Why we hate Recruitment Agencies
Discussion
first time use of Agent...
agent offers me a interview for a position in Aberdeen
tells me the proposed salary level, I say ok I am interested
Company pays for me to fly to Aberdeen, taxis etc
interview goes well they offer me the job at 2/3rds the salary offered by agent
I refuse saying what about offer the agent told me about
MD tells me he hadn't told agent what the salary level was..
I go home, company get stuck with £500 bill
wonder if they used that agent again....what a t
t
agent offers me a interview for a position in Aberdeen
tells me the proposed salary level, I say ok I am interested
Company pays for me to fly to Aberdeen, taxis etc
interview goes well they offer me the job at 2/3rds the salary offered by agent
I refuse saying what about offer the agent told me about
MD tells me he hadn't told agent what the salary level was..
I go home, company get stuck with £500 bill
wonder if they used that agent again....what a t
tbad company said:
Most of the moaners on this thread are candidates who pay nothing for the recruitment service.
Clients who do pay for recruitment services do so for good reason.
Hmmm, you must be reading a different thread to me. I (and a number of others) have voiced our concerns from a client perspective. Clients who do pay for recruitment services do so for good reason.
Bad Company (username implies a former recruitment consultant perhaps?), have a look at the post just above yours. That recruitment consultant managed to piss the employer and candidate, and cost the employer £500 in the process of wasting everyone's time.
Just another example of a recruitment consultant not absorbing all of the information, or just being selective about it...
Just another example of a recruitment consultant not absorbing all of the information, or just being selective about it...
odyssey2200 said:
TBH, while recruitment companies are on a par with used car salesmen, estate agents etc, even applying directly to an employer is no guarantee of a decent response.
I think the rot set in when people were considered a "human Resource" and not employees of Personnel.
QFT ^^^I think the rot set in when people were considered a "human Resource" and not employees of Personnel.
I've had mixed experiences with recruiters. So far as a candidate, but soon I'll see what something of the client-side is like.
Best experience was a long time ago. A graduate recruiter who went out of their way to help me with preparation.
Moderate/annoying experiences were the stream of calls from various recruiters who were more interested in what else I'd interviewed for and who my ex-boss was and names of other colleagues who had also departed.
Worst was the lying which effectively forced me into making a decision immediately following an interview.
At least now I'm prepared for those things, though.
Best experience was a long time ago. A graduate recruiter who went out of their way to help me with preparation.
Moderate/annoying experiences were the stream of calls from various recruiters who were more interested in what else I'd interviewed for and who my ex-boss was and names of other colleagues who had also departed.
Worst was the lying which effectively forced me into making a decision immediately following an interview.
At least now I'm prepared for those things, though.
Can't comment on contractor recruitment as I've only ever dealt with perms, but I'd like to think that we do a good job and provide a value for money service. Problems start when clients farm out the job to a dozen agencies, at which point it becomes a mad scramble to get candidates, and in the end a lot of people get spoken to, hopes raised and then dropped, or candidates apply through several agencies, and don't tell anyone, which wastes our time.
It can be a bloody soul-destroying job at times: this year I've taken on more supposedly live jobs than for the last few, but had less success: companies agency farming, changing their minds about the vacancy and killing it, finding someone internally, or just plain ignoring you after you put good candidates through so you never find out the reason why it went stale.
But when you get a good client who is willing to invest the time in talking to you, describing exactly what they want and not just firing over a job description and some great candidates ie ones who are willing to talk to you and listen to your job briefings properly, and you work with them through the process from initial phone call, to interview prep, to interview feedback to offer and acceptance, it can make a real difference to your day.
I've got one client and candidate that I've been working with since April, who (unless something disastrous happens) are finally going to tie the knot next week. Its been a long, drawn-out process and I've had to deal with objections from both sides, but they are actually a very good match and both parties will benefit, so it has most definitely been worth it. We've earnt our fee for this.
We aren't all DG salesmen in shiny suits and Minis
It can be a bloody soul-destroying job at times: this year I've taken on more supposedly live jobs than for the last few, but had less success: companies agency farming, changing their minds about the vacancy and killing it, finding someone internally, or just plain ignoring you after you put good candidates through so you never find out the reason why it went stale.
But when you get a good client who is willing to invest the time in talking to you, describing exactly what they want and not just firing over a job description and some great candidates ie ones who are willing to talk to you and listen to your job briefings properly, and you work with them through the process from initial phone call, to interview prep, to interview feedback to offer and acceptance, it can make a real difference to your day.
