Recruitment agencies

Tawny

Are they still around & do they have any jobs? I noticed they have stopped advertising in the paper. Does anyone have any recent experiences?

leex

My wife was looking for secretarial work between Oct 08 & Mar 09 and sent CV (8+ years relevant experience) to all the main agencies. Not one of them had a "real" job - just ficticious crap trying to make themselves look busy and to obtain CV's. Most of them had not the manners to reply to email or take calls.

I would recommend Fas.ie who had adverts direct from employers and this is where she found employment two months ago. For what it's worth she hasn't heard from any agency since then either.

jkmanc1974

Ice are the best of a very very bad bunch indeed in Galway, most of the firms are complete jokers that used to advertise(including one - who I have since seen advertising seminars for 100 Euro a go)

Brgds
Johnny

Tawny

Thanks for the replies. Just found out that I will be out of work in a month and not sure what to do as everyone knows there is very little around.

I have applied to go back to college in case nothing else turns up but will need funding, and Im not sure if I will be entitled to anything.

I will try the agencies but havent got much hope that will led to much.

leex

jkmanc1974 wrote: »

Ice are the best of a very very bad bunch indeed in Galway, most of the firms are complete jokers that used to advertise(including one - who I have since seen advertising seminars for 100 Euro a go)

Brgds
Johnny

I would be in agreement with that also. They made an effort and asked my wife to come in and do some IT tests, typing etc so they could have a rating of her skills in various applications etc. They were honest and said they had no job vacancies at that time.

JohnCleary

I've been lucky to avoid these showers so far (only job I had not working for myself was direct interview) but christ, are they really that bad? Recruitment agencies seem to be the scum of the earth from feedback i've read!

cornbb

I've had some experience with very helpful agencies but haven't dealt with any in Galway. They're not all necessarily a bad bunch.

dougie ward

adecco are the pits,dont have the decency to reply and seem to have a load "fake" jobs,there is one guy who works there and he is a joke- i won't mention his name on here!
ice are professinal and really nice and prompt at paying
its staff,adecco are a joke-stay clear of them.

hobnob101

If you are going to use a recruitment agency then you need to read this advice on using recruitment agencies first - All of it.

Recruitment agencies are going through a transformation at the moment. Over 5,000 recruitment consultants are out of the business. More than a handful of agencies have closed.

There is good news and bad news for job seekers using recruitment agencies as a result of the economy.

Lets start with the good news.
The recruitment consultants that are left tend to be the more experienced.
Intense competition in recruitment has meant that standards are improving in the industry as a whole.

What went wrong in the interim.
In the process of 5,000 staff losing their jobs desperation led to a peak in bad practice among struggling recruitment consultants. This led to CV's being sent without consent (illegal), bullying of job seekers (telling them that they have to stick with one recruitment agency only, that CV's that were sent in without expressed consent could not be withdrawn - in that case recruiters were saying a) that it wasn't possible to withdraw a CV once it was in:wrong, b)that it would reflect badly on the job seeker: wrong, it looks much worse for the recruitment agent that has to withdraw a CV sent in without consent).

Here is what has happened from the perspective of employers.
They were suddenly swamped with badly presented, ill matching and duplicated CV's from multiple agencies for a single job. They then dropped offending recruitment agencies sticking with the core of agencies that were still providing a good service.

What happened from the perspective of recruitment consultants.
It was a rough ride for a while. By sticking to standards consultants would find that having properly informed a job seeker about a job, helped to make the CV targeted for the particular job and asked for consent to send the CV in to the client company, the CV would already have been submitted often without the knowledge of the Job Seeker. It does look sloppy when a CV arrives on the HR desk more than once. Because the CV was already in the recruitment consultant that did all the work with the job seeker could not represent them. The only way they could be represented by the consultant they had dealt with would be to contact the agency that had sent in the CV without consent (or with blanket consent which is just as bad in my book but not illegal) and request that they withdraw the CV. In most cases that I am aware of this led to bullying of the job seeker into sticking with the agency that had flung the CV into anywhere they could without proper preparation.
I think that this bad practice has peaked and now recruitment agencies are making a concerted effort to focus on service (which is after all what the industry is about). Those that persist with bad practice will not be in business for much longer in this economic climate.

What happened from the perspective of job seekers.
Lots and lots of fake or phantom jobs advertised - As recruitment agencies tried to make it look like they were not going out of business and to increase their web presence. A bad tactic since it just annoyed pretty much everybody on every side.
Thinking that they had not applied to a job in a company only to discover that their CV had already been sent in. In some cases this could have cost them the job because it is viewed negatively by employers when they receive multiple (and sometimes different) versions of a CV.
No jobs. This is the reality in many sectors.
No faith in recruitment agencies.

So what can be done? Educate yourself. Read the advice in the link. It is on a medical recruitment site but it serves all areas. Take control of the job hunting process. Select up to 3 agencies to work with and read them the riot act if they are not looking after you in a professional manner.

Sorry for the long post..... I am very passionate about this subject!

dougie ward

thanks for the advice hobnob

Mrs OBumble

CPL stopped advertising fake jobs on their own site for a while. But they're recently started advertising ones with "richmond recruitment" as the consultant. I think the ones with an actual name are probably real.

A good agent can be useful when jobs are plentiful: they can talk employers into taking a candidate who isn't quite what they were expecting.