[deeuk1]

My exeperience of recruitment agencies in london is not a good one, my daugther who is a graduate in PR I spent a week in london with her going around a load of recruitment agencies handing out CV's, some of them would not see you with out an appointment, when you contact to chase feed back regarding your CV, you're told to send it in again. and if that's not bad enough applying for jobs advertised by them is even worst, they don't return your calls, the jobs are old and not currently available even though their ad will post current date.

Their a joke

[deeuk1]

which is the best recruitment agencies for job roles as media planner and buyer ?

or who is recruiting at entry level

[nabeel1983khan]

[PGG]

I've been looking for work for over 2 years now, and have not managed to find anything despite having worked in the IT industry since 1990. The biggest drawback have been the agencies themselves.

Mortimer Spinks, Harvey Nash and others use a CV management system called iProfile. This system is awful. I turned up for one interview only to find out that iProfile had provided the interviewer with someone else's CV but with my name at the top. If I attempt to edit my CV details on-line at the iProfile site, my details are associated with an E-mail address I've not used for at least 8 years, and consequentially I can't login to amend things.

Senator Associates have sent me to interviews with absolutely no details about the job, and with virtually no time to prepare. They've also lied to me about job locations, and never give any feedback. Avoid!

Several others have repeatedly called me with supposed details of a job, but it's obvious they're just after details of who I've recently had interviews with. When questioned about the job their offering it's always just on the market and they haven't yet got a job description - of course it just doesn't exist. Similarly I've had others asking me to send them further details of who I've done contracting with, as their client needs to know full details - again they're just trawling for info.

One agency whose name escapes me sent me to an interview without actually booking it with the client. This did lead to a second interview, but the agency contact disappeared from the agency the day after, and her colleagues knew nothing about this particular interview I'd attended.

Another agency got me a phone interview which was supposed to lead to a face-to-face one the following week, but the agency office who arranged the interview was closed the very day of the phone interview. I got a call from another branch of the agency the next week trying to find out what had happened, but it was obviously too late.

[SaqibAhmed]

Dear Sir or Madam

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Mr Peter Duncan

[mikejdavis]

It's a no brainer avoid all telesales agents\agencies. The companies who utilise agencies for recruitment should be treated with absolute distain.

The growth of recruitment which began in the mid 80's is due in part to the following

1. The age of non-entity employment.
2. Meaningless degrees.
3. Lack of sustainable employment in the UK.
4. We are now a service\sales industry nation.
5. Immigration (agencies exploit this due to larger profit margins)
6. An underclass of individuals with no qualifications (drift into recruitment)
7. Limited recruitment regulation (often home workers)

No wonder the social underclass choose benefits over low level blue collar agency employment they perhaps deserve more credit for understanding the game play conditions.

The sales industry is a £27 billion private recruitment and staffing industry with a membership of more than 8,000 corporate members comprising agencies and businesses from all sectors and 6,000 members of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals (IRP) made up of recruitment consultants and other industry professionals. In addition you have a large number of agencies\agents who are not regulated!

Options for avoiding the telesales idiots.

1. Emigrate.
2. Self employed.
3. Work in industries not exposed to the sales idiots.
4. Apply direct to employers.

[michaelwinner]

[iamthedudw]

[georgieporgie]

Try Recruiment Drive, Gunnersby Road, Acton, a favourite area for Aus/Kiwi. Best of Luck.

[dollyblu]

Mtrec is the worst advertise jobs then only give u 3 or 4 days work here and there

[partywitch]

And that was me thinking I was stupid, talentless, underskilled, in the wrong city or discriminated against!!!!I have been trying to change careers for quite a while now, and all I ever get offered is bloody call centre work in languages that I don't even speak fluently, just because my CV happens to include the words "languages" and "degree"...

Thanks to everyone that has been writing on this post, it has made me seen that I'm not the only one that is not getting anywhere with these agencies and that some of their employees REALLY are inept and a lot less qualified than the people they are trying to find a job for!!...What a waste of time and tears!

Maybe it's time to finally start my own translation business, which is what I am qualified to do and should probably have done ages ago anyway...

P.S> It's funny to see how people complain about other people's spelling when they clearly can't spell either, e.g. "YOU'RE spelling is terrible"

[michaelwinner]

[retod]

i have had some really bad experience with recruiters here in london but i think its not just london. they just have wasted my time. asking me to show up in their offices, filling out papers etc. telling me they have something intresting for me ...they are in contact with a company which is very much interested in me but they need my cv first etc, etc... and as soon as they have all my data in their database i either hear nothing anymore or they keep calling me every day asking me if i am interested in a PHP job, they have something, then they ask me to send my CV (again???) etc. and then i hear nothing anymore.
i am a highly skilled software engineer with top references (simens, norvartis, swiss telecom etc...) and more than 10 years experience. oh yeah and i do hear all the time i am over skilled etc...what a bullshit.

seriously i am thinking about to collect emails from agents and build a programm that sends them 1000 anonymus spam messages from a server in nigeria LOL

[mikejdavis]

Inside The Recruitment Telesales world. A re-appraisal of the current situation.

