Why we hate Recruitment Agencies

[TonyRPH]

New POD said:

Would it be bad form to contact the person who interviewed me directly and ask ?

Some (most?) recruiters seem to think so, however I've made direct contact in the past, where I've been able to guess an email address etc.

That doesn't mean it's a good idea though, although the people I have contacted directly have always been happy to respond.

[bad company]

New POD said:

TonyRPH said:

bad company said:

Agree 100% but as I said the most likely explanation is that the recruiter was not given any feedback to pass on. Frustrating for you and them.

Which doesn't stop the recruiter from contacting the candidate to tell them they have no feedback as yet.

Instead of simply leaving the candidate hanging.

Would it be bad form to contact the person who interviewed me directly and ask ?

You have nothing to lose so yes I would contact the interviewer for feedback. IF you want to maintain a good relationship with the recruiter you could copy them in the email.

In answer to Tony yes the recruiter should at least have said they were unable to get any feedback.

[Funk]

TonyRPH said:

bad company said:

Agree 100% but as I said the most likely explanation is that the recruiter was not given any feedback to pass on. Frustrating for you and them.

Which doesn't stop the recruiter from contacting the candidate to tell them they have no feedback as yet. Instead of simply leaving the candidate hanging.

Absolutely - I find it just straight out rude if there's no follow-up contact from the agency with news either way. They go on the list of agencies I won't use in future (and will also dissuade others from using them too).

[bad company]

Funk said:

Absolutely - I find it just straight out rude if there's no follow-up contact from the agency with news either way. They go on the list of agencies I won't use in future (and will also dissuade others from using them too).

Yes it is rude not to get back to a candidate who has made the effort to attend an interview BUT, if that same agency then has a job you want to apply for you will probably go back to them.

[Funk]

bad company said:

Funk said:

Absolutely - I find it just straight out rude if there's no follow-up contact from the agency with news either way. They go on the list of agencies I won't use in future (and will also dissuade others from using them too).

Yes it is rude not to get back to a candidate who has made the effort to attend an interview BUT, if that same agency then has a job you want to apply for you will probably go back to them.

As per my earlier post, I'm a man of principle. I won't use a company again if they're a useless shower of st.

Googling the job spec often yields other agencies advertising the same role or indeed even the company the role is for.

That said, the guy who found me my current role was excellent so there are definitely some good ones around.

[Anubis]

I'm going through this pain right now and need to vent.

Got the skillset bang on the client needs, salary all good and its for a good company. There's just a one liner in the description holding me back "some unsociable hours may be required" - so before wasting everyone's time turning up for an interview (if I get one) and finding out it'll be night shifts most days (which I don't want) I asked the agency girl to find out what this one line means?

She promises to call the hiring manager and get back to me.

Day 1 passed - nothing (no big deal, I'll call tomorrow)
Day 2 - nothing (I chase - no answer to phone or email)
Day 3 - nothing (I chase some more - no answer)
Day 4 - nothing (getting a bit fed up now, but I still chase)
...
Day 7 - Lost all hope but worth a shot. I finally get through! Horrah!

Except, she's now told me that she didn't get any answers from the hiring manager and there is now someone lined up for a 2nd interview so not worth going for.

So...after all that my CV never even landed on the hiring manager's desk.

You could argue why not just go to the interview and ask about the unsocial hours; and I would have done if I knew it would jepordise a chance working for them.

Employment Agencies - unnecessary middle men screwing around with people's careers in order to make a quick buck at any opportunity. I wonder how many countless millions of people who could do the job never even got their CV through in the first place - what a waste of talent!

rant over!!!

Edited by Anubis on Wednesday 5th March 12:22

[edc]

Anubis said:

I'm going through this pain right now and need to vent.

Got the skillset bang on the client needs, salary all good and its for a good company. There's just a one liner in the description holding me back "some unsociable hours may be required" - so before wasting everyone's time turning up for an interview (if I get one) and finding out it'll be night shifts most days (which I don't want) I asked the agency girl to find out what this one line means?

She promises to call the hiring manager and get back to me.

Day 1 passed - nothing (no big deal, I'll call tomorrow)
Day 2 - nothing (I chase - no answer to phone or email)
Day 3 - nothing (I chase some more - no answer)
Day 4 - nothing (getting a bit fed up now, but I still chase)
...
Day 7 - Lost all hope but worth a shot. I finally get through! Horrah!

Except, she's now told me that she didn't get any answers from the hiring manager and there is now someone in 2nd interview lined up so not worth going for.

