Why are (some) recruitment agents so useless

? Now that's a cut alright, it's more than my entire salary ?

I've found recruitment agencies to be pants from both angles, as a candidate they send you on inappropriate interviews then get all offended when you turn down the job (and their nice easy commission). As a recruiter some of them don't even check the candidates' CVs and send people for interview who are woefully underqualified. It's like al;l they do is a keyword search and match candidates on spurious connections ?

Good luck with the jobhunting, it might be worth asking around for higher end agencies?

<crash> - love your christmas name Voldermyrrht! Even if you are H's horrible ex. x

?

What do you mean?

I was totally put off using recruitment companies, when one of my colleagues CVs was sent to our employer!?

I am rather intrigued by daisydaisies reply i must admit??!!

That is an annoying situation, but stick to your guns if you really dont want the travel role.

I would never try and defend the actions of rec cons because after ten years in the industry, i am constantly appalled by various behaviours!

However being a rec con is not easy and we certainly dont earn "easy commission".

Our biggest problem is clients. If they dont return calls or emails, or schedule interviews that they have promised we look useless to the candidate. They provide inaccurate info regarding salary and duties and it gets blamed on us. They often dont provide feedback - and quite rightly candidates get annoyed with us.

One situation we had last week, a client interviewed for a role and after three stages offered a job. The successful candidate celebrated and turned down two other offers. Then the day before she was due to start, the client changed their mind. We were left to deal with the consequences and whilst this is our job, it is upsetting having to break that news to someone two weeks before Christmas.

I'm not looking for aby sympathy here, just trying to explain a little why so many rec cons are so slapdash.

I had a similar near miss. The agency sent me a job spec for the company I worked for but thankfully they never sent CVs on until you had said you were interested.

My main problem with recruitment agencies was probably a personality clash with one particular agent, to be fair. He spoke to me as if I was a child, and gave me a real dressing down because he'd sent my CV to a company who'd already recieved it via another agency. He said I'd made him look like an idiot, and that if a company recieved a CV from the same candidate several times then they were less likely to ask that candidate for an interview.

That's rubbish! If a candidate has a good CV, no client in their right mind would refuse to interview them purely because they had received the CV more than once. In fact, it proves that several agencies feel that person is suitable!

Every agency's terms of business include an introduction clause. If an agency "introduces" a candidate by supplying a CV, they therefore own that candidate and a fee is due if the candidate is successful. Which is why, some agencies send CV's randomly to companies!

Which is exactly what this chap was doing. I wanted him to send CVs only to companies after speaking to me so I knew exactly what companies I'd applied to, which he refused to do. Fair enough if speaking to me would cause an unnecessary delay, but he was just sending CVs out in a 'scattergun' approach - many of which I refused to interview for as the location and salary were not suitable.

He was telling me I should only be registered with one agency - i.e. him. I think that was absolute rubbish.

I have had similar problems with agencies and some of it to me is basic manners. If you say you are going to call - then call! I wouldn't mind if they just called to say, sorry nothing has come up or sorry the client has not come back to me, but one recruiter called me to speak to me and got my answering service, it then took 3 weeks of me calling him back before he returned a call. So frustrating!

When H was looking for his current job he had seen a job adverised through an agency and contacted them about being put forward for him. They said that they didn't consider he was suitable for the role and wouldn't put him forward.

He then also so the job advertised on the company's own website and applied direct - and got the job !