Recruitment agencies - name, shame (and praise)

Redjeep!

Best I found recently when I was looking for a job was Clark Recruitment in Naas.

They were streets ahead of anybody else (and I did register with about a dozen others who for the most part were completely useless).

CareerGuru

Chatswood wrote: »

Who would you say is the best person to send applications to ? HR Manager ? CEO ? Financial Controller ?

It depends what your area of specialty is- every company varies and is different- e.g a lot of companies HR departments usually just filter CV's, they are not the decision makers, the skill is to find the key decision maker or hirer.
Normally engineering vacancies are filled by the engineering manager etc.
Good detective work on LinkedIn or through people you might know working there pays off. This is why I always say that when you go to a career coach this is what they should be offering you more than just a CV etc.

hzhang

I got my offer with the help from cpl which I highly recommend.

Handsome Bob

hzhang wrote: »

I got my offer with the help from cpl which I highly recommend.

Really? Because they are the ones that I was referring to below:

LZ5by5 wrote: »

The thing that pisses me off is that when you use the option to cut out jobs advertised by recruitment agancies it dramatically decreases the amount of vacancies available. On a certain website, without fail, every time I refine my search I find about 29 vacancies advertised, and about 25 of them are from the SAME agency without fail. You just know that it's a scam.

flash harry

so to sum up most people - get offer/job = good agency

Dempo1

To sum it up

Vacancy advertised + submit resume/make contact with agency + attend registration/get to know u interview in the bog end of nowhere and in what can be described as cesspit office space + candidate heads off feeling positive + nothing, nothing + contact, could the candidate attend an interview (if lucky)/attends the interview & it apparently goes well + Nothing, more of Nothing + candidate is ignored + more ignorance = A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME

flash harry

why not try an alternative approach:

Vacancy advertised + submit resume/make contact with agency

Ask them if the job they have in mind is open and will be when you meet them (i.e. if they say come in next week)

+ attend registration/get to know u interview in the bog end of nowhere (most Dublin ones are in City centre major footfall areas) but I cant vouch for outside of major cities

and in what can be described as cesspit office space (I have never seen this but you may have experienced other)

+ candidate heads off feeling positive + nothing, nothing (feel free to contact them, if they dont respond ever never deal with them again)

+ contact, could the candidate attend an interview (if lucky) - it's rarely luck that gets you an interview

/attends the interview & it apparently goes well - why not ask the interviewer "is there anything we have discussed here to day that would prevent me from going to the next round of interviews" (or similar)

+ Nothing, more of Nothing + candidate is ignored + more ignorance = A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME
Maybe you shouldn't deal with the agencies to be fair as you have had no positive experiences with them

Dempo1

flash harry wrote: »

why not try an alternative approach:

Vacancy advertised + submit resume/make contact with agency

Ask them if the job they have in mind is open and will be when you meet them (i.e. if they say come in next week)

+ attend registration/get to know u interview in the bog end of nowhere (most Dublin ones are in City centre major footfall areas) but I cant vouch for outside of major cities

and in what can be described as cesspit office space (I have never seen this but you may have experienced other)

+ candidate heads off feeling positive + nothing, nothing (feel free to contact them, if they dont respond ever never deal with them again)

+ contact, could the candidate attend an interview (if lucky) - it's rarely luck that gets you an interview

/attends the interview & it apparently goes well - why not ask the interviewer "is there anything we have discussed here to day that would prevent me from going to the next round of interviews" (or similar)

+ Nothing, more of Nothing + candidate is ignored + more ignorance = A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME
Maybe you shouldn't deal with the agencies to be fair as you have had no positive experiences with them

Fair enough but i think your missing the point of this forum? Its about actual experiences with recruitment agencies. Sadly some sectors only use agencies and there is little chance of avoiding these vultures. And yes, i a have lots of experience both as a candidate and client of some of the ****s named and shamed throughout this forum but if you read back i have also had positive experiences albeit rare!

