A brief rant about recruitment consultants
Discussion
FWIW, I run an engineering consultancy, and what finally spurred me to vent was a CV sent round yesterday from an undergrad due to finish uni this summer. He wants £20-25k starting salary and a job commutable from Cambridge. I assume this means he doesn't want to work in London, which would leave maybe 15 firms to write to. For circulating, unsolicited, this CV the consultant wants paying £4-5k. And that's their special rate for smaller firms.
It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
I tend to build up a rapport with a few good ones - no different from any other type of agent in that respect. They hire a lot of new graduates who don't know what they are selling, lack personality or just make you fill out forms before they have even had a chat about your current situation.
Tom_C76 said:
FWIW, I run an engineering consultancy, and what finally spurred me to vent was a CV sent round yesterday from an undergrad due to finish uni this summer. He wants £20-25k starting salary and a job commutable from Cambridge. I assume this means he doesn't want to work in London, which would leave maybe 15 firms to write to. For circulating, unsolicited, this CV the consultant wants paying £4-5k. And that's their special rate for smaller firms.
It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
Going on an office website wouldn't get his CV in front of the owner though would it? It would be sent to a generic Iwanttoworkforyou.com address never to be seen again.It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
Repeat that 15 times with no results. Not worth it, might as well not even bother.
Now to the point, the agency has got his CV in front of the owner of said firm, who has obviously shown interest in it, has read it and is now discussing it online...........
Conversely, if you needed an undergrad, looking for a job around 20-25k within a reasonable distance of Cambridge, you'd be spending your evenings scouring jobboards and sending messages to grads who are probably out in the evenings, getting nowhere as they registered with an agency earlier that day and know that their details are being sent to the right type of clients.
Yup, agencies suck.
Tom_C76 said:
FWIW, I run an engineering consultancy, and what finally spurred me to vent was a CV sent round yesterday from an undergrad due to finish uni this summer. He wants £20-25k starting salary and a job commutable from Cambridge. I assume this means he doesn't want to work in London, which would leave maybe 15 firms to write to. For circulating, unsolicited, this CV the consultant wants paying £4-5k. And that's their special rate for smaller firms.
It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
I don't disagree generally and obviously there is no way you can argue that a Reed advert with forwarded on responses is offering any kind of service for £5k. But that isn't a typical example of the service you get from an rc.It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
I also agree that the laziness of young people in job searching is infuriating. Problem that unemployment is lower than it has ever been in our lifetime and we simply have to accept that things are different or we don't get employees.
But the main reason I would never pay a recruitment fee for a youngster is a completely different mentality. Virtually every university leaver appears to see their first job as a year-maximum thing and a dipping of the toe into the job market rather than a potential career. I had a look through recent campaigns I had run and every single 25-26 year old had a minimum of 3-4 jobs on their cv over a 4 year working life. Obviously it varies a lot according to your industry/profession but my recent experience is that I wont employ a recent graduate at all, let alone pay a fee for them.
tuffer said:
We have them phone the office all the time and they will lie through their back teeth in order to get through to me, when I find out they have done so the conversation is very blunt.
I have similar conversations on most days.The best ones are when they've said "can i speak to Dave, he'll know who i am, we've spoken before..."
Then there's the "targeted" linkedin messages regarding a specific role, that only i can do, to earn £100k a year for 3 days a week, that has also been sent to everyone else in the office.
Im sure there are very good ones out there, but a lot of them do come across a little bit like estate agents.
Sir_Dave said:
tuffer said:
We have them phone the office all the time and they will lie through their back teeth in order to get through to me, when I find out they have done so the conversation is very blunt.
I have similar conversations on most days.The best ones are when they've said "can i speak to Dave, he'll know who i am, we've spoken before..."
Then there's the "targeted" linkedin messages regarding a specific role, that only i can do, to earn £100k a year for 3 days a week, that has also been sent to everyone else in the office.
Im sure there are very good ones out there, but a lot of them do come across a little bit like estate agents.