I've got one client and candidate that I've been working with since April, who (unless something disastrous happens) are finally going to tie the knot next week. Its been a long, drawn-out process and I've had to deal with objections from both sides, but they are actually a very good match and both parties will benefit, so it has most definitely been worth it. We've earnt our fee for this.
We aren't all DG salesmen in shiny suits and Minis
bad company said:
Begs the question why use & pay for a recruiter?
If you want the long and boring answer to this, here goes:Our company is a highly specialised engineering technology company. It's a relatively small but global industry and we are a small but very rapidly growing company.
Because it is sometimes difficult to find staff with the specific skill sets we require, we have on occasion, contacted specialist engineering recruitment companies and given them a brief for some specific jobs. In the instances we've done these, the submitted CVs have never, ever, been any better than the ones we have obtained ourselves using direct advertising. Therefore my conclusion has to be that they do not add any value to a business like ours at all. I concede that one company is not statistically significant, but that has been our experience.
At the same time as this, despite the fact that all of our job listings AND the Careers section of our website clearly state "Strictly no agencies" we STILL get bombarded with cold calls, agents trying to trick contact names out of admin staff and numerous spam emails, none of which do we want. Sure, they are more of an irritant than something that causes real disruption, but it hardly paints the industry in a good light, does it? If we did that to our potential customer base, I suspect the outcome wouldn't be particularly pretty, either.
So to conclude, I have seen no evidence thus far that there is any point in agencies as an employer if you're willing to advertise and look in the right places. All of our staff have been sourced directly, have been recommended to us, have approached us because of our reputation or have applied through adverts or listings placed in the places that the staff are likely to look.
To do anything else seems to me to be money for old rope. Like I say, my experience - but I can't see that changing anytime soon.
Tallow said:
bad company said:
Begs the question why use & pay for a recruiter?
If you want the long and boring answer to this, here goes:Our company is a highly specialised engineering technology company. It's a relatively small but global industry and we are a small but very rapidly growing company.
Because it is sometimes difficult to find staff with the specific skill sets we require, we have on occasion, contacted specialist engineering recruitment companies and given them a brief for some specific jobs. In the instances we've done these, the submitted CVs have never, ever, been any better than the ones we have obtained ourselves using direct advertising. Therefore my conclusion has to be that they do not add any value to a business like ours at all. I concede that one company is not statistically significant, but that has been our experience.
At the same time as this, despite the fact that all of our job listings AND the Careers section of our website clearly state "Strictly no agencies" we STILL get bombarded with cold calls, agents trying to trick contact names out of admin staff and numerous spam emails, none of which do we want. Sure, they are more of an irritant than something that causes real disruption, but it hardly paints the industry in a good light, does it? If we did that to our potential customer base, I suspect the outcome wouldn't be particularly pretty, either.
So to conclude, I have seen no evidence thus far that there is any point in agencies as an employer if you're willing to advertise and look in the right places. All of our staff have been sourced directly, have been recommended to us, have approached us because of our reputation or have applied through adverts or listings placed in the places that the staff are likely to look.
To do anything else seems to me to be money for old rope. Like I say, my experience - but I can't see that changing anytime soon.
if its such a specialised industry then what did you expect? Any candidate will already know of your company, and will be looking at your adverts.
but then again, did it harm you to try?
Tallow said:
If you want the long and boring answer to this, here goes:
Our company is a highly specialised engineering technology company. It's a relatively small but global industry and we are a small but very rapidly growing company.
Because it is sometimes difficult to find staff with the specific skill sets we require, we have on occasion, contacted specialist engineering recruitment companies and given them a brief for some specific jobs. In the instances we've done these, the submitted CVs have never, ever, been any better than the ones we have obtained ourselves using direct advertising. Therefore my conclusion has to be that they do not add any value to a business like ours at all. I concede that one company is not statistically significant, but that has been our experience.
At the same time as this, despite the fact that all of our job listings AND the Careers section of our website clearly state "Strictly no agencies" we STILL get bombarded with cold calls, agents trying to trick contact names out of admin staff and numerous spam emails, none of which do we want. Sure, they are more of an irritant than something that causes real disruption, but it hardly paints the industry in a good light, does it? If we did that to our potential customer base, I suspect the outcome wouldn't be particularly pretty, either.
So to conclude, I have seen no evidence thus far that there is any point in agencies as an employer if you're willing to advertise and look in the right places. All of our staff have been sourced directly, have been recommended to us, have approached us because of our reputation or have applied through adverts or listings placed in the places that the staff are likely to look.
