I know exactly what you mean, I have been so dissapointed and disgusted at the way I have been treated by some recruitment agencies. They don't even have the common courtesy to phone you and let you know you did not get a job. They tell you to take days off and then don't get back to you or change your appointment.

Thats exactly it, just the call to just say yo didn't get the job would be great, I think they do it so you wont go else where!!!

I had to go through an agency for a job. At the interview I discover the salary is more than R50 000 per year less than what I'd been told, I was told I would report directly to the main man only to find out I would report to another minion. That put me off completely as I felt I'd been misled. Then the woman had the gall to be uppity because I turned down the job.
A second agency interviewed me for a job and then told me how bad the previous person had been at that job I was applying for. Two weeks later I get a call to say the company shortlisted without letting the agency know.
Perhaps some are good but I don't want to try them all to find the good ones.

I've decided not to go through a recruitment agency again. They play with your livelihood, so let's play with theirs.

I've felt over the years that recruitment agencies box us in. If you have been in media sales for years they assume you are only qualified for the same. Experience counts for so much - and most people are more than capable of filling various jobs specs. Approaching companies directly has opened up very exciting doors for me. If the agencies took the time to really know their potential placements, they would be able to make better matches. Instead of just circulating the same old media buyers, planners, sales reps, sales manager, AE's round and around and around and around and around....... Fresh blood please.

Dear, i know how you feel, but all i can say is, not all are the same, most of small agencies are more efficient than those are big. their consultants are more focuses and keep in touch either way of communications. i refer to one named - MORAKEB CONSULTING SERVICES, i have now changed jobs twice already because they understood my requirements and they assessed my cv and kept in touch with me. i felt like a family to them since they managed to help me map my career in the field where i wanted to be. They always endeavor to ensure that you get something related to your experience, rather other agencies placing Engineer as a Clerk or administrator.

I should suggest that you double check those agencies before you submit your cv. I recommend that you speak to one of their consultants there, or via e-mail, projects@morakebconsulting.co.za

Regards
Baby

baby i went to this website and there isnt a SINGLE job listed on it..so not quite sure why you are punting them?????????????????

I have come to the conclusion that recruitment agents are not much further up the dung rung than Estate Agents and 2nd hand car salesmen.

Can anyone tell me if it is ethical (or even legal) for one of these chumps to ask you for a payslip or your bank statements when you are applying for a job? I've never heard of that before, yet it's something I recently had to do for an agent advertising a job on this very site.

I am a Recruiter, a proud one, been at it for around 30 years and wouldn't have done anything else! I have put many many people in good jobs and careers (whichever suited at the time) and have made many people happy by their being able to use skills and talents in ways they never thought of. Many Clients and companies have been well satisfied, and for the most part I am very much more pleased with my life's efforts than not. I have also made mistakes, but have been luckier than many to learn from them most of the time.


Of course along the way too, I have met many candidates that I would place on your seemingly familiar dung rung, they lie and cheat and misrepresent themselves regularly.


I am not sure about bank statements, I have never had a need of them, but in Executive recruitment, I have taken many valuable character references from erstwhile Bank Managers. They never discuss your financial status or bank balances - they only talk of how one might have comported themselves ... which of course all goes to self discipline, trustworthiness and so on.


Pay slips are standard fare, it goes to prove earnings, and I have found the more sophisticated the candidate, the more they have to offer a company, the less they are troubled by administration, proof, effort and career focus. I doubt that Ethics or Legalities come into it, unless there is misuse or abuse or misrepresentation somehow.


This what I have found and I am sure I am not unique ... in fact I know I am not.


May everybody have a fine career year in 2008, fashion a good one for yourselves, and if you are stuck, a good book to get you really thinking is WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE by Richard Nelson Bolles. Any version from around 2005 onwards will do the job, try second hand stores, they are a good source.

Best regards
Lestie

With regards to Recruitment Execs requiring ones Salary Advise.... I think it is inethical and uncalled for! Agencies should advertise a particular salary notch and rest assured no one will sell themselves short!! Thats the way it should be... advertise what you are willing to pay and let the candidates respond to that, what does it matter what their previous earnings were if you have a set salary notch that you are not willing to change??? The truth is these agencies are always trying to make more more money out of us!!!!!

I'm yet to find one that is as good as you say.
I myself is looking for a job as headhunter/research consultant. I've been working as a researcher for 10 months. Can you help me?