My annoyance was compounded by the fact that they'd lied to me about a certain role still being available in order to get me to meet with them. That really did grind my gears and I shan't be dealing with them again.
Used to get a lot of calls from them forwarded through from somewhere in work saying they had a good position for me. However this has vanished for the last few years due to the downturn in the oil industry, and it seems quite a few of them are looking for jobs themselves now.
Tom_C76 said:
FWIW, I run an engineering consultancy, and what finally spurred me to vent was a CV sent round yesterday from an undergrad due to finish uni this summer. He wants £20-25k starting salary and a job commutable from Cambridge. I assume this means he doesn't want to work in London, which would leave maybe 15 firms to write to. For circulating, unsolicited, this CV the consultant wants paying £4-5k. And that's their special rate for smaller firms.
It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
I can understand if you are wanting something different and have asked for it. However, many people applying will be both applying on the company website AND a recruitment consultant. Why would you not, when it gives you a bigger chance of success of getting a job? Even more so when many companies want someone with experience, so you end up in a catch 22 situation of not being able to get a job due to lack of experience in a relevant job... So it's not laziness. And it (kind of) works as you have now seen the CV, which you may not have seen otherwise.It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
blindswelledrat said:
Problem that unemployment is lower than it has ever been in our lifetime and we simply have to accept that things are different or we don't get employees.
Is that industry specific? It certainly isn't in general across a lot of countries for youth employment levels.Here's a good one..
Had an approach from the MD of a recruitment firm looking to place a Group Purchasing Manager into a fresh food producer...had 1st interview, catch up chat and then a call to say " it's in the bag, want you for a 2nd interview but it's a ten minute formality"... Then nothing for ten days.
So I rang the chap yesterday to be told " Oh yeah meant to ring you, they've decided against recruiting for the role", " I suppose we've messed you about a bit"!! These were his actual words ! and this is my big issue with so many agents , they treat clients like utter junk, I've met one in the last 15 years whom I really rate, but she was very much a Rose amongst thorns I'm sorry to say.
Had an approach from the MD of a recruitment firm looking to place a Group Purchasing Manager into a fresh food producer...had 1st interview, catch up chat and then a call to say " it's in the bag, want you for a 2nd interview but it's a ten minute formality"... Then nothing for ten days.
So I rang the chap yesterday to be told " Oh yeah meant to ring you, they've decided against recruiting for the role", " I suppose we've messed you about a bit"!! These were his actual words ! and this is my big issue with so many agents , they treat clients like utter junk, I've met one in the last 15 years whom I really rate, but she was very much a Rose amongst thorns I'm sorry to say.
As a candidate I've seen good and bad.
First job places was pretty good - although she was pissed at not being able to speak to me for a few hours when the job was confirmed. I'd deliberately turned my phone off as I was out for the day with my then current boss.
Second position was by a recruitment agent who I knew personally. She was pretty good - but her colleague who stood in when she went away was a pushy little s
t who got put back in his box when he insisted on talking to me in reception. Not the place.
Not really been near any since...
First job places was pretty good - although she was pissed at not being able to speak to me for a few hours when the job was confirmed. I'd deliberately turned my phone off as I was out for the day with my then current boss.
Second position was by a recruitment agent who I knew personally. She was pretty good - but her colleague who stood in when she went away was a pushy little s
t who got put back in his box when he insisted on talking to me in reception. Not the place.Not really been near any since...
Tom_C76 said:
FWIW, I run an engineering consultancy, and what finally spurred me to vent was a CV sent round yesterday from an undergrad due to finish uni this summer. He wants £20-25k starting salary and a job commutable from Cambridge. I assume this means he doesn't want to work in London, which would leave maybe 15 firms to write to. For circulating, unsolicited, this CV the consultant wants paying £4-5k. And that's their special rate for smaller firms.