To do anything else seems to me to be money for old rope. Like I say, my experience - but I can't see that changing anytime soon.
If you use recruiters who source their candidates primarily via advertising, and add nothing useful to the process (which they are very unlikely to do if they don't even know how to find candidates without placing adverts) then yes, that's exactly what you'll find.Our company is a highly specialised engineering technology company. It's a relatively small but global industry and we are a small but very rapidly growing company.
Because it is sometimes difficult to find staff with the specific skill sets we require, we have on occasion, contacted specialist engineering recruitment companies and given them a brief for some specific jobs. In the instances we've done these, the submitted CVs have never, ever, been any better than the ones we have obtained ourselves using direct advertising. Therefore my conclusion has to be that they do not add any value to a business like ours at all. I concede that one company is not statistically significant, but that has been our experience.
At the same time as this, despite the fact that all of our job listings AND the Careers section of our website clearly state "Strictly no agencies" we STILL get bombarded with cold calls, agents trying to trick contact names out of admin staff and numerous spam emails, none of which do we want. Sure, they are more of an irritant than something that causes real disruption, but it hardly paints the industry in a good light, does it? If we did that to our potential customer base, I suspect the outcome wouldn't be particularly pretty, either.
So to conclude, I have seen no evidence thus far that there is any point in agencies as an employer if you're willing to advertise and look in the right places. All of our staff have been sourced directly, have been recommended to us, have approached us because of our reputation or have applied through adverts or listings placed in the places that the staff are likely to look.
To do anything else seems to me to be money for old rope. Like I say, my experience - but I can't see that changing anytime soon.
I've done engineering headhunting for years. I used to take the approach of rooting out companies who had really specialised and almost impossible to fill jobs, sell them on using my services, and then go out and fill those positions, regardless of how much relevance there was to the other business I was working on. I did this because the clients inevitably were far more cooperative, they wouldn't try to pay me the low fees they pay everyone else and it was rewarding work. I don't do it anymore because it's wildly inefficient and unprofitable in the long run.
There's a few choice ones that stood out where I had absolutely no previous knowledge of the sector where the person would come from, including a Technical Director for a wind energy company (but they were to come from a power distribution background), an engineer for wind analysis/thermodynamics type stuff (taken from one of the aerospace&defence companies), a Principal Engineer for certification & verification services for a small business hundreds of miles away from the talent pool for that field, etc...
None of these jobs took more than two months to fill, the person was excellent and invisible to the market at large in every case, I didn't place a single advert and they had all gone unfilled for at least several months beforehand, despite best efforts to the contrary.
On the other hand, I also know from experience that most recruiters and recruitment firms wouldn't know how to do any of these things to save their lives, and if they work for a well known brand name they almost certainly don't. Nobody will do this for you at a heavily discounted fee either, it's entirely possible one of these great recruiters may have called you at some point and walked away because "we only pay 15%". The market dynamics are extremely resistant to providing this kind of service. I regularly get told I'm exceptionally good at my job, and yet until this last year or so I've struggled to make ends meet. For a while I considered getting out of the field altogether. Go figure. It often pays more to spam CVs around.
What actually goes into being able to do this consistently? Quite a lot, actually...
- Rewriting the job description so that it identifies who specifically is the right person to solve the problem at hand, and to communicate with potential candidates in terms of the challenges they'll be facing and why they would benefit from exploring the opportunity. The vast majority of job descriptions are absolutely useless at every single one of these things in their current state. Doing this properly means we can know who the right person for the job is before we even present the candidate to the client, and gives us the tools to persuade them that it's in their best interests to look at it (and eventually accept it).
- Getting the buy in from the client to do this in the first place, and their commitment to a process, timeframe and cooperation. And to be flexible on some of their "requirements"
- A LOT of research - Google, Linkedin, membership associations, directories, discussion forums, target companies, etc...
- Phone research - both for names sourcing and to talk to people who know people who may know the right person for the job, and gain their trust so they will provide these referrals. I may network across 150 people to find one candidate. These usually are cold or referred calls to people in the know, not people who have their CV on the internet
- Approaching the target individuals, really understanding what makes them tick and showing how the opportunity may change their life for the better (this in itself is a science and an art)
- Getting all the information from these candidates which will enable us to judge the likelihood of acceptance and get their commitment at the end of the process, or rule them out of it if they're too high risk (eg. counter-offer susceptibility, concerns with current company, the role family plays in decision making, what type of decision maker they are and a vast array of other information)
- Marketing the candidates to the client effectively, particularly in terms of increasing the perceived value of the candidates so that they are treated like the selective professionals they are, and not a bunch of applicants who need a job (all too common, and the death knell of any attempted headhunt)
- Preparing the candidates for interview
- Preparing the clients for interview, and coaching them on how to sell the company and the role effectively
....there's a vast amount more than this throughout the rest of the process but I fear I may be boring you to death already. It doesn't start with, "what CVs have you got for me", great candidates don't come out of nowhere. All these little things have to be done perfectly to be able to find and attract these guys consistently, and then to get them to accept the offers. And the client has to be cooperative along the way, otherwise it will never work.