So...after all that my CV never even landed on the hiring manager's desk.

You could argue why not just go to the interview and ask about the unsocial hours; and I would have done if I knew it would jepordise a chance working for them.

Employment Agencies - unnecessary middle men screwing around with people's careers in order to make a quick buck at any opportunity. I wonder how many countless millions of people who could do the job never even got their CV through in the first place - what a waste of talent!

rant over!!!

To be honest it looks like you shot yourself in the foot and that there were better fit candidates to go forward with. Given a number of equally qualified or experienced candidates with no objections (at this stage) then they will go through.

I go through similar thinking when a candidate is submitted and I hear for example that they can only do a telephone interview in the first instance. If they were selected for interview then they just go straight to the reserve pile. What you probably should have said was: "sounds great, when can I interview? I have a question about X but it's not important right now. If you could ask when arranging the interview that would be great"

[Gargamel]

Indeed

You care about who gets the job - it is personal

However from the agents point of view, they get paid when the role is completed, so whilst you might feel you are the best one, the agents best candidate might be the one who is saying, get me in there at any time, date, location whatever.

Agencies are by and large acting in their own best interests and rightly so in my view, they are paid by the company, the candidates are a commodity item I am afraid to say.

[blindswelledrat]

Anubis said:

Employment Agencies - unnecessary middle men screwing around with people's careers in order to make a quick buck at any opportunity. I wonder how many countless millions of people who could do the job never even got their CV through in the first place - what a waste of talent!

rant over!!!

]

I agree with you and your situation from your point of view.
But this doesn't differ at all from any kind of recruitment i.e. if the company were recruiting directly.
Firstly their advertising capabilities are such that you would never even have seen the job.
Secondly - even directly - the same thing applies. If the HR manager gets 70 CVs, - 4 of them are perfect but one of the 4 starts expressing doubts about the hours, she is [I]bound[I/] to interview the other 3 first to see if the perfect candidate is within them.
The point you miss is that when a company is paying £6k+ in fees they are not settling for an imperfect employee hence whoever else they recruited would be at least as capable as you.
Im not defending the agent in your situation - there is never any excuse for a lack of common courtesy - merely disagreeing that employment agencies prevent companies employing the right person

[Anubis]

edc said:

To be honest it looks like you shot yourself in the foot and that there were better fit candidates to go forward with. Given a number of equally qualified or experienced candidates with no objections (at this stage) then they will go through.

I go through similar thinking when a candidate is submitted and I hear for example that they can only do a telephone interview in the first instance. If they were selected for interview then they just go straight to the reserve pile. What you probably should have said was: "sounds great, when can I interview? I have a question about X but it's not important right now. If you could ask when arranging the interview that would be great"

Totally agree with you.

However as a decent human being if someone says "no problem, i'll find that out for you" and doesn't bother and then avoids my calls and emails for days on end; how am I supposed to know?

All it takes is a simple call to the hiring manager / HR. If they don't want to do this they should advise me to be put forward and ask it at the interview; not make empty promises to call me back and leave me waiting for something that will never emerge. It's this constant game being played behind the scenes that I can't stand.

They say one thing but do another time after time. Rather than saying "there are better candidates" they leave you hanging in false hope - they then complain about people chasing them.

[xuy]

I used a recruitment Agency some years ago:-

A candidate was put forward with a CV that matched our requirements, good references ( and known by the owner of the agency who personally recommended)

The interview went well and a position was offered, and accepted. References checked and all good.

Roll on 6 months and some money went missing (£5k)

There is an investigation and it is obvious that the new recruit is the culprit. The police are called and he is convicted of theft.

In the interim I did some more investigation,

The candidate was a personal friend of the owner of the agency

He had been convicted twice before for theft, a fact that the owner of the agency "forgot" to mention. He did admit later to knowing this fact but thought that he had changed.

Needless to say I asked for my money back threatening legal action etc.

He obliged and then went out of business.

[edc]

Anubis said:

Totally agree with you.

However as a decent human being if someone says "no problem, i'll find that out for you" and doesn't bother and then avoids my calls and emails for days on end; how am I supposed to know?

All it takes is a simple call to the hiring manager / HR. If they don't want to do this they should advise me to be put forward and ask it at the interview; not make empty promises to call me back and leave me waiting for something that will never emerge. It's this constant game being played behind the scenes that I can't stand.

They say one thing but do another time after time. Rather than saying "there are better candidates" they leave you hanging in false hope - they then complain about people chasing them.