It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
If it's a genuinely unsolicited email, the recruiter has no business charging 20%. 5% in line with dross like Hays, maybe, but not genuinely high end specialist numbers like 20%. If you know the terms to be 20% for this deal, then it's not an unsolicited email.It's saved the undergrad an evening on Google hunting out the relevant office websites, so presumably said person considers their evenings too important to go looking for a job when they can get it done for them.
Maybe if the employees had to pay the consultants fees some common sense would return. I can see the need for headhunters for specialist high level skillset jobs but at straight grad or office work? Last time we did ask an agency to find us some staff all they did was post an advert on the Reed website and forward the emails. And if that was after they sorted the chaff there must have been some epically bad responses.
To be honest, a job you can get with a speculative CV (which, let's face it, will tell you absolutely nothing meaningful about the applicant) to an info@ email address probably isn't a job worth having.
Equally, some sad sack hopelessly emailing round his CV to any old Tom, Dick or Harry probably isn't the calibre of person you want to waste an hour interviewing.
If you last agency really did just chuck up an advert and forward the CVs, then, with respect, more fool you for getting in bed with them in the first place.
In common with everything under the sun, there are good recruiters and bad recruiters. Anyone making an attempt at a generalisation on a macro- scale will fall on their arse.
blindswelledrat said:
I also agree that the laziness of young people in job searching is infuriating.
Oh yeah? Go on, tell us your theory.blindswelledrat said:
Problem that unemployment is lower than it has ever been in our lifetime
Ok, nice one. I really hope you don't go on to contradict yourself here, that'd make you look really silly.blindswelledrat said:
I wont employ a recent graduate at all, let alone pay a fee for them.
Oh shoot, you've gone and done it.It doesn't matter how "lazy" "young people" are all the while your generation, grandad, are happy to make daft decisions like this one.
Women are scatterbrained
Blacks are criminals
Irish people are thick
Frenchmen smell of garlic
Young people are lazy
Honestly, I thought we'd left this type of thinking back in the stoneage.
I've got news for you, friend. Your dad thought your generation were beatniks and layabouts, with your Beatles music and your Ford Anglia. His dad thought your dad's generation were wasters, with their electric lighting and inside toilets. His dad thought your grandad's generation were slackers.... And on and on through history ad infinitum.
My mum, who this year became pensionable, started her first job at 15. The 'application process' involved her going to the office where her mum worked and asking for a job. She was hired on the spot and started as the office junior that summer.
To get my current job, I applied blind with a CV and covering letter which had taken me many hours to perfect (not to mention 25 years to get the experience and qualification that went on it) in themselves and many more hours finding the right email addresses, researching the company and the senior man I believed would make the decision.
Then a phonecall.
Then a two hour, multi-stage interview.
Then 6 months working for another firm to get my eye into the industry, for which I interviewed in 4 stages over two days for a total of seven hours and undertook a number of psychometric, intelligence and aptitude tests.
Then another interview.
Then a two week trial.
Then a six-month probation during which my performance was scrutinised at every turn.
Yeah, f
king lazy youth (shut up, I'm still a young person) of today, don't know they're born.DeltaTango said:
This made me laugh. I am an Estate Agent who today had to tell a recruitment consultant to stop using sales tactics on me to get me to consider interviewing for a role and to instead provide me with some facts, such as what I may hope to be paid etc. None of this information was forthcoming, other than '££excellent etc'. I would have thought that knowing the package on offer was #1, and echo the frustration of a previous poster who mentioned getting cross about always seeing "££competitive" on adverts.
My annoyance was compounded by the fact that they'd lied to me about a certain role still being available in order to get me to meet with them. That really did grind my gears and I shan't be dealing with them again.
So you told a salesman, talking to a salesman about a job in sales (presumably) to 'stop using sales techniques'?My annoyance was compounded by the fact that they'd lied to me about a certain role still being available in order to get me to meet with them. That really did grind my gears and I shan't be dealing with them again.
Newsflash, chum, that salesman will be using those same sales techniques when it comes to selling you into the client, so you'd better hope he's good, because you can bet your bottom dollar that you are not what the client wants.