The problem one faces is that firstly the agents convince you to take time off for interviews once that is done they dont have the decency to call and tell you that you didnt make it. What irritates the most is that you have to run after them every day to find out if there are positions because all of a sudden they think they hold the key to your potential employer.

As a Recruiter, I agree with some of the comments, as there is always the "rotten appels" in recruitment, but disagree with some comments. A follow up call is always a must, so is honesty with the candidate. But a recruiter has no time to keep in constant contact with candidates. You take an average of 80 calls per day from candidates, you multi task, you try satisfy everyone, then above all this you do the cv screening, reference checks, send candidates on interviews etc, believe me its not an easy job, but done for the passion thereof. There is nothing more rewarding than telling a candidate he/she has the job.
I suggest get that Recruiter that goes the extra mile.

...is financial. I seriously doubt if anybody does this job for the love of people. If they do I'm just not seeing it.

Naturally there must be some good ones out there, but honestly, I have yet to meet one.

One of the problems with agencies in SA is that the are behind the times with regards to technology. Our agency uses that lastest Applicant Tracking system from the US. This allows our agency to track the status at any time of a given candidate and also respond to them automatically when a position has been closed or that their application was rejected. On top of these, our candidates can view their status of their application online by logging in with their personal username and password. Its lets our candidates know where they stand and frees up our consultants to work on filling job orders, which is what our clients are paying us for.

I agree its all about the placement fee!!!! i am yet to meet an agent who "honestly" want to help, i have had the WORST experience with recruitment agents i actually cant stand them, I have atually decide to make them my very last resort!!!!

Thank you for posting the email exchange - extremely entertaining. It's also proof that sometimes it is best to actually just shut up.

perhaps you should actually read what you are saying in your e-mail exchange and see if it adds up?? To me, and all my fellow creatives, you contradict yourself, attack me and actually bad mouth your competitors....you are really a piece of work man!!

I know your frustration but you should also understand that it is out of the agencies hands as to who is appointed for a position. Agencies also face similar problems with their clients especially when it comes to the succesful candidate, in most cases the positions are put on hold after an applicant has attended so many interviews at that stage all looks well until the client puts the vacancy on hold this happens every day.
Agencies work for both the client and Candidate, and there is no way an agent can force a client to take on a Candidate.

As for not getting back to applicants, Recruitment agencies recieve hundreds of CV per day and it is very difficult to get back everyone.

Yes you do get consultants who are incompetent that is the sad part, we believe that a candidate is also an employee and an employee is a potential client to us. So both candidate and employer are important.

It would really help if the agency actually gave the recruitment agency an accurate brief and if the recruitment agency actually listened and tried to put a square peg in a square hole. I have been sent on interviews where I am so over qualified and clearly the wrong candidate for the job. Come on recruiters, earn your money and do your jobs properly, then you would have the time to follow up with a simple courtesy call!

Useless, no other word, use-less.

I had a agency that made me fly all the way from Zimbabwe and after the Interview six months later and nothing-no feedback nothing. I got an SMS later after a lot of bothering them that I did not get the job. They suck

Don't you guys see an opportunity here? Recruitment companies earn up to 20% of your annual renumeration. Did you know that? For example, if you earn R240000 per year, they'll earn about R48000 within your first 7 days of employment!

Why don't we all get together and start our own company, I'm sure with all our marketing, design, programming and conceptualization skills we can come up with a decent front-end and win some awards ourselves while actually caring for the people that bring in the money.... the APPLICANTS! With todays technology it's not difficult to keep in touch with them wherever they are and show them we care

Think about it and email me at freshdesigntips@gmail.com if any of you guys are interested.

Anton

No honestly, there is obviously a gap in the market here!!!!!!!! Too many incompetent people posing as "Personnel Agencies", making the market seem over saturated!!!!! Clearly there is still space for personalised, professional service!!!!! Here is to going at it alone...Cheers!

The problem comes when consultants chase too many job specs...and harvest as many CV's as possible.

I work with a select few clients and only hand picked CV's. The candidate is as important as the client...

If you feel you are good enough for us to work with you, feel free to submit your CV to anita@studio29.co.za

Hey, Michelle-
I feel your pain regarding dealing with employment agencies.
Many of these recruiters look at a job hunter and only see dollar signs, hence the attempts at putting someone in a job they don't want, sending you all over town for no reason, etc.