1. The entry criteria to become a Recruitment Agent are extremely low.

2. They often have limited knowledge of the industry they recruit in.

3. They are by definition Telesales Agents do not be fooled by the term Recruitment Consultant.

4. Recruitment Consultant turnover is extremely high do not expect to build up a relationship or any continuity with these questionable personalities.

4. They recruit for roles outside of their locality you therfor may not be aware of a potential roles in your home town.

5. They constantly advertise jobs on job-boards which do not exist having paid a set fee for certain duration.

6. They recruit from their washing machine (known as the database) which occasionally churns out a few random C.V's.

7. The agency vacancy often never goes live as they recruit directly via the washing machine or use job matching by keywords from their database.

8. More sophisticated Recruitment Agencies use I profile which is equally pathetic in matching potential employees.

9. The modern Recruitment Agency has help encouraged the fabricated C.V to past their limited screening methodology.

10. They are now offering their unique recruiting expertise to Job Centre plus which absolutely beggars belief.

11 They are responsible for driving down candidate wages and exploiting immigrants the net effect a benefit culture.

13 Recruitment Agency temporary workers have no employee benefits, security and limited rights.

14. The growth of Recruitment Agencies has been born out of the age on non-entity employment.

15. If you fail an interview or refuse a potential employment offer you will be banished from the Recruitment Agency database. They don't like people who don't make them a financial gain. Time is money in their industry and is the number one imperative!

16. Morals do not exist in this industry never trust any telesales consultant.

17. They often delay payment of your wages extra bank % interest accrued over a financial year is another income source stream.

18. Recruitment Agencies are often manned by women fresh out of university and with little business acumen. Furthermore they are often loud, brash and obsessed with celebrity culture.

19. You will often find a number of Recruitment Agencies in small populated towns where they can dictate the local market and maxmise rates.

20. There are major data protection issues within the whole recruitment industry concerning

a) Recruitment agency databases.
b) Online employment websites. (Example below)

http://www.onrec.com/newsstories/23132.asp

Conclusion

There is NO BENEFIT to the candidate whatsoever when contracting via a Recruitment Agency. The cost of this process is always passed down the chain to the candidate. Be very careful and always inflate your markets worth it's the game play conditions these Telesales Consultants have unfortunately created.

You can provide feedback to the Recruitment Industry federation below

http://www.rec.uk.com/contact

[Antonia Reis]

Hi, I had a good experiance with a small agency in London

When I first came here I had a dificult situation because I could't find a job

Until now I think that I am a very lucky person because I found zap by admin Recruitment they are working with restaurants (catering)
I didn't have the job from the first interview but the second one got me a good job in a restaurant/pizzeria in Central london

So, I don't belive what some people that say that all recruitment agencies are bad and gready

[michaelwinner]

[Cameron Wallace]

Unfortunately Mike Davis is completely right. The only 'benefit' is that often they are the only way to secure contracts. Most major financial institutions have preferred supplier agreements with around 5 recruitment companies so even if you find the contract/permanent position yourself you still have to go through the recruitment company. Does mean their % are a tad lower but that's about the only benefit.

[mikejdavis]

Michael Winner and myself would be delighted to be proved incorrect but unfortunately a reasoned debate does not materialise. Anyway let’s dissect Recruitment Agencies websites.

The majority are poorly designed. Common candidate issues include.

1. No information regarding the location of the advertised role.

2. Do not display the salary rate for the advertised role.

3. Do not issue contact numbers and names of the sales agent representing the advertised vacancy.

4. Advertised vacancies often do not show end dates. Possible due to the sales agent having no current roles or actively encouraging another surplus batch of c.v.

5. Advertised vacancies are usually out of date but you don't know this due to having no end date (see above)

6. Agencies forget to publish live vacancies on it’s website but uses its collected database resources for recruiting.

7. Sales agents cannot cope due to mass number of CV's and thus the online screening application process becomes not fit for purpose. especially as outbound sales calls to prospective employers is time consuming.

8. Limited job specification detail (example - gardener required)

www.NHS\Careers avoids the use of telesales agents although as most readers are aware they do supply agency nurses at a huge cost to the NHS and you as a tax payer. The hard working nurse working long hours takes the cut left by the agent\NHS.

pathetic.