Elegant Chaos

An employer's perspective - we've stopped using agencies in the last year, because they've become increasingly hopeless. I niavely assumed that a tighter job market would make recruiting easier, but it wasn't using the agencies we had, who have actually got worse. Rafts of CVs unrelated to the job spec, candidates arriving for interview on the wrong day, candidates been given the wrong address and wrong company information (!), pushy calls wondering when we were making the appointment and not whether the service was any good... We've found that direct advertisement is the way forward.

flash harry

Dempo1 wrote: »

Fair enough but i think your missing the point of this forum? Its about actual experiences with recruitment agencies. Sadly some sectors only use agencies and there is little chance of avoiding these vultures. And yes, i a have lots of experience both as a candidate and client of some of the ****s named and shamed throughout this forum but if you read back i have also had positive experiences albeit rare!

Maybe give this a try Dempo, nothing to lose BUT try and treat each recruiter at face value until you have reason not to i.e. dont let your previous bad experiences created an attitude toward a new recruiter. You dont want to miss the rare good one after all.

flash harry

Elegant Chaos wrote: »

An employer's perspective - we've stopped using agencies in the last year, because they've become increasingly hopeless. I niavely assumed that a tighter job market would make recruiting easier, but it wasn't using the agencies we had, who have actually got worse. Rafts of CVs unrelated to the job spec, candidates arriving for interview on the wrong day, candidates been given the wrong address and wrong company information (!), pushy calls wondering when we were making the appointment and not whether the service was any good... We've found that direct advertisement is the way forward.

Hi Elegant

Unfortunately the knock on effect of huge unemployment is people chancing their arm applying for jobs they are not suitabloe for (at least they want to work!).

That said if you are paying a recruiting fee, you are paying for the recruiter to deal with this and sift out the inappropriate CV's BEFORE forwarding to you.

As for wrong days, address, etc - maybe they are so busy they are dropping the ball on this stuff. Their problem not yours.

Pushy calls is again probably a knock on from the candidates very anxious to get interviews translating into the agency being more pushy to arrange. AGAIN their problem not yours.

Just my thoughts.

FH

NoseyMike2010

I think you are better off sending you CV directly to a company (even if no job is advertised) and hope they get back to you. Recruitment agencies are a waste of time!

Malice

NoseyMike2010 wrote: »

I think you are better off sending you CV directly to a company (even if no job is advertised) and hope they get back to you. Recruitment agencies are a waste of time!

Firing off a CV blindly to a company is a waste of time in my experience. It's a far better idea to get the name of a person who works in the area you want to get into in the company and deal with them directly either by e-mail or over the phone. Find out what you can about them and the company so that your conversation doesn't just start with "Hi John Doe. Do you have any jobs?" as they won't be too interested in you in that case. If you can start out with something like "Hi John Doe. I was very interested to see your SuperWidget5000 project discussed in the December 19th edition of the Sunday Times. I have extensive experience in area x (give a brief outline of your experience) and I am very interested in any possible opportunities that may be available.".

Getting someone's name and dealing with them directly has, in my experience, been far more rewarding than just addressing your cover letter or e-mail to "HR Dept" or starting it with "To whom it may concern".

I read this book a couple of years ago and found it very helpful. It's an American book so some stuff isn't applicable to the Irish job market but overall I found it contained some good advice.

Regarding your last point, I have found recruitment agencies in general to be pretty useless. The trick is to find a good one and use them exclusively. I have dealt with the same agency for my last three roles and I have found them very reliable in terms of arranging interviews and getting feedback. They have been useful in terms of doing the donkey work of phone calls and stuff which is a bit difficult to get done if you're busy most of the day working.

Berty

Google & LinkedIn are great resources for finding the right person in an organisation. The challenge around that is figuring out what insane titles refers to the correct person.

SuprSi

I would like to take this opportunity to name and shame Eolas as a recruitment agency. I work in IT and have been looking for a new job for the past 9 months, and back when I originally started looking I applied for a few roles advertised with Eolas. I got my acknowledgment e-mail, but didn't hear anything for a few weeks. The roles were still there, so I tried calling and e-mailing the person looking after them, but got no reply. After this I left them alone and didn't bother using them. A few weeks ago I went to their site out of curiousity and found the same roles on the site that I'd applied for 9 months ago!