Unfortunately, in the real world people let each other down with false promises. You have to step back and look at the bigger picture. There are going to be more fundamental or perceived more important queries than the one you raised. If several candidates raised the same point then no doubt the agent would have asked. This is just a simple pareto of the feedback and prioritising. if you can understand this thinking then you will stabnd a better chance. Ultimately, you just want to to get in front of somebody. If the job looks right and on the surface there are no deal breakers for you then get in there and don't give them an opportunity to say no to you.

[andy-xr]

I know 3 good agents, sometimes they have things for me, sometimes they dont. We generally keep in touch every 6-12 months. They're good because they know the industry I work in, the level I work at, and the type of companies that would work for me in culture and expectations.

That's taken a bit of time to build up, so it's appreciated on both sides. The rest, I'd guess I've dealt with around 100 agents, mostly incompetent and generally with a st attitude.

What I hate about agents, in no particular order:

lads in shiny suits working for large agents, who insist on having a take-on application form completed and you travelling to their offices. They're acting as an intermediary, an intro. Asking scripted questions that they dont really understand so cant begin to comprehend the answer. Invariably, the question is wrong or badly phrased.
(Recruiter) How many percent did you increase by last year?
(Me) Do you mean net revenues back in from the channel, partner growth, inventory ship, YoY, QoQ or something else?
(Recruiter) No, just headline, you, how much did you grow by
(Me) Well, I was 6'2 and I think I still am, so I guess that's flat
(Recruiter) So there was no growth? My client needs to see someone that's done double digit
(Me) It's relatives of scale, if I grew my market by double digits I'd have beaten the industry average by around 80%. XYZ market is declining by ABC% per year, which is standard across all territories, but 123 is growing at 5% pa
(Recruiter) So I dont understand, there's no growth?
(Me) Yes, but in what area would you like me to explain?

Then there's the recruiter who's convinced they have exclusivity and you have to match their high standards before they'll put your CV infront of their supposed bestie. Regardless that the same job is advertised by 6 other agents and there's enough info to work out the end client anyway, and when you're following up they havent heard back from the client for a few days and their supposed bestie isnt taking their call.

The agent who wont tell you the company name or anything about them until you give them a 30 minute rundown of your last 10 years working history

The agent who never calls back after an interview

The agent who never calls back after you send your CV

The agent who has an auto responder set up to say if you havent heard, you werent successful.

The agent who promises an interview, that your CV is perfect then goes quiet and you cant get through to them again

The agent who touts your CV to potential clients who then find out who you are, you find out all they've done is take your name off the top

The agent who tries to talk C level bullst who's never had a conversation with anyone at C level

[ehonda]

In order to keep themselves in a job the (outsourced) HR department of a company I used to work for required us to provide them with an up to date CV. This was done and forgotten about.
A couple of months later I had an agent send me a Job description for a role he had to fill.
It was a cut and paste of the responsibilities section of my colleague's CV.
We weren't recruiting and my colleague wasn't leaving.
So he had sent me a description for a non existent role, created from a CV which had only ever been sent to our HR department.
After I told my colleague and the st really hit the fan with our HR department I had an email from the agent, saying he was very sorry but it wasn't his fault.
My colleague was sworn to secrecy about what happened with the HR department, I can only assume that she had a financial incentive to keep schtum.

This incident did not change my opinion of recruitment agencies.

[New POD]

Anubis said:

I'm going through this pain right now and need to vent.

Got the skillset bang on the client needs, salary all good and its for a good company. There's just a one liner in the description holding me back "some unsociable hours may be required" - so before wasting everyone's time turning up for an interview (if I get one) and finding out it'll be night shifts most days (which I don't want) I asked the agency girl to find out what this one line means?

She promises to call the hiring manager and get back to me.

Day 1 passed - nothing (no big deal, I'll call tomorrow)
Day 2 - nothing (I chase - no answer to phone or email)
Day 3 - nothing (I chase some more - no answer)
Day 4 - nothing (getting a bit fed up now, but I still chase)
...
Day 7 - Lost all hope but worth a shot. I finally get through! Horrah!

Except, she's now told me that she didn't get any answers from the hiring manager and there is now someone lined up for a 2nd interview so not worth going for.

So...after all that my CV never even landed on the hiring manager's desk.

You could argue why not just go to the interview and ask about the unsocial hours; and I would have done if I knew it would jepordise a chance working for them.

Employment Agencies - unnecessary middle men screwing around with people's careers in order to make a quick buck at any opportunity. I wonder how many countless millions of people who could do the job never even got their CV through in the first place - what a waste of talent!

rant over!!!