[jonkennedy]

www.Easyrecruit.ie are the best, they aren't a proper agency You apply they call you once and unless you ring them for help you deal directly with the employer after that.

Plus Companies really like them because they are cheap. So the added Agency Fees don't put compnaies off hiring you

[Recruiter_2009]

I have read some of your comments and can understand how you may have made your opinions on Recruitment Agencies. I have worked in Recruitment for the past 10 years (8 in Agencies and 2 In House) and think you probably need to realise the amount of pressure that is put under a Consultant. They are given targets for the sake of targets and have to make a mimimum of £10k per month. I'm not excusing their behaviour and your right some of the females are gobby (no I am not one) and don't have a clue what they are doing! But I think this is a new generation thing. If you old school, like me, in Recruitment then you had a different type of training and ethics.

I'm not writing on here for a backlash / argument, instead I am happy to advise you (of course for FREE) on how to get the best from your agency and the other methods available to you when seeking employment. So instead of being negative lets channel our energy else where. I will even give you advise on interviews as in my in house role I am now solely responsible for the recruitment for a large company.

I fully understand that most of you can find the recruitment process daunting, frustrating and uncomfortable (I don't mean to be rude by this comment) but if you reread your comments and see how much anger is in them I would wonder how you come across in interviews? You will be surprised what an interviewer can pick up on what you say!

Just for your info, all agencies should sign up with the REC and they have strict guidelines that all agencies must adhere too. One of these guidelines is that agencies are not to advertise 'Ghost' positions.

Now for the back lash!!

[Lupy]

Hey recruiter 2009

Fellow recruiter here, however, just to pick up on your point about the REC. They are a private organisation which charge thousand's of pounds per year to be a part of and they do not set guidelines, they offer advice only. I think it is discusting that companies like this get away with it. My company is a Social Care recruitment agency and I have to pay £620 per year to be registered with CQC (mandatry private organisation) £1200 per year for UKHCA (private organisation), ££'s for CRB's and then on top of that the REC.

I choose not to be part of the REC as I cannot afford it!

I think the point people are making on here is that there are no clear regulations for agencies and no one to govern and inspect mis-conduct.

[castlelgr]

REC is a pointless organization started by some clever people who saw an opportunity to make money.

[michaelwinner]

[MsMarietta]

To be completely honest, I haven't yet found a decent recruitment agency. I am forever getting emails offering me the chance to apply for jobs which are wildly inappropriate (example, for an IT specialist, I am getting roles such as "Head Chef" being sent), with a little note to ask if it's not suitable for me, to pass on to someone it might be suitable for.

For a start, I am not about to do their work for them. If they want that sort of advertising, they can damn well pay for it.

When I then asked two of those same companies to remove me from their mailing list, they claimed that they did not hold one, and that it was part of a list supplied TO them by jobsite.co.uk. I immediately contacted Jobsite who said that they would never do any such thing as no company had approached them for a service of this kind and they would not do it unless it was specifically requested -and- paid for.

I tried to contact the recruiters in question about this again, but they then refused to speak to me...didn't stop them sending the blasted pointless emails though. I blocked the domain in the end, but I cannot understand how they could possibly believe these methods would be beneficial to anyone.

Oh and of course, the hig htunrover of staff. No sooner have you learnt one name, but they have vanished, popping up in another agency two doors down the road. Did they leave because they were rubbish and pushed? Or did they leave because the agency they worked for was dodgy? Hard to tell. Even worse is when you know one who you don't get on with for whatever reason (for example, she was your arch enemy at school or something). No sooner do you run across that person again, that suddenly, every agency seems to have notes about you that you are a terrible person and not to employ you...ever. Mud sticks, and it sticks for years.

And now today, after a 6 week wait (which I was assured was due to a paperwork hiccup at the client end, not the agency's), I have finally received a contract of employment for what was meant to be a 6 month role, temp to perm. However, not only is it offering over £6k less per annum, with completely different payment arrangements, it is showing as being for a mere 2 months. To add insult to injury, they have proven themselves incapable of spelling my name, thus rendering the contract completely worthless, but they are asking for my P45 and my date of birth, despite having had the document in question AND a copy of my passport for the past two months!

I am beginning to wonder if we wouldn't be better served by making recruitment something which can ONLY be done through the company looking for staff or the job centre. Let's just put a ban on external recruitment agencies and maybe, just maybe, we can all get back to work. Alternatively, weekend hunting parties where we can simply shoot them and cull their population to a more manageable level.

Me? Irritated? You could say that :/

[MsMarietta]