To be honest I don't care about them any more, but the problem is that their 'roles' clog up every job search I do. They're almost like spam at this stage and it makes using sites like Indeed.ie very difficult. Anyway, I just thought I'd get that out there. I don't know if anyone else has had experience with them, but I will certainly never deal with them again, either as someone looking for employment or if things go how I'd hope down the line, as an employer looking for candidates.

flash harry

SuprSi wrote: »

I would like to take this opportunity to name and shame Eolas as a recruitment agency. I work in IT and have been looking for a new job for the past 9 months, and back when I originally started looking I applied for a few roles advertised with Eolas. I got my acknowledgment e-mail, but didn't hear anything for a few weeks. The roles were still there, so I tried calling and e-mailing the person looking after them, but got no reply. After this I left them alone and didn't bother using them. A few weeks ago I went to their site out of curiousity and found the same roles on the site that I'd applied for 9 months ago!

To be honest I don't care about them any more, but the problem is that their 'roles' clog up every job search I do. They're almost like spam at this stage and it makes using sites like Indeed.ie very difficult. Anyway, I just thought I'd get that out there. I don't know if anyone else has had experience with them, but I will certainly never deal with them again, either as someone looking for employment or if things go how I'd hope down the line, as an employer looking for candidates.

Just to let you know, and irrespective of Eolas' treatment of you by not returning calls/emails etc - no one has control over what appears on indeed or any of the other aggregator sites - if an employer puts a job up and it gets picked up by indeed, the company have no control over its publication on the site then i.e. they take it off the site it has been scraped from and indeed does not take it down.

All those ads at the side/middle/bottom of indeed results are the reason these sites are in existence so please dont blame anyone whose jobs are on these sites if they are wildly out of date. Do blame them for not having the courtesy to reply to you.......

Malice

SuprSi wrote: »

I tried calling and e-mailing the person looking after them, but got no reply.

Not that it really matters at this stage but if you didn't get anywhere with whoever your contact was in the organisation did you try getting a straight answer out of whoever answered the phone to you?

I have had to do that with recruiters in the past. If I'm dealing with person X but they are unavailable for some reason and person Y answers the phone I will do my best to get the information I need out of person Y. Also I'd be very wary of relying on e-mail. Whatever about the technicalities of messages potentially getting lost etc. it's far too easy for someone to ignore an e-mail. It's a lot more difficult for a phone call to be ignored.

SuprSi

flash harry wrote: »

Just to let you know, and irrespective of Eolas' treatment of you by not returning calls/emails etc - no one has control over what appears on indeed or any of the other aggregator sites - if an employer puts a job up and it gets picked up by indeed, the company have no control over its publication on the site then i.e. they take it off the site it has been scraped from and indeed does not take it down.

All those ads at the side/middle/bottom of indeed results are the reason these sites are in existence so please dont blame anyone whose jobs are on these sites if they are wildly out of date. Do blame them for not having the courtesy to reply to you.......

This is not the case with Eolas. I know what you're saying because Indeed regularly reports on roles that have long been filled. Eolas roles appear on Indeed and are actually linked back to the Eolas website, roles that have been there for many, many months. Regardless of whether Eolas got back to me or not, having roles on their site that are as outdated as these is completely misleading.

Malice_ - yeah, tried that. Called, left details, explained what I was looking for, was told I'd get a call/e-mail back, never happened. I don't even know if anyone works there other than the receptionist!!

bswan

why do recruitment agency want your pps and bank account details ?

Malice

bswan wrote: »

why do recruitment agency want your pps and bank account details ?

Ask them and I'm sure they'll tell you . Seriously though, they may want those details if you work as a contractor. The PPS number will be for your P45 and the bank details will be so you can get paid.

bswan

Malice_ wrote: »

Ask them and I'm sure they'll tell you . Seriously though, they may want those details if you work as a contractor. The PPS number will be for your P45 and the bank details will be so you can get paid.