If all you want to know is the headline information, then you're not committed to the role. People who aren't committed are a serious risk to a recruiter's reputation, which is pretty much all we trade off. Non-committals don't turn up to interview, don't answer the phone or return my calls, don't send me documents etc.
Any tit can read out a client's wishlist and mention a salary. The vast majority of genuine candidates will want the real nitty gritty information as early as possible to assess the role properly.
I mean no offence when I say that, if that's your attitude, you'd be straight in the bin a matter of seconds after I hung up the phone after our (brief) conversation.
tuffer said:
We have them phone the office all the time and they will lie through their back teeth in order to get through to me, when I find out they have done so the conversation is very blunt.
I won't condone lying. I'd kick the arse of any consultant I found doing it, but...Genuinely, if I called your firm and said to your PA, "Hi, it's FerrariF50lover, I'm a recruiter and this is a cold call with a view to taking your boss's money from his pocket and putting it in mine, can you put me through?" How quickly would she put the phone down after she'd stopped laughing?
And if she would put me through, how willing to engage would you be?
The whole thing is self-perpetuating. You don't want to hear from recruiters, so you refuse to speak with them, so they lie about being recruiters to get through to you, which pisses you off meaning you don't want to talk to them, forcing them to lie even more and on and on and on.
The thing to do is to engage with agencies. When recruiters call, take the call and go into it with the mindset that, until this chap provides you with a member of staff who will add value to your company, it costs you nothing. If, after 2 minutes of a conversion, you're not feeling it, politely decline to take the process further and get on with your day.
Good recruiters stand out. They're engaging, genuine people who, at I've mentioned previously, trade on their reputation. If they take a role from you (or even offer a showcase) and provide only s
t candidates, then their reputation will last about 5 minutes. The only other option is that they provide candidates who will improve your business, will make you more money and deliver happier end users. Those are the only two outcomes. The former costs you nothing, the latter costs you a fair fee in line with your choice pf how much value to place on the candidate in terms of salary.Just out of interest, what do you do?
BEP said:
Here's a good one..
Had an approach from the MD of a recruitment firm looking to place a Group Purchasing Manager into a fresh food producer...had 1st interview, catch up chat and then a call to say " it's in the bag, want you for a 2nd interview but it's a ten minute formality"... Then nothing for ten days.
So I rang the chap yesterday to be told " Oh yeah meant to ring you, they've decided against recruiting for the role", " I suppose we've messed you about a bit"!! These were his actual words ! and this is my big issue with so many agents , they treat clients like utter junk, I've met one in the last 15 years whom I really rate, but she was very much a Rose amongst thorns I'm sorry to say.
Thing is though we're not the client - we're just the product. The client is the person "wot 'ires yew" Had an approach from the MD of a recruitment firm looking to place a Group Purchasing Manager into a fresh food producer...had 1st interview, catch up chat and then a call to say " it's in the bag, want you for a 2nd interview but it's a ten minute formality"... Then nothing for ten days.
So I rang the chap yesterday to be told " Oh yeah meant to ring you, they've decided against recruiting for the role", " I suppose we've messed you about a bit"!! These were his actual words ! and this is my big issue with so many agents , they treat clients like utter junk, I've met one in the last 15 years whom I really rate, but she was very much a Rose amongst thorns I'm sorry to say.
blindswelledrat said:
I had a look through recent campaigns I had run and every single 25-26 year old had a minimum of 3-4 jobs on their cv over a 4 year working life. Obviously it varies a lot according to your industry/profession but my recent experience is that I wont employ a recent graduate at all, let alone pay a fee for them.
I am exactly what you've described above... Do you not see that as the norm now, as the compare the market generation grows up? I'd certainly be in nowhere near the same high position as I would be if I'd attempted to grind upwards in my first or second roles. I applied for a hundred jobs to get my first graduate role (and this is in science), and found you have a much higher response rate applying directly to a company than via an agent. LinkedIn and the like with instant application button seems like a game changer to me too...
