to account for my missing personal data.

3: Was then asked to provide two referees. Told them to use the two I'd provided them with before I even visited them a month ago, am then told my main contact at the organisation has left and they can't get into her email.

4: Upon forwarding my original email I get a reply, received by me after close of business saying "you have to give me names as I don't know who to speak to and please also give me phone numbers" I check the email - phone numbers for both the employers and names of three people, two in HR at one of them. The other, more recent employer, I've no idea who anyone in HR is so gave the address and phone number of HR. I would imagine talking to them would suffice, no?

So now we're at the point where the conversation goes "give me data" "here's your data" "yes but I need the data" "I've just given you the data".


I can see why this agency is considered a good company to work for, you don't have to do anything.