Im not contracting, i would ask them but im sure il get a lie, thats why i was asking here on boards

Malice

bswan wrote: »

Im not contracting, i would ask them but im sure il get a lie, thats why i was asking here on boards

Well if you're sure that the recruitment agency you're dealing with is lying to you then I would find another recruitment agency.

Dempo1

bswan wrote: »

Im not contracting, i would ask them but im sure il get a lie, thats why i was asking here on boards

Such a request should only be made if you are doing agency/temping work on behalf of the agency, in other words they are your employer whilst doing contract work. This said, such info should neither be asked for or submitted until such time you have been hired/engaged. Its kind of bizarre to ask for this info i say your only at interview, registration stage. Final point, research carefully any agency you agree to work for on a contract basis, there are many horror stories regarding late or non payment. Some client companies use agencies in this way to avoid HR, Payroll headaches and will assume no responsibility if agency workers are either not paid or facing difficulties, quite simply they don't care or want to know!

bswan

Dempo1 wrote: »

Such a request should only be made if you are doing agency/temping work on behalf of the agency, in other words they are your employer whilst doing contract work. This said, such info should neither be asked for or submitted until such time you have been hired/engaged. Its kind of bizarre to ask for this info i say your only at interview, registration stage. Final point, research carefully any agency you agree to work for on a contract basis, there are many horror stories regarding late or non payment. Some client companies use agencies in this way to avoid HR, Payroll headaches and will assume no responsibility if agency workers are either not paid or facing difficulties, quite simply they don't care or want to know!

Thanks Dempo1, it would make sense if i was doing agency/temping work, but its a straight forward placement, and i got the job, started over a month ago in dublin, recruitment agency is saying it needs details to complete my file, that is why i think they are lying. i just wanted to know what is the reason they could want such details.

Dempo1

bswan wrote: »

Thanks Dempo1, it would make sense if i was doing agency/temping work, but its a straight forward placement, and i got the job, started over a month ago in dublin, recruitment agency is saying it needs details to complete my file, that is why i think they are lying. i just wanted to know what is the reason they could want such details.

Hi again,

This is deeply suspicious and under no circumstances forward any of the details requested. I have a sneaking suspicion they are having problems with payment from the client. Your PPS Number or Bank account details are not required to complete any file, Jesus the fact you were placed should be good enough particularly if the client is happy, indeed its the client who should require these details and i assume you have already been asked for them. I am just curious however, are you being paid by the client or the agency? if its the agency then perhaps they would require the details but you don't specify this?

Finally, when dealing with agencies particularly registration, proof of residency and citizenship would only require a copy of passport details, PPS and Bank account details are strictly private apart from when required by an employer for payment and taxation details!

bswan

Dempo1, yes client is paying me, thats why i thought it was odd and have not handed over the details to agency and never would, just wondering what gain they could possibly have with having such details. Cheers

DamoNolan

Direct Recruitment Consultants (DRC)..absolute joke..they told me about a job which they said was full time and 11 month contract..Rang me on a sat night and said i need to get training in which you dont get paid for and that it has to be done 2moro sun..I went out and work 5 hours and the man in charge said that the DRC will be in touch.I rang them next day they said they have to get back to me.But what i heard now makes sense..What they do is get people in when the company needs them and say its full time job but you have to get trained which we dont pay and then your doing the work for free and the company gets the work done and you still dont have job because you dont hear from them again.
AVOID AT ALL COST I WOULD SAY.

Dempo1

DamoNolan wrote: »

Direct Recruitment Consultants (DRC)..absolute joke..they told me about a job which they said was full time and 11 month contract..Rang me on a sat night and said i need to get training in which you dont get paid for and that it has to be done 2moro sun..I went out and work 5 hours and the man in charge said that the DRC will be in touch.I rang them next day they said they have to get back to me.But what i heard now makes sense..What they do is get people in when the company needs them and say its full time job but you have to get trained which we dont pay and then your doing the work for free and the company gets the work done and you still dont have job because you dont hear from them again.
AVOID AT ALL COST I WOULD SAY.