From an employee perspective I get a lot of calls from recruitment consultants trying to get me to apply for roles. I'm now conscious that sometimes it seems like they are just trying to get the minimum numbers they need in order to get their fee for providing some potential candidates and interviewee's.
Jaska said:
blindswelledrat said:
I had a look through recent campaigns I had run and every single 25-26 year old had a minimum of 3-4 jobs on their cv over a 4 year working life. Obviously it varies a lot according to your industry/profession but my recent experience is that I wont employ a recent graduate at all, let alone pay a fee for them.
I am exactly what you've described above... Do you not see that as the norm now, as the compare the market generation grows up? I'd certainly be in nowhere near the same high position as I would be if I'd attempted to grind upwards in my first or second roles. I applied for a hundred jobs to get my first graduate role (and this is in science), and found you have a much higher response rate applying directly to a company than via an agent. LinkedIn and the like with instant application button seems like a game changer to me too...
And although I believe you have done better for yourself doing this, I don't agree that this is true across the board. In fact, figures prove my point as your generation are earning less than my generation at your age and, rightly or wrongly, I put it purely down to this. And there is a brutally clear pay/success difference in my industry between someone who gives it two or three years at a job compared with someone who works one year at three different companies. The former will typically be earning double the job-hopper who will be in exactly the same position as he was at the end of year one.
Purely my opinion, but the difference between me when I started, and the last few young graduates I have employed is that 20 years ago you would become as good as you can at your job and then see what opportunities your employer afforded you before wondering whether you might be better elsewhere. Now, it seems people leave long before they have even become good at their job in the hope that the next company magically rewards people extra for being average.
ferrariF50lover said:
Oh shoot, you've gone and done it.
It doesn't matter how "lazy" "young people" are all the while your generation, grandad, are happy to make daft decisions like this one.
Women are scatterbrained
Blacks are criminals
Irish people are thick
Frenchmen smell of garlic
Young people are lazy
Honestly, I thought we'd left this type of thinking back in the stoneage.
I've got news for you, friend. Your dad thought your generation were beatniks and layabouts, with your Beatles music and your Ford Anglia. His dad thought your dad's generation were wasters, with their electric lighting and inside toilets. His dad thought your grandad's generation were slackers.... And on and on through history ad infinitum.
My mum, who this year became pensionable, started her first job at 15. The 'application process' involved her going to the office where her mum worked and asking for a job. She was hired on the spot and started as the office junior that summer.
Can you even read? Was I referring to all young people? Was I?It doesn't matter how "lazy" "young people" are all the while your generation, grandad, are happy to make daft decisions like this one.
Women are scatterbrained
Blacks are criminals
Irish people are thick
Frenchmen smell of garlic
Young people are lazy
Honestly, I thought we'd left this type of thinking back in the stoneage.
I've got news for you, friend. Your dad thought your generation were beatniks and layabouts, with your Beatles music and your Ford Anglia. His dad thought your dad's generation were wasters, with their electric lighting and inside toilets. His dad thought your grandad's generation were slackers.... And on and on through history ad infinitum.
My mum, who this year became pensionable, started her first job at 15. The 'application process' involved her going to the office where her mum worked and asking for a job. She was hired on the spot and started as the office junior that summer.
You've hammered out a twisted, slightly mental diatribe based on the deliberate misinterpretation of one sentence.
We are just talking about those young graduates who DO behave like that, of which there are an awful lot. There is a very clear and unarguable trend in that direction. Recognising a trend is not 'racist' or anything 'ist' you complete moron.
Just because you don't behave like that, you throw a massive tantrum like a tiny baby. Utterly bizarre.
And then, after going off the handle because we a recognising a changing trend in jobseeking (which very clearly exists whether you like it or not) you think that an anecdote about your mum getting an admin job when she was young somehow counts as evidence? Brilliant.
THe icing on your mentally unstable cake is extrapolating this observation to somehow mean that I am racist and sexist
Problem with young people nowadays is that they don't know when to wind their neck in
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