I have to say (gentle criticism here) that your writing skills could use a little improvement. I saw several misspellings and incorrect punctuation. If I were a recruiter and saw that, I probably wouldn't want to send you on interviews unless the job just required someone who fogs a mirror. Maybe you were tired when you typed your blog entry or angry or sad, but that is no excuse. Clean up your grammar and writing.

Give the girl some slack... Sure, grammar and spelling are important - if you're a journo, sub, or editor. Yes, it's advisable to have a spellcheck-proof CV when representing yourself to new employers... but really, IF perfect spelling and grammar were a prerequisite for every new employee everywhere, we would be looking at a 99% unemployment rate in this country. However, if that's the case, there are a number of recruiters out there who should be fired because they can't work their way round the F7 in Word.

So sorry, but it's attitudes like yours that have caused the abominable decline in proper writing and speaking. "Give the girl some slack"? Sure, I'd give her some slack, especially if I could tutor her and help with her skills. But you're really living in fantasy land if you think that prospecitive employers don't pay attention to the way people write and speak. Constantly giving people slack instead of expecting them to use proper English in their writing skills just perpetuates crappy writing habits. It's also this same attitude that "socially promotes" students in school who don't deserve to go to the next grade.

I was reared to use proper English. I was tested on it constantly. I was expected to use it properly in my speech and in my writing. There is nothing wrong with that. I stand by my answer.

Thanks Kat, I appreciate your stern stance on the subject. I suppose I'm just jaded by the general lack of knowledge when it comes to the finer points of the English language... However, hearing something like "Sir, is 'hill' a noun?" from a Std 9 pupil whose first language is English, or facing the daily deluge of **** PR where people think 'cuisine' is spelled 'quiseen' gives me confidence that my job is secure.

As I said before, it's definitely advisable to at least run a spellcheck on your CV (not to mention look up the difference between 'their' and 'there') before sending it off to potential employers, but I have to maintain that if I'm looking for a first language Xhosa-speaking salesperson, I can forgive them for not knowing the difference between 'practise' and 'practice'.

Sure, I'd like to maul every one of my salespeople's proposals before they're sent to clients, but I don't have the time, and I'm sure that's why Bill Gates invented the automatic spellcheck. All I ask is that they use the SA or UK default.

However, if I catch a potential sub using the F7, they can kiss my content division goodbye.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that everyone has different skills to offer. Personally, my anal retention and meticulous eye works very well when shredding copy - but don't ask me to sell my way out of a paper bag. That's what we have salespeople for.

And we should be thankful for these folks because they make us look less like the glorified nitpicking dictionaries we are, and more like the precise grammatically-correct wordsmiths we try to portray.

PS: Don't stress, everyone falls victim to a typo from time to time - I'd be lying through false teeth if I said my record is absolutely impeccable. Although it takes a special something to pick it up and admit it. And that is probably why you do what you do.

PPS: Oh, and I think if there is anything to blame for shoddy spelling and grammar these days, it's cellphones and email. ;)

My acceptance of the situation in no way masked my contempt for that classmate of mine ("We've had this **** shoved down our throats since primary school and you still don't know whether 'hill' is a ******* noun or not?!"), nor for that PRO ("For **** sake, what the **** are you doing in PR, writing about food, if you have no ******* clue...?!"). So in fact, these people are the reason that my bull**** tolerance levels are so high... They are also the reason I consider most naughty four letter words as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, abstract nouns... ;)

I just realized that my trigger finger misspelled "prospective"in my last comment. My apologies. And by the way, I applaud your thoughtful and grammatically correct reply. Good for you!

I have always wondered about the way in which recruitment agencies operate. If any one "recruiter" can help:

1. Why do they send you forms to fill the same infomartion on your CV, or worse, they ask you to send them your cv, only for them to send you what they think is the best cv format to fill same info.

2.Is it necessary to make promises you cant fulfil?I have been called after hours and promised a long standing relationship.And I was finaly happy to find a recruiter who cared,wow!how wrong I was.I now have a line across his name and is agency.

3.Why is it difficult to push companies to make decisions quicker for your clients. I applied for a post on my own and got the whole procees completed well before the candidates from agencies were even given the dates for an inteview.In another instance, I had to call the company to find out why I did not make it after 3 interviews, medical check and psycho test......because my agent couldn't ask that question for me, she thought it was inapropriate. I asked and got the answer.

I now have a list of agencies I don't bother myself with,because their attitude and job seeker's treatment sucks!

