The Agencies win again!!!

Stop deleting posts. Let people express themselves.

Regards agency rates:

I have had untold problems due to the greed of agencies. You may believe that it is none of our business (from the contractor’s point of view) but when agencies ask for upto 33% then the contractor and the business are effectively having their hands tied when the overall rate is top dollar and the scope for renegotiation becomes very limited. I lost some excellent contractors due to the agency rates being none negotiable.

If the contractor chooses to work under a Ltd co. then what exactly do agencies do after the initial contract agreement? - very little! I’m quite happy to accept that a certain amount is due for ’finder’s fees’ but if the contract is continually extended, because the contractor is recognised as valuable to the company, then the agency is getting money purely for administration work - invoicing, contract extensions etc.

It has nothing to do with small mindedness (by the contractor anyway) it’s about value for money.

I’ll stick by my original statement - Some agencies are unprofessional in their attitude. You may be the exception but somehow I doubt it - when was the last time your advised a candidate they were unsuitable for a position purely on reading their cv?

[inappropriate post deleted by moderator]

Oooeer. This is getting interesting!

One thing that was raised by a recruiter previously was a suggestion that, as part of the job advert, the recruiter was to specify 2 or 3 primary requirements, i.e. "Key Requirement 1’, "Key Requirement 2" etc.

The suggestion was that in the application process, the applicant would be required to answer these key requirements selecting answers from a picklist etc, showing how he/she considers himself/herself to be qualified against that key requirement.

The suggestion was explained thus...

Advert
Key Requirement 1: 10 Years Petro-chem
Key Requirement 2: MS Project Expert
Key Requirement 3: Able to Work in Australia
(plus usual text-based job description)


Application
Key Requirement 1: 10 Years Petro-chem [ 8 ] years
Key Requirement 2: MS Project [ expert ] level
Key Requirement 3: Australia Work Permit [ Yes ]

If something like this was arranged we could automatically create a simple (private?) web page for each job advert that shows the applicants and ranks (for the recruiter) each one using the answers to the key requirements. We would need to have get the recruiter to specify the required key-skill answers to be either a picklist of percentages, years experience or a list of ’expert’, ’novice’ etc or perhaps a fixed width text input field. This would allow the applications to be ranked for the recruiter (as opposed to him getting an un-filtered bunch of cv-attached emails) and speed up the selection / sorting process.

We could also offer a hyperlink that could send an auto response from the recruiter to the applicant like ’I think we may be in touch’ or ’thanks for the application, but we wont be coming back to you’ etc, and once this link was clicked for each applicant on that job list his/her name would dissapear (ie recruiter having responded).

This could speed up the recruiters selection (providing the job posting / application remains simple and quick) and also force the recruiter (asuming he/she wishes to use the system) to action each applicant and take them off such a ’pending’ listing. In this way we would know if our application was going anywhere and the recruiter (by actioning each applicant using the ’your ok’, ’your not ok’ hyperlink) could selectively get the CVs sent to him or not.

Any ideas / comments / offers of a specific proceedure ?

The reason that jobs are placed on jobserve etc is that it is easiest and quickest way to get immediately available consultants. It also brings a lot of permanent consultants who are looking for first time contracts. Generally Recruitment Consultants will have an idea of who is available from their databases, via resource teams.

Yes I am a Recruitment Consultant

and just how many jobs are out there ??????????

It doesnt seem to me there are falling out of the trees

We have had a lot of emails from PPers who have said that in the vast majority of cases they have ’received no feedback at all’ from certain recruiters. This is true I know. However, there are some VERY professional and reliable recruiters in our list and is is unfair to generalise about them.

If anyone has any ideas on how we create a fair league table of sorts, we will be pleased to help facilitate it. As you know the site is run by volunteer planners for us planners.

One idea would be for some of us (any volunteers?) to work on this issue. If no-one volunteers specific ideas, or proceedures then we will make slow progress (a bit like the rail project I’m on!) - we are planners, so this should not be a difficult thing for us!

If people are unhappy about the perceived quality of "many of the recruiters on the site" then we would welcome them introducing us to some of the "recommended" ones. The site is only as good as we choose to make and develop it, so why not work together on this?

Regards.