Extraordinary stuff, the first tell tale sign here is them calling you on a Saturday night? Bizarre.

Never heard of them and they don't seem to have a website, probably working from some grotty cesspit in an industrial estate.

DamoNolan

I no first thing i did was check for website but couldnt find one..and yes there in a small office in a industrial estate..complete waste of time and getting peoples hopes up of a full time.

gaellem

the experience i had with recruitment agencies in the last year or so only by ringing them is that i get someone who is eastern european on the other end who cannot understand what i'm saying and with their accent can't understand them... they are in hiring positions so why should they not give the jobs to their own kind, they are not interested on giving it to the Irish.. Sorry, not racist but wherever you look now they are the only one being employed,near enough!! Thanks to the Irish companies who want us to buy Irish when they don't even employ them!!

Dempo1

gaellem wrote: »

the experience i had with recruitment agencies in the last year or so only by ringing them is that i get someone who is eastern european on the other end who cannot understand what i'm saying and with their accent can't understand them... they are in hiring positions so why should they not give the jobs to their own kind, they are not interested on giving it to the Irish.. Sorry, not racist but wherever you look now they are the only one being employed,near enough!! Thanks to the Irish companies who want us to buy Irish when they don't even employ them!!

Quite surprised to hear of your experience, i have yet to come across any eastern European recruitment consultants in fact i would be surprised if i did given a supposed understanding of the Irish Recruitment sector would be required, that said the ones i have come across (all Irish) neither have a clue about the Irish recruitment sector, HR, common courtesy and manners let alone the helpful skill of responding to emails or the use of Phones.

I have to disagree with your assertions re only foreigners being employed, quite simply there is no movement on Jobs full stop whether your Irish or another nationality, indeed i would surmise with things as bad as they are, being Irish might in fact give you a slight edge. Bottom line, don't count on or wait for any recruitment agency to do anything for you!

gaellem

I have to agree with your last statement saying that they don't do much for us and quicker to do it ourselves. not to give any names.... manpower in Swords has eastern europeens for staff,for exemple....
If you look around you in shops to be honest you could see 90% of staff non irish...True?

Dempo1

gaellem wrote: »

I have to agree with your last statement saying that they don't do much for us and quicker to do it ourselves. not to give any names.... manpower in Swords has eastern europeens for staff,for exemple....
If you look around you in shops to be honest you could see 90% of staff non irish...True?

Manpower? WTF, they are nothing short of a halting site for temporary contracts, Jezzz avoid like the plague! This crowd register way lower on my scale of vulture recruitment agencies! Eeeek:eek:

Mr. Loverman

gaellem wrote: »

manpower in Swords has eastern europeens for staff,for exemple....

So what?

We live in the EU.

We have just as much right to go work in Eastern Europe.

donkey balls

I have started to see alot of eastern europeans working in agencies and trying to talk to them about vacancies can be very annoying with the little english they have;),Now before everyone starts to jump down my throat about racism etc let me explain I was an ops mgr and worked for a large company that employed both Irish and other european citizens.
It was company policy for our european colleagues to have a good level of english to work within the company,Now maybe when certain roles come up with these agencies Irish people will call them and due to the lingo difficulty dont bother chasing up the job,Then the eastern euro people call up and due to the same langauge they get the job as they can talk about the role etc without any langauge barrier.
Saying that I have gone to two agencies were the staff are eastern european and the majority of people registering were also from these countries.

Faith+1

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

So what?

We live in the EU.

We have just as much right to go work in Eastern Europe.[/QUOTE]

But if they are working in recruitment they should at the very least have a basic grasp of the english language. As other posters have said, it's very frustrating when the person on the other end of the phone has no idea what you're saying.

Mr. Loverman

Faith+1 wrote: »

But if they are working in recruitment they should at the very least have a basic grasp of the english language. As other posters have said, it's very frustrating when the person on the other end of the phone has no idea what you're saying.