If your market is indeed highly specialized, you'd probably be better off finding a really good retained firm...and paying them what they ask for. Not many people are mad enough to do all of the above for a success-only fee. I'm also in Bristol so if you ever want to pick my brains about these things then feel free to drop me a PM. It's always nice to advise people when I don't stand to gain anything financially from it, I tend to find they're much more likely to listen.
And yes I know my obsession with recruitment is really weird...
Edited by repiV on Friday 1st November 21:41
Tallow said:
If you want the long and boring answer to this, here goes:
Our company is a highly specialised engineering technology company. It's a relatively small but global industry and we are a small but very rapidly growing company.
Because it is sometimes difficult to find staff with the specific skill sets we require, we have on occasion, contacted specialist engineering recruitment companies and given them a brief for some specific jobs. In the instances we've done these, the submitted CVs have never, ever, been any better than the ones we have obtained ourselves using direct advertising. Therefore my conclusion has to be that they do not add any value to a business like ours at all. I concede that one company is not statistically significant, but that has been our experience.
At the same time as this, despite the fact that all of our job listings AND the Careers section of our website clearly state "Strictly no agencies" we STILL get bombarded with cold calls, agents trying to trick contact names out of admin staff and numerous spam emails, none of which do we want. Sure, they are more of an irritant than something that causes real disruption, but it hardly paints the industry in a good light, does it? If we did that to our potential customer base, I suspect the outcome wouldn't be particularly pretty, either.
So to conclude, I have seen no evidence thus far that there is any point in agencies as an employer if you're willing to advertise and look in the right places. All of our staff have been sourced directly, have been recommended to us, have approached us because of our reputation or have applied through adverts or listings placed in the places that the staff are likely to look.
To do anything else seems to me to be money for old rope. Like I say, my experience - but I can't see that changing anytime soon.
You say that you have trouble finding candidates with some skill sets. From your post I imagine that in the past you have instructed various agencies to fill difficult to fill jobs. So lets say that you instruct 6 agencies on a job. Each agent will soon realise that they are not working the job alone so they have less than 1 in 6 chance of making a fee bearing in mind that you could also fill the job from your own efforts. This can quickly turn into a 'CV race' as the first agent to introduce the right candidate is the one who will get paid. Also none of the agents can afford to spend much time on your job due to the high risk of making nothing at all.Our company is a highly specialised engineering technology company. It's a relatively small but global industry and we are a small but very rapidly growing company.
Because it is sometimes difficult to find staff with the specific skill sets we require, we have on occasion, contacted specialist engineering recruitment companies and given them a brief for some specific jobs. In the instances we've done these, the submitted CVs have never, ever, been any better than the ones we have obtained ourselves using direct advertising. Therefore my conclusion has to be that they do not add any value to a business like ours at all. I concede that one company is not statistically significant, but that has been our experience.
At the same time as this, despite the fact that all of our job listings AND the Careers section of our website clearly state "Strictly no agencies" we STILL get bombarded with cold calls, agents trying to trick contact names out of admin staff and numerous spam emails, none of which do we want. Sure, they are more of an irritant than something that causes real disruption, but it hardly paints the industry in a good light, does it? If we did that to our potential customer base, I suspect the outcome wouldn't be particularly pretty, either.
So to conclude, I have seen no evidence thus far that there is any point in agencies as an employer if you're willing to advertise and look in the right places. All of our staff have been sourced directly, have been recommended to us, have approached us because of our reputation or have applied through adverts or listings placed in the places that the staff are likely to look.
To do anything else seems to me to be money for old rope. Like I say, my experience - but I can't see that changing anytime soon.
A better way is to instruct 1 agent on a sole basis. Give them a detailed job spec including what you do and don't want on the candidate's experience/CV. That way the agent can spend time and energy on finding you the right candidate.
STW2010 said:
Bad Company (username implies a former recruitment consultant perhaps?), have a look at the post just above yours. That recruitment consultant managed to piss the employer and candidate, and cost the employer £500 in the process of wasting everyone's time.
