| Recruitment Agencies and CV trawling |
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| Contributed by Ano Mouse | ||
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Recruitment agencies. Brokers of people and positions, or a waste of time? Recruitment agencies, one-stop shops where you can find staff or find your next position, are a vital part of the employment process. But sometimes, they take the piss. There is nothing worse than contacting a "consultant" regarding a position, only to get that sinking feeling the position does not exist, and you have wasted your time. Why does this get my goat? Knowing that agencies are swamped with CVs, that many positions are heavily oversubscribed, and competition is intense, the canny candidate examines an advert, extracts the core skills and experience required, reads between the lines and extracts the essential non-stated requirements, and prepares a CV accordingly. Crafting an email with CV attachment, and a brief body text highlighting ones core attributes, then phones the consultant to sell themselves, and obtain an email address to send to. Say, 30minutes to an hour of preparation work. Which is wasted when the position - advertised that day - has "...just been filled", or "...the client is on the other line now", or "...it has been put on hold", or "you seem ideal... this experience is just what they are looking for... but I wouldn't put this CV in front of my client", or even "...you are ideal, we will put you forwards". The last is really comical when after hearing nothing for 3 months, the same consultant contacts you with the exact same 'opportunity'! Ultimately, they are all indicators of the same; an advert for a non-existent position, placed purely to elucidate CV's with those skills and experience listed. Lordy knows why, if they have no opportunities for those skills/attributes, are routinely swamped with CVs, each advert costs, and every [genuine] advert is heavily oversubscribed, why do they need to create fictitious adverts for people they cannot place??? Now some I can understand. Not condone, but understand. These adverts (although there is nothing to differentiate them from any other] are placed by a type of company that offers a resume writing service. Well, not entirely limited to resume writing, but encompassing "job search", and "executive placement" services. Regardless of the flavour, they all "offer" one common service: for a sum of money, they will coach you in re-writing your CV, show you a pie chart of which jobs are advertised where - all of which show that the majority/highest paid positions are never advertised - and show you how to unlock this hidden market, and possibly 'guarantee' finding you a position. This type of agency is obvious once, after being an initial encouraging and enthusiastic response to your skills, they criticise your CV. Avoid these people like the plague. A good CV has one function: to generate an interview. There are plenty of books with resume writing advice. There are plenty of managers in FT1000 companies, who, from an initial cold-call and explanation that it is not a cold-call for a role but for assistance, will devote a little time explaining what they look for in a CV and cast an eye over yours. So why do these companies exist? Simple. It is illegal for an agency to charge you - a job hunter - a fee for finding a position. By describing themselves as CV and placement service, they avoid the definition of being a recruitment agency and can thus charge a fee. Oh, and this fee is not fixed... you'll find the "consultant", in his initial interview, cannily appraising you and making a vague price such as £5000, with a question mark at the end. It is a sales technique. Query it, and the price will lower. Enough of the rodents. Back to the trawlers. Quite why they do it is, well, I'm not sure. On the internet, possibly to increase site traffic, which can raise a site's advertising price of course, by inflating its popularity artificially. But when it entails dealing with telephone calls generated by these adverts, I don't see the point generating additional and profitless workload, especially when the bulk of these consultants are on a base plus OTE remuneration package. And it is risky. Consider the last 'excuse' given earlier , that of being contacted about a duplicate position with the same client a few months later. Some will even give a client company name. Sure, you might not check up on Bodgit & Scarper Ltd, but if it is a large, well known company, you might just be tempted to contact them direct asking what had happened to your application. And then be put through to a senior HR manager when you express surprise that the position has never existed. Who in turn expresses surprise that Wonder Recruitment were advertising a senior role within his organisation... and promptly blacklists that agency. And what about when you are hiring and firing? Do agencies not realise that it is pretty pointless sending speculative CV's... it doesn't matter how good the 'candidate' is, unless you have a vacancy then people are so rarely hired on the basis of being superb, it is not worth wasting the manager's time, and risking creating bad-will. And when they do have a vacancy, will they use an agency that wasted their time when they were searching? Certainly I'd be thinking that if they were underhand enough to engage in trawling, what other low tactics would they use; the old "(s)he has another, higher, offer", or have they used our company name in vain for trawling, using this position as a template. Guys, girls. If you work for a recruitment agency, why oh why do you trawl? Are good people in such short supply you need to en-age this practice? Could someone take the time to explain the practice? And heck, why not just place an advert stating "no vacancies as such, but would appreciate a few CVs"! Anon Mouse Only registered users can write comments.
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