I used to work for a big and well known (at the time) IT Recruitment company, as IT Manager I hasten to add, not as a recruiter. It was an eye-opener I can tell you. I only stuck it for 8 months. But anyway, there is a lot of american theory thrown into recruitment and one of the key points is that in order to maximise searching (i.e. make it faster and more targetted, theremore more profitable) it dictates that all CVs should be "validated"- that is, someone should call the candidate and really get to the nub of the candidate's saleable assets (i.e. their experience and needs)... But since that, in itself, is not seen as a profitable way of spending time (i.e. you could be placing a candidate instead of talking to them, or sending out their CVs to all and sundry, aka. CV-blasting), they give that job to the new recruits to the business who are basically wet-behind-the-ears proto salespeople, probably fresh out of school, as it's seen as a way of getting their people skills up by talking to the plebs, err sorry, the candidates/clients... So what you end up with is a fcking numbnut no-nothing spending their day calling all the people that sends in CVs trying to learn how to be bright and breezy and experienced when they have none of those qualities.Originally Posted by musophilr
If I get one of those I ask them politely to read through my CV to determine as many answers to their questions as they can find then call me back with targetted questions that I will be happy to answer. I never get called back, and from that moment that agency is dead to me
The good ones don't do it because they know it's a waste of time unless done properly by an experienced recruiter...
They are twunts to a man (or woman)...
That seems like a logical explanation for why it happens. IMO the ideal solution would be for team leaders with vacancies to have the skills, inclination, and time to recruit their own team members. That however seems to be impractical so using an agency (or an HR dept) as a first-line filter is very often an immediate option. However as soon as these middle-men get involved the recruitment system becomes an unholy mess.
He who laughs last ... is still using a slow modem
It is a pure sales operation. I could not believe, cynic though I already was, quite how little knowledge of the underlying jobs, these mindless recruitertrons had. Bearing in mind this was a specialist IT Recruitment firm they knew, quite literally, absolutely nothing whatsoever about IT systems or disciplines. All they did was match keywords in a job spec to keywords in a CV and then send those CVs to the companies. If you are lucky you get a recruiter calling you (moreso now than then) to identify how motivated/flexible/human you are because more theory gives them a range of things to look for in what you say to them, that tells them whether they should go to the bother of "marketing" your CV or not. But the only thing they are interesting in are your operating parameters (salary, location etc) and how flexible or rigid are those parameters. If you ever want some sport, if you work in a technical discipline, try asking them whether their job role is more aligned to [some technical thing] or [some other technical thing] stating it is very important to know the difference to know whether you want to be represented... It will send them in a flat spin... with spin being the operative word as they try to sound knowledgeable having only picked up some keywordsHowever as soon as these middle-men get involved the recruitment system becomes an unholy mess.
And when I say they know nothing, I mean nothing.. I started running Q&A workshops for them to try and explain stuff to them and I always started with "so what do you need to know aout IT to do your jobs" and I would invariably get things like "what IS a programming language?", "what IS a computer?", "how do they work?", "what IS a data warehouse?" etc. And these same people were, at time, placing senior people up to around £60-90k without a clue...
If it wasn't for the fact I myself have to use recruitment agencies to get a job I would be laughing.
Recruitment consultants are a total pain in the arse even if you are a business.
First off they try and CV bomb you with dreadful candidates who are completely wrong for the job.
When they are trying to woo you they offer to send you some sample CVs which usually means you get 4 unbelievable CVs any of whom you wold instantly employ but when you say OK then and ask to interview them they tell you that "Unfortunately those people have been placed" and send you utter unemployable shit in its place. I can't prove it, but this has happened so many times I'm sure these people either don't exist or they are the 4 best CVs they have ever had.
They also continually phone back even when you tell them you only use suppliers from an approved list and that list is full, or when they themselves have previously refused the conditions to go on your list.
The worst one of all is one who phoned a mate of mine (who is in a junior non recruiting position) pretending to be a direct applicant (they don't recuit from agents) and asked him loads of questions about him, the company he worked for and his boss and then phoned his boss and told him that my mate had approved some candidate CVs who were going to come in for interview which got him halled into the office to be disciplined until he explained that was total lies.
I've advertised jobs with big direct websites before and not got any applicants so it does seem recruiters are a necessary evil, but wish more people realised that if you apply direct you are probably going to be able to negotiate a 20% higher salary due to the lack of fees.
I sympathise with all of that, having seen the crap my last boss in software had to deal with. I also think the non-existent candidate scenario also applies to the non-existent job. The number of times I enquired about a job in the same town, to be told it had "gone" but would I be interested in another job 45 miles away?
Although I can think of ways to research about who's recruiting and who's likely to need people to do the jobs you want to do, it has to be said that few companies put their jobs on jobserve or similar sites. I wish more would (with a STRICTLY NO AGENCIES tag) - it would make then a lot easier to find!I've advertised jobs with big direct websites before and not got any applicants so it does seem recruiters are a necessary evil, but wish more people realised that if you apply direct you are probably going to be able to negotiate a 20% higher salary due to the lack of fees.
He who laughs last ... is still using a slow modem
I put jobs up on Stack Overflow and PHP Jobs and got nowt.
Why do some people always put 'from a smoke free home' when it's completely irrelevant to what they're selling?
Fs DVD from a smoke free home, does it matter? Are their some seriously anti smoking nazis that won't buy anything off someone incase they spend their funds on fags?
Yes, cause it makes stuff stink
What a DVD? Or a guitar lead? I don't think so
Erm, my experience tells me that you're wrong...I've had books off ebay too that have been unreadable cause of the stench
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