Edited by Anubis on Wednesday 5th March 12:22

I feel your pain. I was contacted by a Recruitment Cunsultant who is employed by my current middle man, via linked in, about a job is a sister organisation of my current end client. Now the role looks very interesting, but instead of an hourly rate of £37, there is a daily rate of £280. Well, £280 is a bit low as you are going to do a days overtime in my experience, and I'm buggered if I'm going to do it for free. I'd perhaps jump at the £37, if you got paid for every hour. However, there's a lot of the job done with suppliers, at suppliers sites, and they pay expenses. Now then this is an opportunity. Instead of paying for Digs 110 miles from home, I could be anywhere in the UK, and my hotel and travel would be paid. This would save me £4k to £8K a year, but I want to know the details. I asked just 13 sensible questions. Nothing. So I poked him again, and was told that if I had to ask those questions I probably wasn't the person they are looking for. FFS. I just want to understand the Terms and Conditions before I waste YOUR clients time. Next time, I won't bother asking until they are ready to make an offer.

[santona1937]

Having done some contracting work between jobs I have found that agencies ( and I used three at various times) are;

Not very good at career advice- which is to be expected, and not really a negative point.
Not incredibly honest- not in outright lying, more by sins of omission.
Surprisingly unaware of stuff ( current trends, positions available etc) in the industry that they serve
stupidly optimistic about what they could offer, and yet overly pessimistic about payscales.
often used by companies as a last resort.
All of the permanent positions I applied for were available direct without RA input, I had perhaps naively expected that the agencies would have positions not available generally.
And I used three agencies that were considered to be among the best in my field. Lord knows what the "bad" ones were like

I do have good things bout RA's as well, but this a hate them thread.

[Anubis]

Got another "best friend" shiny suit call today:

Him: "Hello is that Mr <name>"
Me: "Yes, speaking"
Him: "Are you on the market for a new role?"
Me: "Yes I am"
Him: "Ah that's fantastic news. What kind of thing are you looking for?"

Note - at this point, it means there is no role but to be safe I'll stay on the phone and hear him out

Me: "Ideally something longer term with a good team, interesting project using XYZ skillset. Something that allows me to spread my wings a bit"

Him: "Ah that's sounds good mate, yer. So...what kind of rate are you looking for?"

I now know there is no job and it's fishing again. Ps me right off.

Me: "Ideally looking for anything between £X - £Y but it obviously depends on the job, location, hours, etc"
Him: "Good stuff mate, good stuff. I'm not here to waste your time I promise you; your CV was passed to me and I'm looking to see if we got any roles mate that you might like..."

I just want to get off the phone now but still he's rambling on...

Him: "...so you used to work at <company> yer? That's pretty good mate. Like I said I'm not here to waste your time, so I was just wondering who your hiring manager was? It's just that it's our company policy to check applicants so we're not wasting time. Your details and names you give me won't be passed on mate, I can assure you. Like I said I'm not here to waste your time and it's to speed up the process..."

FFS! Just get a rod and literally go fishing and stop saying that you're not wasting my time

Me: "Sorry, I can't give out names at this stage. If you have any jobs please send them through to me and I'll take a look"

Him: "Yer i'll send a couple though I have. Just out of interest have you had any interviews yet?"

Me: "I have a couple lined up"

Him: "Oh right, good good. Can you tell me who they are for so I don't send you the same roles?"

Me: "I'm sorry, I can't give out names. It usually works the other way around; if I end up with the same client then I'll enquire if its for the same job using a reference number"

Him: "yer no worries, like I said im not here to waste your time mate. I'm going to send over those roles I have for you to check and my details to get into contact with me ok."

Me: "sure, ok. Bye"
Him: "Thanks. Bye"

Never heard from the cheeky bd since and that was several hours ago (wasn't expecting to either).

This is exactly why I cannot stand smarmy shiny suit kids straight from uni messing around with my time and my career. I JUST CAN'T STAND RECRUITMENT AGENCIES FULL STOP! AHHHHH! If he said "I'm not here to waste your time" once more I would have hunted that fr down.

Edited by Anubis on Thursday 6th March 16:08

Edited by Anubis on Thursday 6th March 16:12

[STW2010]

I don't want to waste your time asking this , but did he actually send anything through to you?

[Anubis]

STW2010 said:

I don't want to waste your time asking this , but did he actually send anything through to you?

No...no he didn't.

[STW2010]

Anubis said:

STW2010 said:

I don't want to waste your time asking this , but did he actually send anything through to you?

No...no he didn't.

Hunt him down. He wasted your time