Recruitment agencies are beyond useless

Discussion in 'Employment & Jobs' started by garycul, Oct 4, 2016.

  1. garycul

    garycul Nibble Poster

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    It is becoming an almost impossible task pursuing suitable IT roles due to the sheer amount of incompetent, lazy, plain stupid agents and agencies out there. They should be taken completely out of the equation and let the employers contact potential employees direct so they can sell themselves. I have lost count of the number of roles that have appeared where you have to go through hoops to try to actually speak to someone about the role. More often than not it is a website form where the application disappears into a black hole and no acknowledgement comes back for applications despite a near perfect skills match. One one occasion I did manage to get hold of the recruiter who said to me "you live too far away so you won't want to commute". How the hell do they know what my circumstances are ? If I'd had chance to speak to them (or the client) in the first place they we could have discussed the circumstances. The hiring companies are totally reliant on these cowboys plucking out candidates based on keyword matches. Any idiot can do a match for keywords but it becomes dangerous when the agency hasn't the first clue about IT. The other issue is the cold call where they are chomping at the bit about this exciting role and then all gets forgotten. I have three potential roles imminent and I am awaiting security clearance for one (also a complete nightmare) but I have seen another role I fancy. I applied on a well known (and totally useless) agency website but despite tracking down the email address of the agent and spending time to type out a customised email I expect to hear nothing back. So I did a bit of detective work and found out what organisation it is (one I've worked in before) and I have directly approached the head of IT. I would love to know what these agents actually do. They advertise a job, look at keywords, phone up people on spec (no doubt to get their quota of leads), do nothing then three months later advertise same job again. If they used a bit of common sense and proactiveness wouldn't they already have this information when cold calling and saying "oh those are your skills, we'll keep your CV on file for when a role comes up".

    I think these agencies are utterly pointless and offer no benefit to the IT industry whatseover. In fact they hinder IT.

    I know these agencies are busy (doing what exactly though) but they haven't got the common decency to acknowledge emails or phone back as they promise which is downright rude and unprofessional.

    A few months ago I got approached by an ex boss who offered me a six month contract in Nottingham (£300 a day). I worked for him for a number of years at a major Pharms company. I hadn't worked for him for a long time so when he told me about the role I was trying to sell myself again. He said "stop, I know what you can do." and he offered me the role. I actually turned it down as I didn't want to work down there for 6 months. I wanted to be a bit closer to home. This is my point, if the hiring managers got to speak to the candidates directly rather than going through these horrible agencies it would be a lot easier to fit talented people into roles.

    Rant over !
     
    Certifications: 70-697 Configuring Windows Devices, 70-680 Configuring Windows 7, 70-687 Configuring Windows 8.1, TCP/IP ON NT4, NT 4 Server, NT4 Workstation, Windows 95, Windows 3.1, ITIL SLM Practitioner, ITIL v2 and v3 Foundation
    dmarsh likes this.
  2. dmarsh
    Honorary Member 500 Likes Award

    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    Been in 'IT' 21 years, numerous roles, sounds pretty accurate to me. :thumbleft
     
  3. Apexes

    Apexes Gigabyte Poster

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    Agree.

    What annoys me is when it comes to technical talk. Explaining technical projects/skills you have to someone who doesn't understand what they are often gets lost going to the recruiting firm.

    The majority are only interested for their commission.

    That said - i do know several really good agents, they're just few and far between these days
     
    Certifications: 70-243 MCTS: ConfigMgr 2012 | MCSE: Private Cloud
  4. Sparky
    Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    That's why I stopped using them to recruit tech staff at work. Now I get to read 100000 CVs when we post a job advert... :blink
     
    Certifications: MSc MCSE MCSA:M MCSA:S MCITP:EA MCTS(x5) MS-900 AZ-900 Security+ Network+ A+
    WIP: Microsoft Certs
    Waqas Ahmed likes this.
  5. Monkeychops

    Monkeychops Kilobyte Poster

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    I've had mixed experiences really, way back when earlier in my career it tended to be more of the not so good kind I had dealings with for more 'commodity' type positions, but as time's gone on and with more senior positions they've gotten better.
     
  6. BB88

    BB88 Kilobyte Poster Gold Member

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    99.9% of them are rubbish, when you find a good one, it's night and day my friend.
     
    Certifications: CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, MCSA: Office 365,, 70-410, 70-680
    WIP: CompTIA: Security+
  7. GenericEric

    GenericEric New Member

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    i was looking for an entry level support role near me and applied with my CV. got a phone call from a recruiter saying i was perfect and they wanted to interview me. £5k more than my current role in customer service. when i got to the recruiters office, they came down to the foyer spoke about the role and told me that i did not meet the requirements despite telling me i was a perfect match over the phone. i was in shock when they told me this. she took my CV and literally just walked back into her office, no goodbye. she gave me the name of the company so i rang them and asked if there was an actual job vacancy. there wasn't.
     
  8. Waqas Ahmed

    Waqas Ahmed Nibble Poster

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    There is one recruitment agency I like. They're the ones that came in to my uni, but they don't do so much up north. A lot are a bit useless though.
     
    Certifications: CCNA R&S
    WIP: CCNA ???
  9. Variable

    Variable New Member

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    Agreed, some of them say they are different to others, but they are the same at the end of the day, lazy pricks. I now see them as road blocks to my next jobs.

    On the other hand, there are incompetent interviewers in the employing side who interpret your knowledge and confidence as ego.
     
    dmarsh likes this.
  10. HenryKnight

    HenryKnight New Member

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    As someone who works in the recruitment business it has to be said that not all agencies are the same and that there are a lot of bot-managed sites out there. Just be careful who you sign-up with and what alerts you recieve day-to-day.
     
  11. aushus

    aushus Kilobyte Poster

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    I hate dealing with recruiters.

    Unfortunately most contract jobs are advertised through them.
     

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