I find it hard to believe they would put a person in a customer facing role who doesn't have a basic grasp of the English language.

Sounds like another silly excuse to bash foreigners.

Malice

I have dealt with quite a few Eastern European staff members at various recruiters and have never had any problems either understanding them or having them understand me. Some Irish accents can be difficult to understand even for natives.

Mr. Loverman

Malice_ wrote: »

Some Irish accents can be difficult to understand even for natives.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head.

Faith+1

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

I find it hard to believe they would put a person in a customer facing role who doesn't have a basic grasp of the English language.
.

Because they work for peanuts, don't ask many questions and don't complain about working conditions like the Irish.

2004 (EU Expansion) was the best thing to ever happen to the Retail Federation of Ireland.

Mr. Loverman

Faith+1 wrote: »

Because they work for peanuts, don't ask many questions and don't complain about working conditions like the Irish.

2004 (EU Expansion) was the best thing to ever happen to the Retail Federation of Ireland.

Where are you from?

Are you open to the idea that you might have a strong accent?

Monife

Most recruitment agencies are the same. Promise the sun and don't even call you back. You spend time going to their office for interview, take the time to look well and prepare yourself, but you are just another number and if you don't have what they want, they won't call you back.

Top People were probably the most human recruitment agency I visited. Had an interview with them, a typing and basic computer test and they seemed to care a bit, unlike others. But still, it's the same story, never called me for any interviews.

I think you're better off scouting for jobs yourself, rather than wasting time with recruitment agencies.

NullZer0

Edit

Dempo1

New year, new beginning but predictable nothing ever changes. Sent off three Resumes, professionally worded cover letters to three different agencies. Its two weeks now, not a single response!

ABajaninCork

I've been on Hays' books for nearly three years now. Not so much as a dicky bird. They were having a Temps reg day, which I went to. Complete waste of time, the competence test they gave me wouldn't work with my browser, but hey! Probably another CV harvesting exercise, but you've still gotta try -right?

Anyway - fast forward to this week. I'd seen a job on another website for which I applied which seemed to done by the employer themselves. Fair enough.

What did I see on Hays' website? The very same job which they've lifted practically word for word!! I couldn't be bothered with the old pony the girl was talking, so I got off the phone quick. Useless doesn't begin to cover it.

Ah well...

experiMental

Dempo1 wrote: »

New year, new beginning but predictable nothing ever changes. Sent off three Resumes, professionally worded cover letters to three different agencies. Its two weeks now, not a single response!

I've applied to four agencies, one in County Louth, two in Swords and one in Dublin City. I had only one response about a week before Christmas, and this work got cancelled due to bad weather. I still have no jobs coming.

Recruitment agencies worked better two years ago, when there was more money going around. The managers of some companies have switched to other methods of recruitment, instead of using agencies. I guess they have a lot tighter budgets, so they are using a cheaper method of finding workforce. Can career or job fairs work out better when it comes to looking for any work, even short temporary one?

Dempo1

experiMental wrote: »

I've applied to four agencies, one in County Louth, two in Swords and one in Dublin City. I had only one response about a week before Christmas, and this work got cancelled due to bad weather. I still have no jobs coming.

Recruitment agencies worked better two years ago, when there was more money going around. The managers of some companies have switched to other methods of recruitment, instead of using agencies. I guess they have a lot tighter budgets, so they are using a cheaper method of finding workforce. Can career or job fairs work out better when it comes to looking for any work, even short temporary one?

I'm begining to wonder have any of the agencies returned ater the christmas break?

TheNewMee

I think it very much depends what industry you're in. IT applicants seem to be in an awful lot of demand at the moment.

Faith+1

Dempo1 wrote: »

I'm begining to wonder have any of the agencies returned ater the christmas break?

It seems they are on Christmas break every day of the bloody week :mad:

aine92

God, 99% of these reviews are awful, all I want is a crappy part-time job to do me until the summer, who knew it'd be this hard to find one!!