A brief rant about recruitment consultants
Discussion
What do these people actually offer as a benefit to society? Years ago there were a few specialist technical recruitment firms that acted for agency staff, they'd place temporary technicians or engineers for bigger projects if a firm needed assistance.
Then they started representing permie staff too, offering people looking for a job relocation. Then people just looking to change employer in the hopes of a new challenge or more money. At that point they also started contacting the people they'd placed to try to get them to move on again to land the consultants another hefty fee.
Now it seems even students due to graduate this summer are using these firms to get them their first job. Costing the would-be employer 20% of the starting salary in fees to wave round a digital copy of a CV. In these IT literate days where every firm has a contact email address on their website, why can't these students email their CVs round themselves? Or are they too important to spare the 10 mins that would take? It's not even costing a stamp as it did when I graduated 20 years ago.
Then they started representing permie staff too, offering people looking for a job relocation. Then people just looking to change employer in the hopes of a new challenge or more money. At that point they also started contacting the people they'd placed to try to get them to move on again to land the consultants another hefty fee.
Now it seems even students due to graduate this summer are using these firms to get them their first job. Costing the would-be employer 20% of the starting salary in fees to wave round a digital copy of a CV. In these IT literate days where every firm has a contact email address on their website, why can't these students email their CVs round themselves? Or are they too important to spare the 10 mins that would take? It's not even costing a stamp as it did when I graduated 20 years ago.
Dr Doofenshmirtz said:
It's cheaper to tell an agent the type of person you're after, and off-load the initial contact process rather than spending hours sifting through a stack of CV's.
If an agent sends candidates that don't match your criteria, you find a better agent.
Frankly in an office with 5 staff I'd rather sift through a few CVs than pay £5k to a consultant. Problem is that no-one applies for the jobs when advertised, they simply hand their CVs to the consultants who apply on their behalf. It really is money for old rope.If an agent sends candidates that don't match your criteria, you find a better agent.
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.
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