If required, we as job seeker will form our own agencies.....so, recruiters, be warned

Dear "That's What we're here for",

I absolutely loved your response. And that is the first time anyone's ever called me a wordsmith. I consider it a compliment. At my last job my nickname was "Webster". Whenever someone didn't know how to spell something, it was
"Hey, Webster, how do you spell (insert word)?"

It's very hard for me to cut people slack in this area-- I admit it. Am I a snob? Maybe. But I'm appalled if a person can't tell the difference between "their" and "there". That's an indication of a lack in education and supplemental home teaching.
I agree that one should not be lazy and at least use a spell checker. Maybe they think (oh, horrors) that they can spell quite well, thank you.
By the way, I've corrected plenty of letters written by company executives. And every time I've done it, I've wondered why they have a better job than I do if they can't even write a sentence. Maybe they just have animal magnetism that supercedes any deficiences in language or writing. Ha!

Your points are well taken. And hopefully you're not offended by what I called you; I don't see a nickname for you.

Finally, whoever you are, you may be glad to know that I've decided to return to school; I've just been admitted to college and at the age of 52 am pursuing my Bachelor's degree in Humanities. After that, it's on to a Master's in Library Science. Wish me luck!
Kat

Lest anyone think this thread has gone totally in the wrong direction, I want you to know that I've also registered with a recruiting company. Let's see what they can do for me, if anything. If they do I'll be surprised.

It's funny. I've posted several comments about grammar in this thread. The staffing company called me yesterday, complimenting me on my English skills and the fact that I scored perfectly on one of their proficiency tests. But I still don't have a job yet. I'll keep you all posted.
Isn't life grand?

Kat

AGGGHH! Ok, I'm not perfect. Sorry, guys.

I think these agencies are not fair by not getting jobs for people who r blacklisted, i mean how r they suppose to pay they bills if they cant get jobs for blacklisted people. I think its not fair

We try - we argue with our clients. There are so many people who are blacklisted - doesn't mean you are not good at your job!!!!
We are on your side!! But do understand why a Company can't hire you in the finance dept.

I think these agencies are not fair by not getting jobs for people who r blacklisted, i mean how r they suppose to pay they bills if they cant get jobs for blacklisted people. I think its not fair

I work for an agency myself. I don't know where to beggin. I'm classified as the junior recruitement consultant.

I get the spec from the SNR Consultant. I identify potential candidates and solicit to them, then send their CV to my Snr Consultant who then forward them to the client. But I never get a real reason why the candidate has been rejected. I find it very important to give feedback to the candidated, I don't mean just making up story why why the candidated was not shortlisted, I mean detail.I know for sure that companies do give detail feedback.

These guys list agencies by industry and region; you can also report bad service.

I too have had a bad experience at an agency, and at the same time was working for a Recruitment Agency.

Unfortuntely people are saying that using a Recruitment Agency is a bad choice, and because like you say of some Consultant - the industry gets a bad name. I work in the industry and would not like to use some agencies out there. I have candidate's coming to tell me about their experience at some agencies. I AM SHOCKED !! As a Recruitment Consultant you have a job to do. Have your client as well as your candidate's best interest at heart !!! We would like to say that we work differently to other agencies. We respect our clients and candidate's
We want to place our candidates in a career and not another job and we want our client's business to grow and succeed.
I am sorry you had such a bad experience at the Agency!! There are still a few good one's out there. We are small & successful and want to remain a small company who delivers good service and keeps our client base happy.
Hope when seeking a new career you have a better experience! P.S Dont give up on all agencies

The state of Colorado is one of the highly prospective states of United
States for job seekers.
Having population of more than 5.0 million, it certainly provides
immense employment opportunities. Denver, in particular, could be most
useful place to find a job. :shock:

(a href="http://jobs.gov-auctions.org")Job Openings(/a)

The biggest misconception in the recruitment market is that so called "agencies" look for work for job searchers. Most consultants earn their daily bread on a commision based salary - they can only afford to work on that which is in front of them - in other words, the needs of the PAYING client - as a job searcher, they may not charge you more than R1 - Labour Law related! Yes, they can't function without you either, but if you are not a perfect or near perfect fit, you will not be called in - for obvious reasons - remember, they are only ONE of 5 key tools to use when you look for a job and represent about 5% of jobs available - usually the more specialised positions, so rather get out there and market yourself, and if they don't call you - move on, there was probably nothing wrong with you, you just weren't right for that job and that client!