Just another example of a recruitment consultant not absorbing all of the information, or just being selective about it...
How do you know it was the recruiters fault? This sort of thing happens all the time. The client does not want to give full details of the salary (how many times have I heard 'market rate') and the candidate has an inflated view of their worth. Part of the recruiters job is to bring the expectations to a match but this does not always work.Just another example of a recruitment consultant not absorbing all of the information, or just being selective about it...
In this case I expect there are more sides to the story and when it goes wrong - hey blame the recruiter.
STW2010 said:
In that example the recruiter had told the candidate a salary which was just an outright guess (or lie?) to keep the candidate interested. How can it not be the recruiter's fault?
I heard several similar stories during my time in the industry. Sometimes they were true, but most times the client and\or the candidate were chancing their arm. IF the story is as stated the client will probably be looking to use a different recruiter in future.bad company said:
STW2010 said:
In that example the recruiter had told the candidate a salary which was just an outright guess (or lie?) to keep the candidate interested. How can it not be the recruiter's fault?
I heard several similar stories during my time in the industry. Sometimes they were true, but most times the client and\or the candidate were chancing their arm. IF the story is as stated the client will probably be looking to use a different recruiter in future.bad company said:
I heard several similar stories during my time in the industry. Sometimes they were true, but most times the client and\or the candidate were chancing their arm. IF the story is as stated the client will probably be looking to use a different recruiter in future.
Any reason at all to doubt the poster of that story? I've had lots of dealings with recruiters, and only two individuals stand out as the sort I would deal with happily.
One instance with one retard I could remember, was that every time I mentioned something I was after like 'I need a role where I can really develop my own team'. His response 'oh, this role will definitely do that'. This went on until it was absolutely clear he was just telling me things I wanted to hear, to the point it could easily have been my dream role, in a senior job at a lucrative company. Except it was £15k below my then salary, was working as a laboratory assistant and in no way would it involve management.
I now never seek to use recruiters, and the only contact is when they find me on LinkedIn (so 'headhunting' I suppose). Even then, when one called me recently he quickly asked if I would be willing to leave my current job, to which I responded 'I would consider a good role elsewhere, as long it was a good move'. He then started on about how he doesn't want me to waste anyone's time, so if I'm not looking to leave then we should leave it.
He called me!! STW2010 said:
bad company said:
I heard several similar stories during my time in the industry. Sometimes they were true, but most times the client and\or the candidate were chancing their arm. IF the story is as stated the client will probably be looking to use a different recruiter in future.
Any reason at all to doubt the poster of that story? I've had lots of dealings with recruiters, and only two individuals stand out as the sort I would deal with happily.
One instance with one retard I could remember, was that every time I mentioned something I was after like 'I need a role where I can really develop my own team'. His response 'oh, this role will definitely do that'. This went on until it was absolutely clear he was just telling me things I wanted to hear, to the point it could easily have been my dream role, in a senior job at a lucrative company. Except it was £15k below my then salary, was working as a laboratory assistant and in no way would it involve management.
I now never seek to use recruiters, and the only contact is when they find me on LinkedIn (so 'headhunting' I suppose). Even then, when one called me recently he quickly asked if I would be willing to leave my current job, to which I responded 'I would consider a good role elsewhere, as long it was a good move'. He then started on about how he doesn't want me to waste anyone's time, so if I'm not looking to leave then we should leave it.
He called me!! bad company said:
Most of the moaners on this thread are candidates who pay nothing for the recruitment service.
Clients who do pay for recruitment services do so for good reason.
I have contracted through the same agency for the last 8 years, and I have no particular complaints. I don't pay for the service and I get fair value Clients who do pay for recruitment services do so for good reason.
But on the other hand I work with my clients to find other contract personnel to work on their projects. They are tied into a single-agency deal with another agency, one of the very biggest, and their service is frankly atrocious.
Their response to any request for candidates seems to be to send any old dross they have lying around without any real regard to the skils profile being requested.
The most recent occasion, in a sequence that has gone on for years, we asked for 'Experienced business analysts with a good working knowledge of using SharePoint, able to work with business people to develop their sites and provide informal coaching for site owners".
They sent us 4 candidate, all of whom were backroom techies who were barely articulate and spent most of their time in interview criticising us for not having upgraded to SharePoint 2013. It would have been so much better if they had simply said "Sorry, we can't find anyone who fits the profile" rather than wasting our time and money.
Gassing Station | Jobs & Employment Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff